FireFly Media Server › Firefly Media Server Forums › Firefly Media Server › General Discussion › The case for reviving Firefly
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17/11/2009 at 1:50 PM #18687nschertzParticipant
Looking for a general update on where the project is right now. Andrew aka andrew40.. are you still out there? In your last post you were reorganizing things a bit and looking for a developer team. Has the code been reorganized somewhere for me to take a look at?
17/11/2009 at 4:35 PM #18688AnonymousInactive@jblache wrote:
That’s not how free software works. Want something? Send a patch.
Sorry… but BUZZZZZZZZZ… that’s incorrect. Thanks for playing.
That’s perhaps how free software used to work… 10 years ago. But that’s what I’m saying. Those days are long since gone. Now that OpenSource is much more accepted as a valid development model, OpenSource projects rise to the level of full products. They have requirements specs, they have architecture drafts, they have source control, they have Q/A and UX phases, they have lifecycles, they address users needs, they have user manuals, they have customer support… just throwing a patch over the wall to hope it sticks doesn’t work anymore. The team assembles a spec to dictate what features will be sought in each successive release. If a user “wants something”, they add it to a wish list and, if appropriate, state how they can help.
@nschertz… what “reorganization” are you looking for? As far as I know, nothing has been done with the original code, other than jblache’s personal fork. If that’s not still the case, I’m sure Andrew will mention something shortly.18/11/2009 at 2:07 PM #18689nschertzParticipantServomation,
Ok. My mistake. I misread his post. The reorg he was doing was moving the code, reorging the forum and I thought starting down the reorg of the code. It appears like things may be stalled. Andrew had started a twitter blog and provided a few updates, but those stopped. Other than a little recent banter on this forum, things have kind of gone into radio silence on next steps. Maybe just the calm before the storm 🙂 thx
19/11/2009 at 3:51 AM #18690scotParticipantI have 1586 working on OpenBSD, minor issues I’ve reported on this forum need to be patched for it to work properly. I don’t think I ever had 1696 working correctly, but that’s been a while.
I would like to see UPnP/DLNA working as well since I now have Phillips Streamium device. Running mt-daapd and mediatomb on the same set of files is just annoying. Running two processor-and-IO-intensive tasks is just annoying.
I’d do it myself but… I’m in the middle of a Ph.D in a completely unrelated field and it’ll be a few years before I can get there. And my C skills are getting rusty as time goes on. The more I push into my brain the more comes out the other side.
I CAN test code and offer build support for OpenBSD and general cross-platform UNIX advice. I can even offer small patches to fix cross-platform issues IF it doesn’t require reading the entire codebase. And, it has to be on my schedule. I understand OpenSource development, been doing it since 1995, but it isn’t my life. I have no interest in pissing matches, debating various methods and all the politics that go with this kind of thing. I just want a good media server that lets me listen to music on my various devices.
Do we need a complete rewrite? I’m not opposed to it (OpenSSH, OpenSMTPd, OpenBGPd… all great tools that were originally seen as completely unnecessary rewrites). But, I’m not going to be the one to do it and I don’t have a dog in that fight. I would like to see a UNIX-based (Linux, Solaris, OpenBSD) server that does RSP/DAAP/UPnP; no need for a web GUI; lightweight database (Sqlite3 seems good); fast; reasonable support for transcoding; the ability to handle 60k+ songs. I like the idea of a plugin driven system (a la Apache?) where the GUIs, protocols, scanners and transcoders can all be plugins. I would like to see Linux-only (inotify) features not REQUIRED (but acceptable). Having the scanners be plugins would allow kevents/inotify/whatever per-platform (as the thread models in Apache2 are handled).
In my experience, someone has to run the show. Every project needs a Linus or Theo. Politics are inevitable, but if “good code always wins” is the attitude, then the political nonsense is minimized. Someone needs to step up and own the project since Ron is out. The rest of the community needs to acknowledge the authority of the new owner and then get to work. Whoever owns the project needs to be clear what the goals are (e.g. Linux only) so that the rest of us can decide if we want to contribute or not. Not that it’d be a loss, but I’m out if this goes Linux ONLY.
In sum: I’d love to see development on mt-daapd revived; there are features I’d like to see added and I’m always a fan of cleaner code. I’ll happily contribute in the small ways I can, but I need to know there is going to be something worth contributing to. For me that simply means that someone steps forward as a leader and shows some kind of progress.
20/11/2009 at 10:44 PM #18712thorstenhirschParticipantjblache, it would be great if you could help this project, and by that I mean if you could write code for a lot more people than just for you. I think your code is much better, you did a great job. But I can’t use it, too, although my server is based on linux.
23/11/2009 at 6:01 PM #18680AnonymousInactive@thorstenhirsch wrote:
jblache, it would be great if you could help this project, and by that I mean if you could write code for a lot more people than just for you.
The code is there for anyone who wants to use it or work on it, and I take patches. I have nothing against making things more formal by hosting the project somewhere with a project page and registered contributors, but I want to have contributors first.
I do not have the time to maintain a cross-platform project all by myself. Moreover, I absolutely do not care about Windows and my care level for Mac OS X is not high enough anymore for me to bother about it (did that back in 2001-2003; it’s been fun but it’s also been very frustrating). I’m not going to pretend I’m interested when I’m not, and I’m not going to pretend patches are good when they’re not, either.
These are my rules; I want code and not talk, and I want good code. I take the good 2-hour solution over the crappy 5-minute hack.
As far as platforms are concerned, if you want to port forked-daapd to another platform, go ahead. It shouldn’t be too hard on OS X or *BSD, though it won’t be fun on Windows. Be prepared to become the platform maintainer once you’ve done that, too.
@thorstenhirsch wrote:
I think your code is much better, you did a great job. But I can’t use it, too, although my server is based on linux.
Yeah, requires a 2.6.29 kernel and glibc 2.9 at least, I know, but the kernel features are well worth it.
ANTLR is a pain too, I know, but again, worth it (though I could and will make a better use of it, time permitting).
26/11/2009 at 9:53 AM #18691AnonymousGuestNo I haven’t gone.
I have set a holding page up at https//fireflymediaserver.net/.
I am awaiting a mass rush of developers who want to start with the code in a new repository and a project manager to manage the repository.
The forum I am going through and was going to port to a new platform but decided against at this time due to a whole bunch of migration issues with the phpBB forum. So I am awaiting Ron’s reply so that I can add a founder account and migrate (he has previously agreed). Also awaiting a reply from Roku for which the original project was setup for the understand that may not be forthcoming.
In summary have had hundreds of good wishes but no concrete help yet other than a few who can help with the forum.
26/11/2009 at 10:36 AM #18692AnonymousGuest@jblache wrote:
@thorstenhirsch wrote:
jblache, it would be great if you could help this project, and by that I mean if you could write code for a lot more people than just for you.
The code is there for anyone who wants to use it or work on it, and I take patches. I have nothing against making things more formal by hosting the project somewhere with a project page and registered contributors, but I want to have contributors first.
I do not have the time to maintain a cross-platform project all by myself. Moreover, I absolutely do not care about Windows and my care level for Mac OS X is not high enough anymore for me to bother about it (did that back in 2001-2003; it’s been fun but it’s also been very frustrating). I’m not going to pretend I’m interested when I’m not, and I’m not going to pretend patches are good when they’re not, either.
These are my rules; I want code and not talk, and I want good code. I take the good 2-hour solution over the crappy 5-minute hack.
As far as platforms are concerned, if you want to port forked-daapd to another platform, go ahead. It shouldn’t be too hard on OS X or *BSD, though it won’t be fun on Windows. Be prepared to become the platform maintainer once you’ve done that, too.
@thorstenhirsch wrote:
I think your code is much better, you did a great job. But I can’t use it, too, although my server is based on linux.
Yeah, requires a 2.6.29 kernel and glibc 2.9 at least, I know, but the kernel features are well worth it.
ANTLR is a pain too, I know, but again, worth it (though I could and will make a better use of it, time permitting).
It sounds that you are wanting to set up your own fork of the source code and get contributors on board. Can I ask is this separate to this project or are you wanting to take part? You have some very strong views but they can be directed in making FireFly a much needed and better project as a whole.
I would be happy to have you managing the GIT part of the project and contributors but really need to keep this all together, so that the source code is managed properly as you previously said.
Let me know.
Andrew
27/11/2009 at 6:41 AM #18693stretchParticipant@andrew40 wrote:
Also awaiting a reply from Roku for which the original project was setup for the understand that may not be forthcoming.
Roku has pretty much abandoned the SoundBridge product line.
From what I’ve seen & read on their forum, the biggest problem with the product was that diagnosing network problems is beyond the skill level of many users & poor quality design of their power supplies, especially the SB Radio.27/11/2009 at 12:02 PM #18694thorstenhirschParticipantWhat about the brand “Firefly”? I guess the rights belong to Roku, so is it possible to call a forked/next version “Firefly 2”?
edit: …or to keep the current name “Firefly”?
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