[davilla]

One thing i appreciate very much from the Plex team is that they are very open, Elans blog postings are bringing the development process closer to the average user. There is a different interaction between de devs and users at the Plex Forums, it could be the “Apple culture”. The http://xbmc.org/devblogs/ blog are more technical ant less frequent.

While I don't run a blog (takes too much time away from coding), I take exception to the being classified as not being open and ignorant of the "Apple culture". I've been programming under the Apple OS for over 20 years and am well aware of the differences between Apple users and users of other OSs. I've always been open and friendly to any questions posted to the XBMC forums regarding XBMC for Mac and have helped many users get XBMC for Linux running on the AppleTV. I'm the one responsible for bringing XBMC for Mac to Apple users of Tiger (we care more about ALL Apple OS users not just 10.5 users) and if you run the current XBMC for Mac with a mediastream skin, guess what -- it looks and acts just like Plex, fancy that.

I find Elans blog posting devoid of any real information and more a cheerleading blog than anything else. You might not notice but he will ignore posts that he does not want to answer (centerstage status). Elans blog is aimed at just promotion of Plex and he will not respond unless it somehow promotes Plex.

If you want to talk open, just look at Plex git commits vs XBMC svn commits and Trac tickets. Many of Plex git commits are fixes/additions that originate from the XBMC svn tree. The XBMC svn commits are realtime (you see what we are doing), Plex git commits are only when a Plex binary is released (Plex devs hides what they are doing). Can one really build Plex from their git. I don't think it's possible. You can build XBMC for Mac from scratch from our svn tree because I'm making sure that anyone can do this.

Users might not care about these things but the software grunts that do the actual work do care greatly about this. It's not an "open" attitude and goes against the entire open source philosophy which is 95 percent responsible for Plex ever existing in the first place. Recognition and acknowledgment is how we get paid for long hours we put into these projects.

Yes, Elan did the initial work to bring alive XBMC for Mac and that was a big effort on his part. But that was about 5 percent of what makes up XBMC for Mac/Plex. Without the other 95 percent that took years of effort by many software grunts, there would be nothing to show. And the Plex devs do nothing to acknowledge this hard work and effort by others.

The Plex devs mislead Plex users into thinking that what you see with Plex is all their efforts and they call anyone who tried to correct this thinking a troll because it does not fit into their promotion plans. Even the mediastream skin that is the current GUI was not done by the Plex devs, it was done by a third party and they also don't get the recognition for all their hard work by the Plex devs and Elans blog. Plex users think (because Elan does not correctly inform them) that the new look was all done by the Plex dev crew.

However, in all open source projects, you, the user, get to choose which application to use for media content display. So if you find Plex a "better choice" than XBMC for Mac for whatever reason, so be it. It's your choice.

[t029248]

Thanks for you open en clear reply. Let me emphasize that I’m a XBMC user since day one and that I first choose for the XBMC experience, and then for Plex. The XBMC experience is what we love over here.

I’m aware that Plex is a huge percentage of Xbmc code and not 100% new work. I’m not a dev but a know porting is different than coding new stuff. That the Mediastream was not created by the Plex team is obvious, all the great skins are done by teams of skinners, anyone who gets a skin and reads the readme would know that.

I can honestly say that if Plex chooses not to stay open source or even worse goes commercial I wouldn’t use it anymore, also out of respect for the work done on XBMC by the devs. That Plex is not submitting the update’s live is there choice it would me mine too (I don’t like too show other my trial and error process  ) But if it stays free I hope that innovative new features will be added to Plex making it even beter….

Anyway as I found out this morning XBMC on the Mac works just as fine as Plex, so I keep both of them installed on my Mac Mini. It’s doesn’t hurt to compare, but now I’m only missing an option to get the XBMC settings I like to be sync able between my XBMC / Plex version on my Mac’s and pc’s.

I guess that’s a user problem…

[MikeBeecham]

The Plex devs mislead Plex users into thinking that what you see with Plex is all their efforts and they call anyone who tried to correct this thinking a troll because it does not fit into their promotion plans. Even the mediastream skin that is the current GUI was not done by the Plex devs, it was done by a third party and they also don't get the recognition for all their hard work by the Plex devs and Elans blog. Plex users think (because Elan does not correctly inform them) that the new look was all done by the Plex dev crew.

What I find interesting all of a sudden is the massive soapbox that MediaStream has become to the likes of people like you. Let me ask you a question...and a question to the majority of the official team...where were you when I asked for help in creating the skin? Where were you when I tried to create a section of the community made up solely for the purpose of giving something back TO the community? I didnt see you anywhere.

However, it seems more than convenient that you use MY project and the skin that Me and MY team created to beat Plex with. Dont get me wrong...I'm not INTO Plex or INTO anything else. What I get annoyed with is you using my project as a soapbox to argue your own position.

Let ME make something clear here...it IS, as you so rightly said, down to the grunt work of designers and coders like you and me that get things done around here. And because of that WE get to choose where it goes and who uses it...not you.

Oh, and it seems quite shallow to point at people and accuse them, simply because they happened to not say something...like the sin of ommission actually means anything around here.

Dont go using MediaStream as a justification for your or the official teams argument!

[davilla]

I can honestly say that if Plex chooses not to stay open source or even worse goes commercial I wouldn’t use it anymore, also out of respect for the work done on XBMC by the devs. That Plex is not submitting the update’s live is there choice it would me mine too (I don’t like too show other my trial and error process  ) But if it stays free I hope that innovative new features will be added to Plex making it even beter….

Anyway as I found out this morning XBMC on the Mac works just as fine as Plex, so I keep both of them installed on my Mac Mini. It’s doesn’t hurt to compare, but now I’m only missing an option to get the XBMC settings I like to be sync able between my XBMC / Plex version on my Mac’s and pc’s.

Plex can never go closed source, there is too much GPL open source code inside and to go closed source would be a GPL violation of which there are actual legal ramifications. As it is, Plex is running pretty close to the gray line regarding violating GPL in that some binaries are present that do not have source code/patches, nor source code references, nor how to build them. One is not permitted to do that under GPL. XBMC for Mac was in a similar shape a few weeks ago and that has been one thing that I've been rectifying.

As for the XBMC/Plex settings. Not sure we can help there The xml files that hold the settings are still similar but I'm not sure of the actual differences and problems one might run into in assuming that they are identically the same and thus interchangeable.

And please feel free to post a feature request if you find something in Plex that you really think should also be in XBMC. You can PM me if you want to test the waters so to speak. I don't run Plex so I don't see interesting newfeatures except via commits to Plex git.

[waldo22]

Geez, Mike.

I think all davilla was trying to say is that elan should give credit where it's due. (to you in this case, and to XBMC for the foundation of Plex).

I read the plex blog every so often, and from reading that, I was under the impression that the plex team designed the "new look" as well, until I read the lifehacker article and the response here.

A little more transparency from them would be nice, that's all.

I'm sure all the Mac users here appreciate all elans work, and I know everyone likes your skin.

[jmarshall]

Offtopic:

Let me ask you a question...and a question to the majority of the official team...where were you when I asked for help in creating the skin? Where were you when I tried to create a section of the community made up solely for the purpose of giving something back TO the community? I didnt see you anywhere.

Mike: I suspect this is a comment made in frustration, but I can't let that one slip through. You know where myself (and Jezz_X) were. We were helping you every step of the way. The accusation that you had no support is a little off target.

Cheers,
Jonathan

[MikeBeecham]

JMarshall...hence my wording of "the majority of the team". I know that both you helped out a lot...and you would know I would not include you into the above comment mate.

[davilla]

What I find interesting all of a sudden is the massive soapbox that MediaStream has become to the likes of people like you. Let me ask you a question...and a question to the majority of the official team...where were you when I asked for help in creating the skin? Where were you when I tried to create a section of the community made up solely for the purpose of giving something back TO the community? I didnt see you anywhere.

However, it seems more than convenient that you use MY project and the skin that Me and MY team created to beat Plex with. Dont get me wrong...I'm not INTO Plex or INTO anything else. What I get annoyed with is you using my project as a soapbox to argue your own position.

Let ME make something clear here...it IS, as you so rightly said, down to the grunt work of designers and coders like you and me that get things done around here. And because of that WE get to choose where it goes and who uses it...not you.

Oh, and it seems quite shallow to point at people and accuse them, simply because they happened to not say something...like the sin of ommission actually means anything around here.

Dont go using MediaStream as a justification for your or the official teams argument!

Wow, really struck my foot into it this time

Chill a bit Mike, you did not see me because I was not highly involved with XBMC source code at the time. I'm Mr. XBMC for Linux on the AppleTV if you review my post history.

I'm sorry to have touched a sore point with you about the MediaStream skin. I'm not involved with XBMC skin politics, the underlying code is enough for me and fixing it proper so that it runs great under both 10.5/10.4 OSX and the AppleTV and getting the build properly documented is my primary concern. I'm sure you understand the importance of proper documentation of source code and build configure. It was in dismal shape when I got involved with XBMC for Mac.

You and your team are getting great press from Plex using it as their "out of the box" skin. That's great. I hope that the Plex devs continue to recognize the importance of what a skin can bring to their project and not discard the importance of you and your teams efforts as time passes. As they have done with the entire XBMC project.

I personally will not bring up MediaStream in any future XBMC/Plex discussions out of respect for you and your dev team.

[malloc]

JMarshall...hence my wording of "the majority of the team". I know that both you helped out a lot...and you would know I would not include you into the above comment mate.

It's very likely that you didn't get help from the majority of the team because the majority of XBMC code is something other than the skinning engine. Instead of dropping everything to build a great skin as fast as possible other developers chose to continue building XBMC in other ways.

[Jezz_X]

The original question has been answered so I'm going to lock this thread its only going to lead to a bad place now

[Gamester17]

The original question has been answered so I'm going to lock this thread its only going to lead to a bad place now

I agree, lock this thread (again).