The case for reviving Firefly

[Anonymous]

Hi guys!
Very interesting reading in this post, and it makes me very happy to see that someone with the right knowledge is taking this great software back on track.

😀

[mas]

What about the brand “Firefly”? I guess the rights belong to Roku, so is it possible to call a forked/next version “Firefly 2”?

As long as you don’t base it in the USA likely a total no brainer. The Soundbridge is as buried as I have ever seen any product by them. They have virtually no commercial interest in that brand thus. And hunting a “rogue” using their brand outside the USA would require a financial commitment, which would be really strange. Thats not a huge company who just shells out money for nothing I guess.

On the fork of Julien:

I think he has got it precisely right by simplifying the code and the features down first before the rewrite. In order to keep it manageable with the limited available workforce that is the only solution. At least initially, till other people agree to expand and maintain other features.
And I have read the code a slight bit and was totally stunned by how complex and hard to follow it was. So I also would say a rewrite and something clean to start off fresh is definitly the way to go.
One can always discuss about features and disagree which are essential or nice, but it is a good start. Please lets continue there.

@Julien:
You have a source tarball downloadable somewhere? Any problems forseeable to compile it on a gentoo-linux Mini-PC? Whats the exact dependencies it has?

[jgoor]

I’ve anxiously followed the fireflymediserver.net site and thusfar in vain. The countdown is being reset every time or just shows ‘0:0:0:0’. There’s no way to communicate unless using “Twitter”, except that I do not twitter and don’t want to twitter. For some reason Tweety needs 500 votes otherwise he won’t proceed (or at least: that’s what I make of it) Therefore I want the initiator of fireflymediaserver.net to know there are many people waiting for this great and highly appreciated initiative so please Go Live a.s.a.p. and share your work and passion with us. Keep up the good work! Me, my M1001 and 200Gb of flac files will be very *VERY* grateful.

[lukacu]

I agree with jgoor. I have waited for something to start happening … I wrote a message in this thread about wanting to help a few months ago, and then I waited … but all I saw was the twitter message that “nobody wants to help”. After that I even did some additional searching in case I have missed some page or mailing list that is used to coordinate people who are willing to help. Nothing. So I am really curious, how we are supposed to help. The whole deal with the countdown and the “media silence” reminds me of the unveiling of some Apple product, not an open source development initiative. 🙂

[Anonymous]

It’s not cloak and dagger stuff!!

I am a project manager with a number of resources and finances whereby I can help this project progress. I use FireFly and want to see this project continue and blossom. I am not a coder or do I intend to be, as there are far more better people out there who are willing to do this.

I have sent emails to several people in the past few months who have said they want to help and have the time to do so, and I have got no response from them. I am also taking the flak for not moving this forward, which I dearly want to.

Ron is a difficult person to track down and get responses from, although he has given me access to the site and also sourceforge.

I want to set this up with a dedicated team of developers who can start with the latest fork on a new repository and move the whole damn thing forward. FireFly 2 is not a complete code re-write its just the re-birth of an otherwise fine piece of software with a dedicated number of people behind it.

A lot of you are asking me for the new code – there is NO new code!

I cannot do this on my own, and unless I get a decent enough response in the next 7 days other than ‘forum moderation’ then unfortunately I will have to close my part of the process down and withdraw.

My email is [email protected], I welcome your thoughts, ideas, suggestions and requests.

Lets make it happen – I have time free for the next 7 days.

Andrew

[blamm]

Hi, I too am not a twitter user and am finding this whole development thing rather confusing, particularly as a lot of the “tweets” seem to be about unrelated things (I follow in my newsreader). I am a huge fan of Firefly and would like to be involved but have no idea what you are planning or asking for. A simple statement here of your plans and the resources you need (shouldnt be too hard for a project manager) would suffice.

[Anonymous]

I too like firefly & used it a lot!
… since about a year it constantly crashes on my server

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I use firefly on my NSLU2 – it’s great, as it does exactly what I need, works just fine and has very small footprint. I’d like to help move things forward. I’ve been involved in a few open source projects in the past, so I thought I’d reply here and add my 2 cents.

It looks like a few people would like to help, but it’s not very clear where to start! No-one really knows the code at the moment, and it’s hard to get anyone to dedicate time to it – I guess because it’s impossible to work out what you’re letting yourself in for!!

I’m going to put my neck on the line and start a few new threads up, to try and move the discussion forward. Plus, there are a few small steps we can take to get things moving that shouldn’t require too much time from anyone who would like to help.

A couple of questions:

– where is the definitive source code repository? (I’ve seen a trac one and a sourceforge one)
– is there any documentation anywhere?

Thanks!

Miles

[RigasW]

@blamm wrote:

Hi, I too am not a twitter user and am finding this whole development thing rather confusing, particularly as a lot of the “tweets” seem to be about unrelated things (I follow in my newsreader). I am a huge fan of Firefly and would like to be involved but have no idea what you are planning or asking for. A simple statement here of your plans and the resources you need (shouldnt be too hard for a project manager) would suffice.

You are so right … 🙂

RigasW

[blamm]

Does anyone know what is actually happening here? I emailed [email protected] and got no response.

[Author]

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