Siduhe;224442 Wrote: > The big challenge for Slim is how to suit these two very different > approaches in one piece of software. I've said my 0.02 which is to > branch the software - closed source, Itunes like, limited features for > people who want simplicity, keep the current open source version for > people who want to fiddle. >
IMO the problem isn't the open source model, the problem is that there needs to be a single person/group that decides how all users wants it to work. As you have already said, the current SlimServer tries to make everyone happy, the result is that it makes some advanced users happy by allowing a lot of different configuration options. The side effect of this is of course that the simple users get confused of all the options. I think there are two user categories in this regard: 1. The users that want to be led in the right direction. They want the software to be in control and there should only be one way of doing a thing. The software should decide how you should structure your music library and which internet radio site you like to listen to. This is the iTunes way of doing things. It's a lot simpler to make a user friendly software in an environment like this where the software can decide how the user should use it. 2. The users that know how they like to use the software and wants the software to adapt to their specific needs. The software should be able to handle any structure of their music libraries and combination of file formats and tags. It should be possible to integrate any new internet radio station in the software. The menu structure should be possible to configure so it fits the need of each specific user. This is the current SlimServer way or doing things. I think you are correct in that combining both these user categories in the same software can be extremely hard, so branching a version to support category 1 might be a good idea. Or maybe even build something completely new to support this category. However, I don't think Logitech needs to go the closed source way to do this. You are partly right though, because in open source development you often like to listen to the users and if a user wants a feature, you'll implement it. When implementing a solution for category 1 users, you'll need to have the strength to say NO to many feature requests from the end users. -- erland Erland Isaksson 'My homepage' (http://erland.homeip.net) 'My download page' (http://erland.homeip.net/download) (Developer of 'TrackStat, SQLPlayList, DynamicPlayList, Custom Browse, Custom Scan, Custom Skip, Multi Library and RandomPlayList plugins' (http://wiki.erland.homeip.net/index.php/Category:SlimServer)) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ erland's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3124 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=38090 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
