I just wanted to weigh in with my two cents here. I'm new to the SqueezeBox platform (and to this forum), having got a SB Duet after Logitech discontinued the whole SB line. However, I had been experimenting with the server and software client for a while after embarking on a project to rip all my CDs (a very eclectic mix from classical to modern music) and finding that SB was the only system available that could sensible handle everything with correct metadata. (And Erland's plugins would make this even better, when I have time to set them up) I've also done a fair amount of development work, both open source and research coding.
erland wrote: > Those of us that can do it has already thought about doing it several > times during the last years with decreased Logitech development > resources, but we have all realized that even if Logitech only puts one > or two full time developers into maintaining it, that's still better > than having 2-3 spare time developers which already is fully occupied > with supporting their third party plugins/applets/apps on their spare > time today. At least as long as Logitech doesn't spend their time to > intentionally making it harder to extend their platform or remove > features we want to remain. > > I'm not saying it won't happen, because I do believe something will > happen eventually, I'm just saying that it's not urgent as long as > Logitech still spends some resources to keep the system working. > Granted, although without a community and perhaps a few spare time developers keeping the system current, it's likely to continue in a downward spiral. Conversely, if the user and development communities stay alive, the chances become higher than someone with the funding and access to the necessary manufacturing and engineering expertise will consider the system worth investing in. As I see it (and this may be old news to some), there are two possibilities for further commercial viability: - the whole system, gets bought and/or licensed from Logitech by some other company (probably an existing, large-ish, audio company) - the platform gains momentum as an open-source system which becomes attractive to a number of smaller companies looking to springboard their product on the market. An example of this is the VortexBox appliance. Ideally, some device manufacturers would join in and make players (this is only likely to happen if they believe the backend is not "owned" by a competitor). erland wrote: > > My personal feeling is that for long time survival, we really need > something with a business perspective to back up an effort as the one > you suggest, as a spare time open source project available for free with > no new non geek player hardware it's going to die over time. > Absolutely, and this is where the support of a company would be needed to really make a mass or even niche market product. Both the SB Touch and Duet products could easily be cloned by someone with electronics design experience. The basic Duet hardware is a single board computer with ethernet, wireless and a nice DAC (there heaps of reference designs out there with everything but the DAC, and the latter is normally easy to bolt on). Similarly, the SB Touch would share the same design plus touchscreen controller (it's basically a tablet in a different chassis). BUT, it's certainly not a hobby undertaking (speaking as a mechatronics engineer) as the tooling required to even make one device is hugely expensive (with BGA chips etc). erland wrote: > > To anyone that really want to fork LMS today and have the development > skills to do it, first make an interesting third party plugin and try to > maintain/support it for at least 3-6 months, so you at least know what > your are doing before starting to fork LMS (which is a lot bigger > effort). While the SB server code is available on Github, there's no danger of it disappearing (and mirrors of the code will likely appear all over the place). So, in that sense there is no urgency in 'forking' the code. However, working towards a "clean fork" would be a nice goal that could be approached slowly by a number of people. By this I mean, stripping all Logitech branding (SB name, Logitech logos, non-redistributable firmware) out of the server code. The two immediate benefits to this would be: better acceptance on Linux distributions and BSDs, which may ease installation by technical but non-geek types looking to build a server (as well as making it easier to distribute packages for popular NASes); secondly, it would position the system as an open (market definition of "open" - ie manufacturer-agnostic) and open-source system (even it is functionally and otherwise identical to Logitech SB). If there is community support, I am interested in doing what I can in donating my skills (and currently very limited time, although this will change) to work on SB. I have not used the system for long enough to want to volunteer to write a plugin (so far I am happy, and Erland's plugins will fill the current gaps) - however, I do have a few other ideas (eg a nice desktop client as well as the clean fork) that I would be interested in getting involved in. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ esharpmajor's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=57450 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=96572 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
