Rockbox Technical Forums

Rockbox Development => Feature Ideas => Topic started by: beetlespace on November 12, 2008, 10:43:06 AM

Title: !!ATTENTION!! Paul Louden
Post by: beetlespace on November 12, 2008, 10:43:06 AM
**Notice: This is a positive post! :)

Paul,
I recently listened to your interview on the FLOSS podcast and was motivated to download and try the RockBox software again. I say again because I was one of the people who installed RockBox on my first mp3 player, the Archos 5000. Now having an iPod 30G video, I decided to give it a whirl.

I won't give you an in depth review, I'm sure you get those enough on here. Needless to say, I didn't know my iPod could do this much!

RockBox is selling themselves short! I see so much possiblilty with the great work you and your team has done and will do. Have you guys thought bigger? I know you talked with Leo Laporte about a possible cross-platform software application, but why stop there?

What about partnering with a company with the backbone to make your own playing device??? Amazon.com recently released their own eBook reader called the Kindle, which is the first case I know of where an online retailer created their own device. I purchased one and like many of it's features.

So here's what I see as a possibility with you guys with RockBox. Partnering with someone like Amazon who has the backbone and means of working with RockBox to create a media player of it's own. This would give RockBox the freedom to have full design potential. Your only limitations right now are those of the hardware you are working with. Imagine an architecture where you have complete control over how the player itself works and doesn't limit what you can do!

The reason I mention Amazon is this; they recently started selling DRM free mp3's via their online store. Not only did they open this market up to Windows and Mac customers, but included Linux users as well. The download software has much to be desired, but overall, it is a great move on their part. My thinking is if they took the initiative to design their own eBook reader, why not a media device of their own? The possibilities are endless and with RockBox being the platform it's would be using, I'd be the first in line to buy.

Anyway. Just a thought. You guys (and ladies) working on RockBox do an amazing job. Thank you for all the hard work and many hours you put into all your projects. I look forward to seeing the great new ideas you come out with in the future.

Mike
Title: Re: !!ATTENTION!! Paul Louden
Post by: bluebrother on November 12, 2008, 01:48:05 PM
What about partnering with a company with the backbone to make your own playing device???
I'm not Paul Louden and others might disagree, but my opinion is simply a "no thanks". I'm doing work on Rockbox for fun, and having a company behind (which usually wants some financial benefit) wouldn't help that but rather get into the way. I'm doing software development for a living and working on OSS is *much* more fun. I have the "commercial" pressure behind development at work all the time, and I don't want that in my free time. Not having commercial interests is one of the things I really like about Rockbox.

Just my 2¢ ...
Title: Re: !!ATTENTION!! Paul Louden
Post by: NicolasP on November 13, 2008, 04:02:43 PM
I would tend to have the same view as the OP. Getting some corporate interest and a commercial player could bring a lot to the project. There are plenty of examples OSS projects that manage to keep a healthy and friendly community while having some developers that are paid by a company. As long as they play by the rules (written or not) of the community, things usually go smoothly.
Title: Re: !!ATTENTION!! Paul Louden
Post by: Chronon on November 13, 2008, 04:13:58 PM
Is the idea for a company to make a player and port Rockbox for that player?  I think any company is free to do this already provided they abide by Rockbox's licensing (this places some restrictions on what hardware they can use).  In that case it seems the relationship can be arbitrarily loose and Rockbox doesn't have to depend on the company for anything.
Title: Re: !!ATTENTION!! Paul Louden
Post by: Llorean on November 13, 2008, 04:19:19 PM
I think the idea is for we (or some representative of the Rockbox project) to approach someone (in this example, Amazon) and attempt to set up some sort of distribution deal by which we collaborate on design. So it's not an "Amazon" player, but rather "The official Rockbox player" as distributed and manufactured by Amazon.

I think a "loose" relationship (example being Amazon deciding to develop a player for use with their own store and cut costs by having it run Rockbox natively) would probably be beneficial to the project, while attempting an actual partnership or formal agreement with someone like that could cause a world of headaches for all the people interested in treating this merely as a hobby project.

That being said, if anyone had a more formal partnership in mind, I'm sure we'd at least still hear them out. But I don't think it's likely that we (as a project) would go looking for such a thing at all, at least at this time.
Title: Re: !!ATTENTION!! Paul Louden
Post by: bluebrother on November 14, 2008, 02:33:22 AM
There are plenty of examples OSS projects that manage to keep a healthy and friendly community while having some developers that are paid by a company.
Hmm, maybe I got the OP wrong then -- this is not what I thought he was proposing but rather a company marketing Rockbox.