What do you think of this proposal?

Rob, can we pay you in beer?

I really like this idea that you're proposing. I guess a lot of us assumed that tweaking existing code wouldn't take 6 months, but that's only because we (or "I" have no experiene in this). Your solution sounds great and I hope that it can be worked out.

It's definitely an idea, though the empeg codebase is about to have a whole heap of stuff done to it in the general course of development - which will result in a lot of issues being fixed, for starters - and there's the issue of what point the code is branched to be worked on. Not insoluble, obviously, but an issue nonetheless.

Also, support: I would expect you'd need the ear (and/or time) of some developers in order to understand the way the code works - there's probably coming up for 500,000+ lines of code in the player & libs nowadays (though somebody like Peter could tell me I'm including stuff that I shouldn't be, I'm sure) and that's a lot for one person to swallow without any help. There's no one expert in the team now who understand the in's and out's of every part of the player, for example.

I'll be seeing our VP of engineering at CES, I'll ask him what he thinks. It is possible he won't go for it at all though, as this code is not some dark dank corner of the codebase but very much what Rio's future is based on. Risk does come into it.

Hugo

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The car player is not a living, supported product any more, and to think otherwise or hope that secretly, somewhere, someone is working on it is pure fantasy.


But despite that, I assume there is no hope in hell of having the full source released..?


It would seem so, presumably because it has much (if not all) in common with portables (the future of which also seems cloudy to me)

No cloudiness in the future of Rio portables here, says the hardware designer (ie, me).

As I said in another email, there's a lot of work going on (and scheduled) on the empeg source tree. Whether this will translate into future carplayer releases does depend on the charity and enthusiasm of empeg employees to do the necessary work to knock carplayer builds into shape - but the fact that the codebase is very much current and gaining lots of very cool features should not be doubted.

Hugo

Well, I am willing to bribe, uh, well, "financially inspire", anyone doing the work. Perhaps you and Rob could create a PayPal account dedicated to receiving such "inspiration".

!!!

Now, if that last comment (not repeated in case it needs to be edited later on) is not a rather interesting and leading thought... I know that you cannot share those, uh, calculations. At least not publicly...

The perceived direction shift was based mostly on this thread. I know people have left DNNA for a variety of reasons over the past year, but I am pleased to hear that the interest and dedication are still there!

I'm in for 50-100 USD

I second the PayPal account suggestion. Let's try to fill that account up and then we can collectively arrive at a decision of what to do with the dough.
P.S.: For increased contributors' trust some 'public' monitoring of the account may be advisable.

Seems like a familiar thread... I'm in for 100-250 USD or Euros, whichever is worth more when the time comes to pay.

Hugo - are you hinting that the Rio booth is a must-see at CES? It's already on my long list of course, but I have a lot of stuff to get through in 4 days. Anything being shown in a suite as well?

Bruno

I'm in for $50-100, but I could maybe think of a monthly payment of $## for a steady flow of motivation(beer? :-)).

/Fredrik

Just another "me too". Although I am thrilled by Hugo's suggesting that something new may eventually emerge I don't mind throwing a few bucks ($50-$100) into the pot to make sure that some development on the player continues.

Given Hugo's comments that there may actually be something at the end of the tunnel, it does seem like Rob S should have an offline discussion with him to make sure he isn't wasting his time.

-Mike

Forgive my uneducated brainstorm, but what if we invested in making the empeg software more "hackable". Make a build with the core closed-source functionality (audio, FIDs, caching, etc) but leave the rest unimplemented with hooks so we could bolt on our open-source interfaces, modules, displays, functions, etc. So we wouldn't start from scratch with an open-source player; we'd pay for a solid foundation.

Like Hugo mentioned about the Karma features needing a new UI: let the paid insider work the current closed-source empeg code into a foundation and let us write the UI (and other components). This may work if we had access to the closed-source components which interface with the UI (perhaps just the functions, their paramaters, their return values, and a description of what they do; close-source their code).

I would be willing to contribute $100 to this effort, if the software developers among us think it's reasonable.

One thing to remember is, "hell hath no fury like an empeg user scorned." Meaning: empeg users hate to pay for stuff and get nothing in return. I'm not doubting RobS in the least, but if people put money down, we need a system to be sure that they get what they paid for to avoid any potential problems.

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My comment on cloudiness just reflects my frustration with seeing iPods absolutely everywhere, and Karma barely at all.

Agreed, saddly. iPods even snuck into the LotR:TTT-EE Appendix 3 DVD. And I couldn't sell my friend on a Karma because he wanted the simplicity and supposed unshaking reliability of an iPod. Thankfully, we still have our empegs!

I think Firefox pretty much just posted exactly what I had intended to. If there is going to be a push for paid development on the empeg code, I'd like to see it driven to a point where the core playback engine has a lot of features like the crossfading in 3.0, and have some type of 3rd party hook. Hijack and the efforts from people like Tony C are pretty cool, but definitly suffer from lack of such a hook. For me, 2.0 does just fine for daily needs and 3.0 really doesn't add enough for me to justify spending a ton of money on it. However, if that money went to ensuring I could have scrolling lyrics, receiver compatibility, and possibly other unthought features in a non roundabout way, I'd be willing to pay possibly close to what I got my firesale 60gb unit for.

Regarding the iPod issue, Rio beter have something really big up their sleeves to think they can continue to compete in that market. They need to show that:

1. The product is alive. I don't think I have seen a Karma on a store shelf in months now. I've also only seen one release, the 20gb player. In that time, Apple has released the 3rd gen, 4th gen, and iPod Photo units, keeping fresh stock out there for consumers to see. Before the Karma, Rio had the completly different Riot.

2. They can market it. Thanks to the (also dying) ReplayTV I own from DNNA, I don't see many commercials. But I'm certain there really has never been a Karma commercial. iPod, I know for sure gets advertised quite a bit. Maybe a brand name change would help this.

3. Support from 3rd parties. This one will be tough, since not too many iPod accessories appeared until after it was proven to be very popular.

One thing I would love to see is a revival of most of the dead Rio products and them marketed togther. Bring back the Central for music storage, receivers for cheep streaming around the house off it, then add in a portable product that easially and quickly works with the Central or a computer. Even better, work with ReplayTV and have an uber unit that does video as well, and add video out to a receiver for bedroom show sharing cheep. Then, have a car solution for that portable player that proves how bad the iPod + BMW interface is. Rio has the possibility to bring digital music even to those unconfortable with the computer. They just need to do so in a seamless way, instead of changing plans every year. The flash market is probably not going to substain mass growth in the future, so Rio needs other things to survive.

edit: To be fair, the Carbon is a good start. It is decent competition for the iPod Mini. They just need to market it as such now.

I would really like to see something along FireFox's post happen. That way we wouldnt be so dependant on specific people to get stuff done, the commnuity could start developing differnt parts of the non closed software.

Hugo, I only reply to your post because of the final comment, which I'll get to. My post applies to all comments in this thread up til this.

I'm going to be brutally honest. Looking at my sig shows what I am willing to pay for. Please nobody waste everyone's time discussing the difficulties of Japanese on the empeg; I think everyone is pretty clear on the difficulties. I'm simply stating, very clearly, what interests me development-wise, and that is being able to have my music not only correctly tagged on my home system, but on the empeg as well. And that is worth $350US. Minimum. Nuff said.

As for interest in additional financial contributions for development, I'm sorry, but I don't know that I'd be in. A few things would have to change.

First, the "circle-of-friends" thing would have to come to a dead stop. If I put down currency to help development, I wouldn't want to be told "well, you weren't at the meet, so ha ha ha. Just wait 6 months." Yes, I know it was to keep peoples decks from getting pooched. Yes, I know nobody was paying at the time. My point is that if I do pay, I want to get releases (alphas, too) as soon as anyone else. Period. I'm a big boy and can take responsibility for screwing up my player if it comes to that. But I won't pay to be made feel like I'm second tier because I can't afford to take time off of school and fly to Europe for fun.

Second, I honestly only have one thing other than crossfading that I want to work, and I've already discussed that. Unless what FireFox spoke about (and I've also mentioned from time to time) regarding locking down the closed source portions of the codebase and making everything more modular to allow the community to produce its own software. Beyond that, what would I be seeing for my money? I have no interest in the specialized receiver builds, etc. I simply want to sort MP3s, play MP3s, and view MP3 tags. I don't need FLAC or OGG support, etc. etc.

Having a way to design custom info display modes via an XML schema, in line with what FireFox said (ie. hooks)? That I would pay for. I know you can do it with emphatic, but the slowdown on my system is just too much (can't force myself to turn off visuals and burn-in )

I hope everyone understands, I'm not trying to be negative. I have more respect for the empeg guys, the Build Brothers and pretty much everyone in this community that I could ever say. I just can't justify:

a) paying a ton of money for features I really don't have a need or desire for, while not getting the features I want and need,

b) paying a ton of money for features to be implemented in the "Amersfoort Club" alpha release that I won't get to try for months. I'm not implying this would continue, just that it happened.

Especially with as much money as I have out on the fascia project. (Meeting later today, BTW, to determine just where we're at on that.)

As soon as the Japanese thing gets figured out (or released to us, as I remember someone discussing the appearance of a Japanese capable empeg at a meet), let me know. I'll throw the $350 and maybe more, because that is something that, for me, is a huge usability clusterfsck. HUGE. Till then, I'm going to need convincing that I'm going to get something out of my contribution.

Sorry if that sounds selfish and crappy.

How about paying someone the money to create a new open source player. Mark has suggested several times that the nescessary info is available but he doesn't want to do it so maybe someone else here could be bribed.

I personally was happy with 2.0 but I haven't installed the player in my mini yet due to stupid propritary crap in the car.

Also I hope whatever Hugo is hinting at will be a good replacement

I have to confess to being somewhat disappointed in your post. First off: I organise the Amersfoort events for fun, plain and simple. In order to make it sucessful, I have to make it attractive enough for people to want to attend. Don't forget, I am in competition with TV, football matches, F1 races, and, believe it or not, exams and even national holidays!

Thanks to the good graces of the empeg team, one of the pulling points so far has been new builds of software for the player. However - and bear this in mind - this is software produced in their own time, for an unsupported product. The last two "Top secret" releases done for the Amersfoort meets were not meant to be "secret" or "limited" or "just for the club" in any sense, other than to limit it's circulation to prevent a mass software failure stretching through the whole community (you will perhaps note that just about every member of this community has been able to get hold of this stuff given time, regardless of circulation restrictions placed upon it by Rob). This software can only be released as Alpha, never Beta (think about it, heh?) and the very fact that it has been released at all is a pretty good thing. It speaks well for the team that they think with enough responsibility to their former customer base that they are still trying to ensure that people's machines don't get hosed by some lurking nasty that they have insufficient time to test properly for. Read the label - it says quite clearly - "Use AT YOUR OWN RISK!".

I rather resent the imputation that you feel that the people who come here have formed a cliquey "club" just because they can afford the ticket price and the cost: that's not the case. You are also quite welcome to come as well. If you have problems with the date of the 2005 event (are you looking at the calender?) due to exams, then let me know NOW and I'll see if I can adjust it - I have done this for several people several times now to make sure that as many people as want to come, can come. Money a problem? Well, I can't help much with that I'm afraid - but I do try to make it fun for everyone who can't attend, even going so far as trying to arrange webcams at the event, and this year an attempt was made at videoing it for a limited "Best of..". For various reasons this hasn't happened - sorry.

I realise that at each event, there has been a fair amount of post-event ragging about these releases with an "We know something you don't know!" element to it. Perhaps this is a mistake - but it's only ragging, nothing else! There's nothing intentionally nasty about it!

To labour this point somewhat - when I made this current proposal, I was NOT proposing that partially-directed versions be released to a limited crowd who have paid to "join the club". This was the last thing on my mind. The proposal was going to be firmed up along the lines that the people who paid up front would be entitled to regular updates during development, intermediate test builds, so forth - to act as a kind of voluntary A-test team, much the way as I did with the original release test team. Then eventually, everyone - having paid or not - would benefit from a free, Beta upgrade. So why pay at all, then? Why not just sit back and wait for a new sausage to pop out of the pipe? Well, that's what's been happeniing so far (with diminishing frequency), in case you haven't noticed - and the people who have benefitted from this approach have been ...

...yup, you guessed it, the people who came to the Amersfoort meets. And yes, some of them DID pay - like Rob Riccardelli who paid a h*** of a lot in air fare to come over for what was, in the end, just a boozy party with a few hamburgers thrown in for good measure! Does that not sound like "paying" for a priviledged release? It was his choice to do so, nicht wahr?

I am also a little bothered that you have attached conditions to what you are prepared to contribute to. While I understand why you want what you want, you are - as other posters here are also doing - Completely Missing The Point. I am Not talking about, nor am I interested in doing, (in a limited time with limited funds) adding new functionality , only making what has been described as an unstable release into a Stable one, with a pre-selected list of fixes to certain bugs that will provide the maximum benefit to the entire user community. If you wish to be partial, and only contribute to directed development that benefits only yourself and no-one else (I don't see anyone else clamouring for Japanese ID3 support here - do you?), then I would prefer that you withdrew and did not offer funds as I will not be able to do what you ask - there won't be the opportunity. Sure, there are about a dozen new things I would like to build into the the player software but I will have neither the time, nor funds to do this.

I suspect saying it this way will upset you: I sincerely hope not, as I do not wish for this to happen - your posts and contributions on this board are enjoyable and I enjoy reading your thoughts. But as you say yourself - I have to be brutal about this: I will have very little time to do what I propose. I am not even sure I will be able to do enough: I will be taking a huge financial risk on your behalf and to be anything less than totally focussed on what is practically achievable is without any doubt in my mind, POINTLESS.

If you all want this to happen, then you have a very small window of opportunity to consider what you want, pool your funds, and make a concrete contribution, for which I promise you will be rewarded with my greatest efforts. But if it's not important enough for you - well, why should I commit to the risk?

Not a bad summary, but the idea of Modularity is just not achieveable due to practical aspects of how the player actually works in normal operation. The guys have looked at this (remember the big discussions about the "plug in decoder" architecture?) and it's just not on, otherwise they'd have done it! They are pretty smart cookies - if it's not been done so far, there's a good reason for it.

No, we are better off focussing in stability and correction of dysfunction. A final release version of V3 with all the minor playlist issues, caching, graphics, memory allocation, radio tuning and RDS to get a good meat-and-potato release of the quality of V2 Final, along with a revised disk builder seems to me to be the way to go. It is work based on established material, and has a better chance of success.

Why not an effort to work on the open source players that have been floating around for a while? Well, indeed - but why hasn't it been done by now? As much as I feel this is an alternative (Look at Mike's jEmplode), it has not happened. I am certain if I worked on material like this for 6 months, 40 hours a week, I could produce some excellent results. But I can't survive another 6 months without something to pay my mortgage and bills - I still would need funds. And why pay for an open source one when I could (potentially) work on the real thing?

IMHO an open source player would be the best solution, and if it were pulled off I have no doubt that project would end up on many targets other than the empeg car player. Unfortunately I can't see that happening - a certain level of functionality and commitment is required before an open source project is taken seriously enough to gain wider momentum. The original (pre-1.0) player was written in a few months essentially by one person (Mike) if you don't include drivers (Hugo - but open source, so no need to duplicate) and visuals (Toby). I'd say that level of functionality would generate interest in the project, so we're looking at a commitment of maybe six months full time development by someone. If that someone expects reasonable remuneration then that's probably £15 - £20K.

A player with 3.0 functionality would be considerably more work. I'm planning a project of similar scope for a different market (closed source, sorry!) and working on the assumption of 6,000+ man hours. To make that a reality in an open source world it would be necessary to attract more developers with time on their hands than we're likely to find in the empeg community - hence targeting other platforms (e.g. generic in-car PC's).

As another option, I suspect a couple of weekends of work by three or four key people at Rio would yield an acceptably usable 3.0 Beta. At one time job satisfaction and a few pizzas would generate sufficient motivation for this, but these days I suspect it may take something more tangible.

Rob