Joshua Uziel wrote:
Oh, I'm well-aware of SCO and a whole bunch of other open source related cases over the years. :) Sure, this is a conceivable outcome. To be honest, while I'd prefer to be able to play with the firmware for the SB2 and add stuff like native ogg support, the fact that it requires a totally expensive toolchain suite ($25k was it?) kinda shoots it in the head. I'm happy enough with the source for the server anyways.
This is about as good an argument as you can make for putting as much as you can in the server and keeping the client (the Squeezebox) as simple and generic as possible.
The Squeezebox should focus on a very basic set of hardware functions and doing them as well as possible. Everything else -- all the bells and whistles -- belong on the server where you have essentially unlimited CPU and memory and a powerful, open development environment to do whatever your heart desires.
I presume Slim Devices chose its name because they felt much the same way.
IMHO, I can think of only two really valid reasons to justify additional functionality in a device like the Squeezebox.
The first would be features that make it easier for the server to meet its real-time constraints to prevent buffer exhaustion. The SB1 has a rather small buffer that empties in less than one second at PCM rates, and this can be difficult to meet on a general purpose server that's also doing other things. The SB2 has essentially solved this problem with a much bigger buffer. If you can't get your server to refill the SB2's buffer often enough, you've got bigger problems to solve.
The other class of enhancements would alleviate the Squeezebox's bandwidth requirements on wireless channels. (PCM is already a trivial load on a 100 Mb/s wired connection. If you still have 10 Mb/s hubs, upgrade!) The built-in MP3 decoder in the original Squeezebox certainly helps with this, as does the addition of 802.11g and built-in FLAC decoding in the SB2 for the purists who insist on a totally lossless audio path under all conditions.
With these new features to the SB2, I really can't think of anything else that I *really* can't live without. I think Slim Devices has done an excellent job with both the SB and SB2, and wouldn't want to see it sunk with creature feep as has happened to so many other products of its type.
Phil
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