Hi there; I followed the various threads discussing the future of our Squeezeboxes and I would like to propose a different approach then the often stated "don't worry: mySB.com will still live a couple of years and after that, you will anyhow want to buy / use something newer / better"
Background: 1st of all: I hate where things are heading generally these last years in terms of consumerism: You buy something and it gets obsolete ever more quickly - the cycle gets quicker and quicker (cellphones, ...). It wasn't always that way (i.e. I still have & use my Thorens turntable, my (homebrewn) pre/main amplifier combo, my Bose speakers aso), but companies found that if they (artificially) shorten a products lifetime, they can sell more stuff by creating faster product cycles, which they force the consumer to follow, as the old product simply won't work anymore.... And hard-linking a produkt to a web-site gives a company a perfect end-of-life switch for their product. Well, I don't like this at all and I think, many people in this community don't either - that's why plugins like i.e. Triode's Spotify Plugin are so popular (-> cutting the need of mySB.com for Spotify use). In my case, I fear the end of www.mySB.com (whenever that will be) especially, because it will end me beeing able to use lastFM, which i find reasonably priced and which I use almost on a daily base. 2nd: commercial vs non-commercial plugin. I can see Erland's reasoning w/ the benefit of support for a commercial plugin, but honestly I think that link is somehow wishful thinking: A person can make a software / plugin commercial and still abandon it....) The biggest disadvantage of a commercial plugin is that it can't use public API's. -> I think the way to go is to develop non-commercial plugins and (this is the 'new' approach): Make it a public development, so that interested people understand the plugin, can contribute - and can fix it themselves, if the API changes ect.! I am not a s/w developer, but I am interested, esp interested in learning how to develop a plugin - and maintain its functionality. I am sure many people in this forum are very similar. (Afterall, the Squeezeboxes are a kind of tinkering device - that's probably also the reason Logitech abandoned it and wants to go w/ a simpler functionality via the UE devices.) -> This is also the reason, why I think, we should start soon w/ such a development - before the community shrinks and critical mass is lost. (I would as stated favour to start w/ lastFM, since as stated I like it, but also, since it is listed in Talvolas link: http://www.programmableweb.com/apis/directory/1?apicat=Music What do you think? Other than that: Happy new year everyone! Cheers, Heiner ------------------------------------------------------------------------ slimhase's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=31958 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97690 _______________________________________________ plugins mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/plugins
