Don't do windoze?

He said this about EMPLODE? What third-party libraries could they possibly be using in there? Only thing I can think of is the ID3 stuff, and it shouldn't be hard to NOT include that (if necessary) as part of the tar command, and since it is completely foreign to the actual task (synching) it should be a moot point...

D

The protocol is reliant upon libraries within the empeg internal build structure that we don't want to release - we only want to release the classes that are needed to actually build the tool & not some of our other core libraries.

Please understand that it is *not* as simple as tarring it up and stuffing it on the website!

Hugo

The empeg guys have stated, many times in the past, that they are a software company and not a hardware company. I must agree with the decisions regarding their source code as that is the mainstay of their business. While I agree with the notion that Mac/Solaris/Be/*BSD/Linux/etc support would have been evolving over the last X monthes; the fact remains the vast bulk of the empeg owners are MS Windows users, and empeg must focus their efforts to support them. That is a fact of reality. Patience has its own rewards, and I think that this is one of those situations where we (the Mac/Linux minority) must be patient. It serves our purposes, to a greater degree, to work with empeg rather than against them. If we continually badger them about this point; we may end up with no support. Some monthes ago, a rather heated license discussion erupted. All issues were resolved in the end, but in the thick of the disussion it was not so clear cut. In the final analysis, I have the impression that the whole situation left 'a bad taste' with the empeg folk.

Personally, I've been waiting for eight monthes, others have been waiting longer; I don't think it's going to hurt us one bit to be patient. If we play our cards right, we'll have an ally rather than a begrudging acquaintance or an enemy.

"Nonetheless, it never fails to fascinate me when, should we fail to quite meet the level of service an Open Source advocate demands, their reaction is to move to a major brand that will NEVER open it's source in a million years."

FWIW, this is not about open source. If you where to send me/Dredd/whoever else has commented on wanting to write a MacOS version the currently existing sync source with the provision that we could never re-release that source, but could distribute (for free) binaries derived from it, I do not think you would hear many complaints. We are interested in functionality at this point, not trying to force empeg to open source anything you don't want to. You keep saying that you don't have the staff at the moment to deal with other projects, but you seem to be missing the fact that some of your "clients" are offering to do it for you.

-Mike

Exactly!

I have long said "show me how it works, and I'll write a perl package that does the net IO so that other people can write the apps to talk to it".

I'm perfectly willing to sign any suitable NDA in order to make this happen.

D

> Let's see, though... 300 units... 60 requests for Mac software

Erm, no - this is info@empeg.com email - POTENTIAL clients. So, 60 requests out of over 15,000 registrations. I have no doubt that the actual percentage of Mac owners in the queue is greater than 0.4% (what is the Windows to Apple ratio worldwide? I have no idea) but I guess some of them are OK with using Virtual PC and Ethernet for the time being.

> Empeg should have released it early on

Well whatever the argument there, we don't do time travel.

> One thing to keep in mind, Rob, is that you have customers

I know, I'm responsible for Customer Services, and I don't think we do a bad job. I get to sell to clients whatever our R&D team develop, and right now I'm selling stop-gap Mac and Linux solutions. I think we've been above board about this, to the extent of (when we shipped Mark 1 players) advising Mac clients not to buy unless they had access to a Windows machine.

I don't think we misled anyone - I know that's not what you're saying, but unless we had done so I don't think there's an issue for complaint. I think there's a Wishlist issue, but this is getting a bit stronger than "What we'd like is..."

> empeg Mac users would send you back the completed work

It's VERY unlikely it will be that straight forward - some technical support will be required. I fully agree that a little tech support in return for Mac software would represent excellent value for money, but right now none of our developers are able or willing to provide that time and effort. At risk of further inflaming the thread, yes, we do have more important things to do right now. We have a to-do list for all empeg car tasks (that we have thought of to date), everything is prioritised, everything will happen in an order that has been decided. When the list was drawn up we had not anticipated the enormous success of our OEM business and we are behind the schedule that we had determined. Nonetheless, everything will get done, and getting the synch libraries finalised, cleaned up, documented and released is one of those tasks.

Regards

Rob

> $ tar -czvf emplode-src.tgz ./src/emplode
> $ cp emplode-src.tgz /home/ftp/pub/sources/emplode-windows/.

You must be joking - it's full of proprietry OEM stuff that we can't even hint about let alone release. We're not kidding when we say the source needs work before we can supply it!

Rob

> I have the impression that the whole situation left 'a bad taste' with the
> empeg folk.

For the record, we're fully supportive of the GPL and open source obligations. The issue might have been resolved a little quicker had Debian made available the source to the version of the binaries we distribute (yep, they were in contravention of the GPL - I guess everyone makes mistakes!).

Rob

I guess everyone makes mistakes!

Too True! :)

One think people here need to realize is empeg is a business, and they need to make money to survive. At this point, they have only shipped a handful of players to people who understood it only came with support for Windows, and a simple Linux tool. They have invested a good chunk of change into the new Mark II and other products that have not earned enough to pay for themselves. Yes, they are saying "We will support other platforms later" for a very good reason. If they sit down and start work on even the base for getting a non Windows tool out, they will loose time better invested in making sure they don't go out of business by the end of this year. Personally, no matter what side of the fence I was on, I would not be bothering them this much at this point. They have said support was coming, and never deceived any existing clients. Beyond that, there is not much that can be said.

Douglas Adams is a die hard Mac supporter, but when it came down to making his game "Starship Titanic", he had to either release it for Windows first and wait for returns to make a Mac version, or never make a game. Empeg is in a similar position, and people need to respect that, or watch the company either die, or go to a no public-product method.

Also, the fact that Rob is having to drop out of customer support mode to participate in this fourm should be a clue to stand down for now.

Once again, no one is asking for empeg to spend one minute working on a mac version of emplode at this time. We are just looking for something to get us started writing our own.

I respect Rob and appreciate the fact that his postings here are not as a official representative of Empeg. I am not sure however, that the average reader of this board understands that. I also do not know how he would respond to the same query placed through official channels (support@empeg.com). This is why I decided to post my original response re: customer service.

I am not trying to press empeg too hard at this point. I am primarily trying to evaluate my options. Do I wait for empeg to release something, do I attempt to reverse engineer the protocals with etherpeek or a similar tool, do I look for another mp3 player that will better suit my needs, do I wait for someone else to write something? I don't have an empeg yet, and before I drop $2k on one I do not think that it is unreasonable to ask when the already promised sync source code will be available.

If anyone at empeg thinks I am being an a**hole about this please tell me and I will not waste anymore of their time with this discussion (I will continue to evaluate my options privately). If anyone at empeg wants to publicaly state when the already promised source will be available that is fine too. My only gripe is that 'whenever it is ready' is really not a very good answer. If Rob sent you a letter saying they would like you to pay for your empeg now and that they will ship it to you 'whenever it is ready' how would you respond?

-Mike

OK, official response.

"Q. What support is there for the Mac, or for Linux?"

"A. We do not currently support the Mac directly, however the Windows software will run under Virtual PC using an Ethernet connection to the car player. You may need access to a Windows PC for loading software updates onto the player, although we are working on a way to do this over Ethernet. We do hope to provide native Mac software in the future, but we cannot offer any specific time frame for this at the moment.

We supply a command line tool for Linux, currently as an i386 binary. It is intended that source code for this tool will be released in the near future to facilitate building for other hardware platforms."

Rob

Arghhh, (mcomb smacks forhead with palm of hand).

I have to do this, you understand right?


"Q. What support is there for the Mac, or for Linux?"

"A. We do not currently support the Mac directly, however we are currently working with some outside developers (enthusiastic clients really) to provide an open sourced alternative that will allow synchronization on a wider variety of platforms. We expect that this partnership will produce a variety of syncronization tools some of which have timed their initial release dates to correspond with the widespread availability of the MarkII player later this summer."


I am going to try my best to make that the last message I post on this subject seeing as we don't seem to be getting anywhere.

-Mike

"give us what's there, as-is"... that requires NO extra effort other than the act of creating a tarball

It's now pretty obvious you have not been reading the posts related to this issue around this BBS; Mike, Hugo and Rob have all stated at various times that the existing sources are closely coupled to protected proprietary sources, including class libs within the player source, which they cannot release due to NDA agreements with their OEM clients. They will not release the player under any open source license (as you should quite clearly remember, given it was you who started a similar pressure thread to release the player source last year), so how can they possibly release close-coupled class sources before they have been detached? Since they do not have the man power to do this, and are balancing their development resources (even taking on extra people to do this better) then there is nothing more to be done than just wait, and be patient.

This is just commercial reality, and I fail to see why you cannot see/understand this.

I personally regard this waiting-for-food approach as half the fun of the empeg - I see it as a long term hobby with a continuous feed of changes to keep it interesting over the next few years, not just this week. Much better than a fire-hose blast in the mouth of everything at once leaving you with nothing more to come and a hangover.

If you are so desperate, why don't you use the GNU librarian to unpick the Linux binary into seperate objects, then diss them to carry out an analysis of the code? Given the source was compiled under GNU, the compiler and library version numbers will be embedded in the binary, and that there are several re-constructor utilities such as ReWorkz that will let you get some thing close to the original source code (with some errors, admittedly), surely this will give you something interesting to do at the weekends?

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

You asked what my official response would be if you emailed info@empeg.com - I gave it to you!

You can ask for a specific date a hundred times, but it doesn't mean we're going to give you one!

Rob

Would you mind giving a date/status for the production of the rest of the 1000-patch? Maybe something like "next week" or "in two weeks" or even better "tomorrow" ?

TeeMcBee

dude, teemcbee, what's with these completely-unrelated-to-the-current-thread posts?

Anyway, I'm definitely siding with rob on this one. I can't believe that you won't understand the situation they're in.

FACT: They are busy (and not even biz-ay) trying to release a major product that will really start their company growth. Do you think they made so much money on the Mark I's that they can afford to focus on anything else?

FACT: They can't release the code as-is, for reasons that countless people have explained here.

No, I'm not a Mac or Linux user, so I'm obviously covered. I'm also pretty sure that most of the people who ordered the new players are Windows users. That's just the way the world is. Even if half the people on this board were to reply as MacOS or Linux users, that still doesn't account for all those people who don't post here, and there's alot of them. Do you think that they won't be able to sell all their initial Mark II's because there's no Mac support?


Basically what it all comes down to is patience. It's a virtue. Heck, it seems like I've been on so many waiting lists this year. I waited 2 or more months for my PC speakers, I waited another 2 months for my new car, and now I've been waiting for this one around 5 months! Just be patient and wait until they are able to direct their focus on other things.

I'll say this. The first to things I've been waiting for have arrived, and they kick ass...

DiGNAN

I know it was not really fitting to the posts but it was fitting to rob's answer what the guys@empeg wantet to give and what not.
Please excuse me disturbing... But I'm so very nervous about getting a Mk2 and the better I know the date the less I burn myself while lighting a cigarrette.

TeeMcBee

What you fail to realise is that, if emplode is talking to the empeg via ethernet, then the empeg is now a black box. You don't need to know anything about the player, you just need to know how emplode BEHAVES.

Second, get your facts straight. The thread I started last year was that they needed -- by law -- to release whatever code they were using which was covered under the GPL. I may have suggested that it would be nice for the player itself to be open sourced, but I can totally understand it NOT being open soure.

As for the "waiting for food" approach as you put it... that's YOU. Some of us are simple consumers here and merely want to have the same level of support as other platforms. Many of us have indicated we'd CREATE the support for the other platforms, but that requires a little assistance from Empeg... for a company that doesn't claim to have time to do anything, they're awfully funny about turning away volunteering to do their work FOR them.

As for reverse-engineering it. Thank you, no. Right now, reverse engineering the Empeg communications protocol is like reverse engineering something from Microsoft... its completely subject to change and you won't even be told WHAT's changing, it'll just break ... no thanks.

D

In reply to:

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Some of us are simple consumers here and merely want to have the same level of support as other platforms.

---

Why do you press and punish empeg for something that they don't HAVE to do? They have fulfilled their obligation to release the GPL'd code already. The rest is their own and they can do with it however the hell they want.

I'd fair say that the community has gotten far more than empeg has really HAD to do. You aren't in any position to demand anything. If you think you can do it better, well, as you put it... "that's YOU". This is empeg's baby and they'll run the show however they like it.

I think it is gracious of them to even consider open sourcing this in the first place. In the market of car stereo's this is the first that you even have a chance at getting dirty with. Now stop whining before they change their minds.

Kureg

In reply to:

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Why do you press and punish empeg for something that they don't HAVE to do? They have fulfilled their obligation to release the GPL'd code already. The rest is their own and they can do with it however the hell they want.

---

This isn't about open source at all... go back, re-read what I've said on this topic. I'd agree to sign an NDA to help develop cross-platform tools, I've said that already.

To put it bluntly: I don't care about open source on this topic, I care about it being able to work on my platform without me having to keep a Windows machine hanging around my house taking up space SOLELY for the purpose of talking to my Empeg (which is really the way it currently is).

In reply to:

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You aren't in any position to demand anything. If you think you can do it better, well, as you put it... "that's YOU". This is empeg's baby and they'll run the show however they like it

---

First off, I haven't "demanded" anything. I've asked, I've questioned the logic of NOT letting empeg customers do empeg's work for them. Yes, this is "empeg's show", but let's not forget that Empeg DOESN'T want to just retreat into a "this is our way, bite us!" shell... a certain Redmond-based company has that mindset and it doesn't set well with the consumers.

I won't even address your third paragraph because it falls back to the same ill-conceived notions of the first. I don't necessarily want the code open-sourced, but if you have people who are saying "give me the work, I'll do it for free", and they're willing to sign the necessary paperwork so that you can give them the source code legally and still within your closed-source business model, then you frankly have to be an idiot NOT to let someone take things off your plate.

D

In reply to:

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What you fail to realise is that, if emplode is talking to the empeg via ethernet, then the empeg is now a black box. You don't need to know anything about the player, you just need to know how emplode BEHAVES.

---

I agree that the empeg is a black box, and you could produce a tool if you know how emptool / emplode behaves etc...

However (and I speculate at this point) I've written a few messaging protocols, and you normally use the same library code at both ends (less work, right) which abstracts the protocol.
empeg have specific stuff in the protocol code (or emptool code, I don't know) that they can't release at this time, so they have to spend effort to clean that up...
That effort is probably less than documenting how emptool / emplode behaves at a low level (because using protocol objects both ends removes the need to document the actual protocol to the detail you would need to create a compatible tool.)

Anyway, as I said, that is speculation... We know empeg are very busy, and if cleaning up the code for release is going to be done, and documenting the protocol isn't, then you'll have to wait for the code...

Jazz
(List 112, Mk2 12 gig #40. Mk1 for sale 4 gig #30, apply within)

As has repeatedly been said... I'm sure if the Empeg folks mentioned it as a possibility, that people would be willing to sign NDA's to gain access to the current source, to do the reverse-engineering.

That alleviates the "proprietary code" problem, the "code cleanup" problem, and the "no time for Empeg folks to work on it" problem.

What problems remain?

D

In reply to:

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I don't necessarily want the code open-sourced, but if you have people who are saying "give me the work, I'll do it for free", and they're willing to sign the necessary paperwork so that you can give them the source code legally and still within your closed-source business model, then you frankly have to be an idiot NOT to let someone take things off your plate.

---

I don't know. I've been in the software development business long enough to know that this is often not "good business" sense. And go to just about any other software development company out there. They'll say the same thing. That's not how businesses work. Yes, they like they're customers, but in a world with billions of people, it is accepted that you can't make EVERYONE happy, and that sometimes other things are more important.

They are running the show as a business. There are other things they have to take into account. Let them run the show they want to run it. They've given their answer, and I think it's safe to say that nothing will change their minds. Constant nagging will probably change their minds.... but in a negative way!

I for one am very excited about the empeg. This may sound mean, but I don't want people in the minority whining to the point where it may ruin my experience (or potential thereof). This is truely a remarkable product. They may not have all the bases covered, but they also don't have the long-life business experience to cover all the bases anyway (economically speaking).

Kureg

In reply to:

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What problems remain?

---

I'd say the "NDA or no NDA... disclosing this information to a complete stranger with no displayed credentials is a bad thing" problem. Why don't you just apply for a job with empeg, supply them a complete resume and credentials... tell them you'll work for free.

Just for a second, lets just drop the technical side of this argument. This is a business we're talking about. To a complete stranger, what's an NDA? If you for a moment slip the code out to a friend, the potential magnitute of disruption to empeg's viable revenue is hard to predict let alone compensate. Would they sue you? How much can they take from you? Would it be the same as the amount the hard to predict financial losses from indiscrete disclosure of intellectual property?

It is just not good business sense to trust a complete stranger... NDA or no NDA.

And now take into account the investors... and the OEM contracts. How would empeg's reputation hold in their other commitments with knowledge of this kind of "stranger association"?

There are a lot of business factors involved. Maybe it's not all that bad.

At the same time, is it really worth it for them to take that chance? Do they have the time to think of all the possible outcomes? Do they have the time to worry about the NDA and stranger relationship?

I just can't see it being as easy as signing a piece of paper and saying, "good luck and have fun".

Kureg

Edited by Kureg on 10/7/00 05:39 PM.

In reply to:

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I've been in the software development business long enough to know that this is often not "good business" sense.

---

Can you cite, specifically, what the problem is? You have a customer who CANNOT do anything with the source code you've given him and maybe can't even release the code he writes except through you (depends on how restrictive the NDA is), the customer is willing to do that for free and without any support from you except for keeping his codebase current (a fair and easy thing to do).

In reply to:

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They are running the show as a business. There are other things they have to take into account. Let them run the show they want to run it. They've given their answer, and I think it's safe to say that nothing will change their minds. Constant nagging will probably change their minds.... but in a negative way!

---

You can't have it both ways. If they're running the show as a business, then they'll be professional at all times and "someone's nagging" would not change their business model. There have been a number of times where things which seemed fairly firm got changed mainly through constructive criticism and vocal objection by the masses. (the most recent example of this is the ISO plug-to-wires deal).

In reply to:

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There have been a number of times where things which seemed fairly firm got changed mainly through constructive criticism and vocal objection by the masses. (the most recent example of this is the ISO plug-to-wires deal).

---

True, but I'm not convinced that continuing this argument in this fashion is constructive. Afterall, empeg has said that they want to provide support for the empeg. It isn't as if they said "screw you". They have their own internal solution for the problem. It may not be one you like, but they aren't ignoring the issue. It just isn't a high priority.

Truthfully, the ISO plug-to-wires deal will more likely have a bigger impact on customers than the "MacOS" issue right now (AFIAK).

Kureg

In reply to:

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To a complete stranger, what's an NDA?

---

A legally binding contract, one with penalties for breaking.

In reply to:

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If you for a moment slip the code out to a friend, the potential magnitute of disruption to empeg's viable revenue is hard to predict let alone compensate. Would they sue you? How much can they take from you? Would it be the same as the amount the hard to predict financial losses from indiscrete disclosure of intellectual property?

---

They would (should) sue, for copious amounts of cash (8-9 digits mininum) and kick my said ass around the planet. That's what NDA's are for, and that's why very rarely are they broken.

The issue has always been that the current Empeg solution is the "wait and see" method Mac users are used to "its coming... its coming... ah, we were wrong, screw it, you lose". Even despite many offers to do the work for them.

I've practically given up, to be honest. I'm not holding my breath for a Mac version, because Rob's attitude towards the mac users tends to lean towards "ah, there's six of you, we'll get to you when we've absolutely nothing else to do" (paraphrased to be sure, but that's the way one of his other messages came across)

I'm just growing accustomed now to having to spend and extra couple hundred dollars on windows-emulation software for my mac so that my mac can talk to the empeg via the emulator (albeit significantly slower), since I don't see any native support forthcoming any time soon.

D

Don't waste your time arguing this thread. We can't give you an NDA because WE are under NDA ourselves.

By the time we strip out references to the stuff that you're not supposed to know about, the code will be ready for release anyway.

And now, I'm retiring from this thread! If anyone wants to start a thread on how best to get revenge on US Customs agents, I'll gladly join in that one.

Rob

In reply to:

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I'm just growing accustomed now to having to spend and extra couple hundred dollars on windows-emulation software for my mac so that my mac can talk to the empeg via the emulator (albeit significantly slower), since I don't see any native support forthcoming any time soon.

---

I'll have to admit, I'd put money on you seeing the code before they developed the Mac side themselves. And I do agree that the question is when? It does make a big purchasing difference to know that by the time the source code does open up will the player be obsolete or not .

Kureg

In reply to:

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They would (should) sue, for copious amounts of cash (8-9 digits mininum) and kick my said ass around the planet. That's what NDA's are for, and that's why very rarely are they broken.

---

Except that you might only have $100 bucks + maybe $50000 in assets. So they drain you for $50100 and you declare bankruptcy. Maybe end up in jail.

empeg still gets screwed in the end, since $50100 is only 5 digits, not 8 or 9. That's why I said "NDA to a complete stranger". NDA's work great for beta-testing... that's a substantially lower risk. NDA's and source code usually only happen between full-fledged businesses, not with strangers.

Kureg

One other thing is that we don't have a ready NDA suitable for code release. This would require time/money & our lawyer to be involved (who is plenty busy on other things we throw his way). No, we won't take someone else's NDA without (I'm sure) several changes and legal advice on how well worded it was.

The code will be released once we have removed the dependencies in the build.

Hugo

..or you could buy a cheapy 2nd hand P75 for about 20 quid (max) and use that, which would be a lot cheaper.

Lord, why have you deserted us in our hour of need?

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

Don't waste your time arguing this thread. We can't give you an NDA because WE are under NDA ourselves.

Hehe, it's like a rumor. "soandso told me this, but I can't tell you because I promised I wouldn't". The problems, as we've seen in almost every teen-flick, arise when this is followed by "okay, as long as you swear not to tell anyone else..."

You know what I mean.

Now quit yer bitchin' and be patient. Blame Steve Jobs for not liscensing their stuff to 3rd parties way back when (thanks BETA).

DiGNAN

That takes up room. I've already got a P2-400 that takes up too much space and I'm probably moving to my cube at the office just to get it off my desk @ home. Keeping a second computer around just to talk to a car stereo is a bit much... thankfully with ethernet I don't have to do that anymore, now it would be nice if I could make the support mac-native.

D

Hey, I'll be the moderator.
Who wants to go on a trip to Memphis?

-Wishing my Mark2 hadn't got stuck in customs.

I should have my head examined for jumping into this silly little spat... but what the hell, it's a slow day at the office.

Let's assume for one minute that Rob, and Mac, and Hugo, and John, and all the rest suddenly have an epiphany. "Doh!", Hugo says. "I see what Derek has been driving at. Maybe Windows isn't the greatest operating system of all time after all. Let's just send him our source code and let him do all the work for us. What a great idea."

Well, even if Rob and Mac and John and all the rest agree with him, think it is the best idea since the invention of MP3, they CAN'T do it because they have signed an NDA. That means they can't disclose the software libraries. Period. Not to anyone, not to someone who promises not to disclose it to anyone else, not even to a nice guy like Derek Balling. Try going to the people whose software empeg has agreed not to disclose, and see if they will disclose their source code to you. LOL.

That takes up room. I've already got a P2-400 that takes up too much space...

Are you telling us that you already have a Windows computer that can talk to the empeg, and that all this... this.... discussion (to put it politely) is not because you won't be able to send the occasional software update to an empeg, but because you'd rather use your onion... no, cabbage... no, rutabaga... Oh! Got it! ...your Apple to do it instead?

insert flame war from ravening hordes of Macintosh fanatics here.....

If space is that big a problem.... right this minute ebay has more than 300 laptop computers with high bids under $200, some less than $100. If you spent the amount of time it would take you to port empeg's software over to a Macintosh platform and debug it, even given the source code, you'd be better off getting a part-time job at McDonalds making hamburgers and using the money to buy one of those laptops instead.

Reading over this post, I can see it has somewhat of a spiteful tone. I dont mean it that way at all, Derek. I'm not mad or annoyed or upset at anybody. In fact, quite the opposite -- amused would best describe my feelings towards this whole thing. Above all, I don't want to start a flame war here -- in fact, I was hoping to maybe inject a little reason into the discussion and maybe keep one from starting!

I'm sorry you won't have native Macintosh support for your software updates in the immediate future -- but since you don't even have your empeg yet (is that right? I'm trying to remember...) that hardly seems to be an immediate problem. In any case, there are lots of solutions to that problem that don't involve making empeg Inc. change their business plan!

tanstaafl.










"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Since this appears to be winding down....

In reply to:

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they CAN'T do it because they have signed an NDA

---

Their NDA probably covers themselves and their contractors. Fine, they can cut me (or anyone else) a check for one pound, and I'm now a paid contractor covered by their internal NDA. (admittedly, I've never seen their NDA, but if it limits them to internal, the "employees and contractors" language is fairly common).

In reply to:

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all this... this.... discussion (to put it politely) is not because you won't be able to send the occasional software update to an empeg, but because you'd rather use your onion... no, cabbage... no, rutabaga... Oh! Got it! ...your Apple to do it instead?

---

Yes, because the MP3's I own all sit on the DVD-RAM discs that my Mac will happily read but which my windows machine won't read for [censored]. Now since the naming conventions on a mac differ from that of the windows machine, getting the long-filenames back and forth between the two units is a bit of a nightmare, and "one-box" support would be VERY nice, thankyouverymuch.

In reply to:

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but since you don't even have your empeg yet...

---

Actually, I own two...Mk.I # 249, Mk.II # 25 ....

I wasn't trying to start a flame-war either, it just amazes me the amount of people whose response to the mere possibility that someone was unhappy with some aspect of the Empeg was to tell them to "stop whining".

I agree that, if the NDA Empeg signed literally forbids contractors from seeing the code, then everyone is screwed (although it is fairly easily gotten around... becoming an extremely-low-salaried person is always a possibility ) My contention was always "there's got to be a better way to do this that let's the masses who are willing to do the work for free.. do the work for free." The reactions to that possibility ranged from people claiming I was an open-source-zealot (which was funny because I didn't care what the license was, just the availability of working code ) to people claiming I wanted to change Empeg's whole business model (which couldn't be farther from the truth).

It was a bit of a sad commentary on the people how quick they were to jump all over me for suggesting the mere possibility that "there might be other ways to do something."

*sigh*

D

Let's assume for one minute that Rob, and Mac, and Hugo, and John, and all the rest suddenly have an epiphany. ... Maybe Windows isn't the greatest operating system of all time after all.

I don't think there's any of us here that think that Windows is the greatest operating system of the last second, let alone all time.

insert flame war from ravening hordes of Macintosh fanatics here.....

// gives tanstaafl a very dirty look...



--
David
// I'm probably not speaking on behalf of empeg here...

Very nicely said, Derek. No arguments or rebuttals here.

Of course, not much sympathy either because I am not a Macintosh user. (I've never liked Macs because since they're different from what I'm used to, they can't be any good, right?)

Actually, I own two...Mk.I # 249, Mk.II # 25 ....

Oops. . I got you confused with mccomb who started this whole furball of a thread. Sorry...

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

By the time we strip out references to the stuff that you're not supposed to know about, the code will be ready for release anyway..
You made that point a long long time ago

I'm retiring from this thread!
Thanks. It wasn't leading anywhere, anyhow

And now, If anyone wants to start a thread on how best to get revenge on US Customs agents, I'll gladly join in that one.
Send them a NDA, maybe . . . .

Henno
mk2 nr 6

Relax, my child, I am here.

My attention was distracted, but only for a moment. I posted the gospel onto a Presbyterian web board, and some butthole thought he would spread the word by replicating my intellectual property through a gateway to an e-mail list. I paid geekboy a visit and fragmented his community, if you know what I mean.

But I am back now, and I can sit here and watch and wait, and think about the fact that Hugo still has not gotten to my queue number. I can only pass so many days on Napster downloading Handel tunes, you understand. My patience is wearing thin.

Jesus Christ
Queue #9666, Mark 2:7

P.S. Come on, I'm the son of God here. Surely I deserve a loftier title than 'stranger'?

No, I'm not a Mac or Linux user, so I'm obviously covered.

I am Linux user, but I still 'side' with Rob here (perhaps because I kind of know what it looks like to make, release and support software products...)

I appreciate willingness of some people here to put in some effort and write MacEmptool themselves. I would also like to play with that on my Linux (perhaps making something to synchronize empeg and my local playlists or whatever). However, reasons Rob states for delaying sync code release are not mere excuses, and I would realy like people here to realize that. Further, when guys@empeg don't know when they will able to do something, they say so, instead of inventing a date to placate requester, as everybody else does. I have never encountered company as open with its clients as empeg (including, perhaps, even mine ), and would really not like to induce them to change.

I would also like to ask fellow board members to stop writing annoying 'I will reconsider my options' in, so to speak, 'threatening mode'. Of course we are considering our options all the time, whether we shout that or not.

All this said, I still do think that empeg would benefit from a bit of open sourcing, but it has been covered before; this is their product and their decission.

Cheers!


Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
#5196

for suggesting the mere possibility...

Wow, I certainly wouldn't like to be around when you insist on something, D!

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
#5196

>Relax, my child, I am here.

As am I. Registered user #666, too, if I got my timing right.

Beelzebub.
(Enough of this flaming, please :)

I apologise if I am repeating anything that has already been said. I haven't read the whole thread since as most people can imagine there are more important things to do.


$ tar -czvf emplode-src.tgz ./src/emplode
$ cp emplode-src.tgz /home/ftp/pub/sources/emplode-windows/.


Yep. But /home/ftp is behind our firewall so it won't help. I'm also sure that absolutely everyone in our development team is quite capable of working out the correct tar parameters.

The situation is far more complex that that. There is a lot of shared code between all our projects and we can legally only release some parts of it. Hence, last summer we split the libraries into ones we could release and ones we couldn't and made sure that emptool had no dependencies on the ones we couldn't. Since then the waters have got considerably more murky.

There are also non-technical problems such as licensing to consider.

Anyway, Peter has been looking at this and something may now happen sooner rather than later.


--
Mike Crowe
I may not be speaking on behalf of empeg above :-)

"Anyway, Peter has been looking at this and something may now happen sooner rather than later."

Thanks mac,

I kinda regret starting this thread since it did not answer my question (timeframe) or head in the direction I really wanted it to (head count of people interested in MacEmptool), but I am glad to here someone at Empeg is at least thinking about what to do with the source.

-Mike