Rockbox General > Rockbox General Discussion
What's the future for rockbox ?
[Saint]:
Let me first start with saying:
I understand.
It seems a fickle gesture, to say the least. But I do understand. Something you love, something I love, is dying a slow death from obscurity, and its painful. I know it too.
This discussion doesn't often happen so publicly, but history repeats, and these same feelings have been shared by quite a few individuals in the past few years. This has been happening, albeit at a somewhat glacial rate, for some time now.
So, I feel you man. I do.
Good intentions and strong feelings aside, ...good intentions and strong feelings don't write code.
There has been a few reasonably recent fresh faced additions to the active developer community, and that's a great thing. However for the large part, the community is ageing. Gone are the days of infinite free time and energy, and here are the days of pressing work commitments, furthering education, health concerns, family life, work life, etc. and so on.
I myself have several projects that one could quite reasonably class as abandoned, and it sucks. I like it no less than you do.
[Saint]
monoid:
My opinion is quite simple. RockBox is just fine as it is. It works, it does more than most/all of OF and more than I'll ever use and will learn to use, so I do not see the point in discussion about the future. OK. There always may be some improvements, but they are not needed. RockBox may stay as it is for dozens of years without any harm to users.
We have been converted from users to consumers. We have been made to think that lifespan of our toys counts in months (up to few years). But wake up. There is no problém, if SW does not change for years! If it works as desired.
OK. RockBox needs to attract developers to port it to new devices. And generally only young guys have enought time to do the job. Of course there are exceptions. But even if noone writes a single line of RockBox code since now, RockBoxed devices will live on and be used for next 10 years.
So, the cards are in the hands of DAPs. If they produce decent hardware with miserable firmware, than there is hope for fresh blood in RockBox developers. If DAP producers will produce crap, than RB will not help. And if they will produce great DAPs with excellent firmware than RB would not be enought attractive for youngs. Hard to guess, what will come. But I doubt, that excellent DAPs with excellent firmware hit the market. ;-)
steak:
--- Quote from: monoid on November 06, 2014, 05:17:14 PM ---My opinion is quite simple. RockBox is just fine as it is. It works, it does more than most/all of OF and more than I'll ever use and will learn to use, so I do not see the point in discussion about the future. OK. There always may be some improvements, but they are not needed. RockBox may stay as it is for dozens of years without any harm to users.
--- End quote ---
I do agree. It's interesting to understand what the dev do to improve it or make it reach "stable" status but for us users, once it is usable, we are not really affected bay whatever they do.
--- Quote from: monoid on November 06, 2014, 05:17:14 PM ---We have been converted from users to consumers. .../... SW does not change for years!
--- End quote ---
We who ? We the old guys ? I'm fifty, my best DAP is my D2, it's about 10 years old now and I'll still use it in 10 years I'm pretty sure. So is it the younng guys who have been converted or educated to consume ? Hum, hum, that's what the market wants but when I look around to my younger friends, I see many with open and free mind who don't want to be told what they want. My opinion is people and world don't change as much as we (we who ? ;-P) think. And there are no young or old dummies. In fact there are, simply it's got nothing to do with age. Young dummies end up old dummies and old dummies were initielly young dummies ! That doesn't make the rest of us (you and me OF COURSE) smarter though, as in the end we ALL wonder who's ruling this mad world...
--- Quote from: monoid on November 06, 2014, 05:17:14 PM ---OK. RockBox needs to attract developers to port it to new devices. And generally only young guys have enought time to do the job. Of course there are exceptions. But even if none writes a single line of RockBox code since now, RockBoxed devices will live on and be used for next 10 years.
--- End quote ---
Maybe yes, maybe not. That depends on the hardware quality and on the way it's treated by the user... I will be survived by my best players ! (even without battery, they'll be usable on mains)
--- Quote from: monoid on November 06, 2014, 05:17:14 PM ---So, the cards are in the hands of DAPs. If they produce decent hardware with miserable firmware, than there is hope for fresh blood in RockBox developers. If DAP producers will produce crap, than RB will not help. And if they will produce great DAPs with excellent firmware than RB would not be enought attractive for youngs. Hard to guess, what will come. But I doubt, that excellent DAPs with excellent firmware hit the market. ;-)
--- End quote ---
If there is no market, there will be no DAP, that's for sure. The best portable Portable CD players were iRivers, then the market was wiped out by DAPs and firmware wise, I never came across anything good since. It looks to me the DAP market has shrinked. It may survive because battery life is crap with smartphones but it is a niche market. There is also the HiFi niche, trouble is HiFi DAP are expensive, I am pleased to see that some dev have been able to work on some of these targets (HiFi lovers ? courtesy of an owner ? of the brand ???)
So finally and until the next gen portable gizmo, we are left with smartphones and tablets and there I wonder What's the future for rockbox ? because in my user experience, Rockbox as an app has not always been usable and I wonder if it can be :
1- the targets may be able to do many things but I have not seen a single one lasting more than 5 years
2- the target change, the target OS version change, does that mean "Rockbox as an app" must be developped/updated for ever to keep up ??
steak:
--- Quote from: monoid on November 06, 2014, 05:17:14 PM ---And if they will produce great DAPs with excellent firmware then RB would not be enought attractive for youngs. Hard to guess, what will come. But I doubt, that excellent DAPs with excellent firmware hit the market. ;-)
--- End quote ---
There has been very good original firmware in the past = good features, easy operation and of course totally stable.
To my knowledge there has never been excellent firmware comparing with rockbox = open for customization through settings OR in text mode OR in "advanced user" mode OR in dev mode.
That said, wether very good or excellent FW attract anyone is no question of age, it depends on what they want. Many users I know, most I should say, even those who love not only music but HiFi sound surprisingly, are happy with just any usable DAP. Happy and wise folks !
monoid:
@Steak
I agree with you in many aspects. You say almost the same as me. I did not speake about all users/people, but about most of users/people. Most of people accepted the game that things are consumed. I spoke about young developers (read secondary school, university students), because among those there is higher chance to find people to do the job.
If experienced SW developer does work for free it costs him say 50-100 USD/hour (he could get that money, if he did something commercial.). Porting RB to a new DAP might také several months of work (it is my guess, I am not RB developer). So, it must be very revarding for experienced SW developer in some way to do the job for free... It is much easier to cross the treshold for young one. His time is less expensive, he has more free time, he does not have feed family, care for kids, ....
I am not sure what you mean by RB as application. Each porting to e new DAP needs a lot of work. I am not sure about android port. One could consider it application. But to my understanding it is not official version (port) of RB. I tried once RB on tablet and there was something that did not work satisfactory. Probably the resolution was the issue, I do not remember.
But generally speaking if some SW works on certain OS it might work on several next versions of that OS. But it may happen that it will not work on next. One never knows.
I also use iRiver (H120 and H140). And Sansa Fuze+. I might buy several Hx20 to have a stock, till I die. So for me RB might live for next 30-40 years without any change. I would like to thank all RB developers for their excellent job and enourmous amount of time spent on project.
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