slimhase wrote: 
> 
> And hard-linking a produkt to a web-site gives a company a perfect
> end-of-life switch for their product.
> 
Quite the opposite actually, hard-linking it to a web site often means
that the company have to provide official support for their product a
long time after they have stopped selling them. If they shutdown the web
site so the products stop working, a lot of people are going to complain
and they are going to get a lot of negative publicity, which is often is
very bad for any future business they plan to do. You can loose your
reputation over a night but it will take years to earn it back.

>From an economical perspective, Logitech should just shutdown
mysqueezebox.com tomorrow because they doesn't earn any money on it when
they don't sell new Squeezeboes, but they can't do this because it would
be really bad for their other business and it would cause a lot of
warranty returns.

slimhase wrote: 
> 
> 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....)
> 
Correct, but it's a lot harder to abandon a paying customer, because
people might start to ask for refunds and give you negative critique all
over the place and that's generally not something most developers like.
Unless you have done it yourself, it's very hard to understand what it
really means to spend 5-10 hours every week year after year to support
users and maintain plugins for free without any compensation what so
ever. Unless you have experienced it, it's also hard to understand the
positive feelings you get when someone actually is prepared to pay for
something you have done.

slimhase wrote: 
> 
> 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.
> 
LastFM have a Radio API which looks promising if you like to stream
radio from LastFM: http://www.last.fm/api/radio
But their non commercial Terms of Service also says: "This Agreement
does not entitle you to stream music or other content available on the
Last.fm Site." so I'm not really sure if you are allowed to use it or
not. Based on the questions they have asked me in previous communication
with them I suspect there are some restrictions, but it's probably a
good idea to ask them specifically about it.

slimhase wrote: 
> 
> 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?
> 
If anyone is interested I think they should give it a try, all plugins
developed will be valuable, either on short or long terms.
For someone who doesn't know perl, the easiest way to start is usually
to take an existing plugin which does something similar and start
adapting it to your needs.
If you don't know software development or engineering, it's generally
going to be hard, but it's definitely not impossible if you are
committed.

I'm happy to answer any development related questions in the Developers
section of the forum from someone who want to try develop a plugin and
I'm sure there are other plugin developers who are prepared to do the
same. If someone who isn't a software developer wants to try, it's
probably a good idea to start reading up on perl and look at some simple
plugin first, for someone who is software developer but doesn't know
perl it's easier, after all that was the case for me when I developed my
first plugin and it took a few weeks I think.

Unfortunately, due to some other music related projects I'm involved in,
I don't have the spare time to engage in any additional plugin
development myself at the moment, except for continuing to maintain and
support my own 20+ plugins/applets of course.


------------------------------------------------------------------------
erland's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3124
View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97690

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