The Media Portal Project has lost Smirnuff (1 Viewer)

[SteveV]

Very sad

 

[tklon]

1. :shock:
2.

 

[infinite.loop]

.....the part that really pisses me off is that there will be people who are going to feel bitter and jaded that their requests probably won't get answered now. They feel that they should have their copy of MP customized to THEIR exact needs and want every little request that their pathetic minds can come up with, implemented in MP because if they want it, it's got to be important!

I can't count how many times I've seen people get warned not to "harass the developers" with their requests, yet it continues and I don't blame Smirnoff one bit for finally having enough.

you hit the nerve!

i understand that its hard for the users to wait months or even a year to get the feature they would like to have (if its worth the work and fits into the project).
BUT every user should be aware that this is a opensource project.
this means that there is not a team of programmers working on it 8hours per day.

this fact makes the efforts of the developers even more impressive. because when you read one of the latest comparing tests between Media Portal, WinXPMCE2005, TVCentral and all the others.
Media Portal is always getting the highest ratings!
only contra is the stability. but we know that the developers are working on it for 0.2.

If you want someting, say it once and say it nice!
STOP WHINING!

 

[stefpet]

I'm rather new to MediaPortal and it's community. I've just recently started to build my HTPC and I've been looking at everything from MCE, Beyond to Meedio and MediaPortal. I've decided to go with MediaPortal, mostly because it looks very good, it has the bling but most importantly it is open-source so I as a developer may contribute in general but also being able to add features myself that I see I want.

So, I'm new to the MediaPortal community so I'm not sure of all history and everything. With that said I must say the situation with "ungrateful whining users" is unfortunately all to common and exist in nearly all projects (open source or not). I've been developing an application (unrelated to this) for the past 7 years, and I now the feeling. Some time the motiviation really disappears when you work hard but there are still people complaining that the new release didn't include "their" feature, etc.

So my point is, we need to come up with a solution to deal with this, because the problem isn't going away.

When browsing the forums I've noticed there are some dedicated users, who may not be developers themselves, but they do contribute a lot to MediaPortal by being active in the forum. These users are really valuable! And they may do even more.

One thing is to improve communication to minimize "when is it going to be released?" question. Put a roadmap for everyone to see on the frontpage of the website - and keep it updated. Be restrictive with dates (if any). That's one little thing...

The most important thing, I think, is to start some kind of support team (preferably by those existing dedicated forum users) that may handle - and filter before it is reaching the developers - many of the forum postings. Being everything from bug reports and feature requests, thus releaving the developers both from the time but most importantly from dealing with the whining.

Maybe some of these things are already in place, I'm not sure.

Another thing may be to try to structure up the documentation/FAQ (also something not requiring programming knowledge). At least as a new user it seems like quite a mess with some part in the forum, some in the wiki, some on the web. Some outdated, some new. All under different domains so you never know what is official and not. Maybe doing that may ease up the flood even more.

And may it has to be communicated even more, if you need a feature or a change. Do it yourself or get a developer friend to do it for you - that's the power of open-source (and additionally you are contributing to the project).

Maybe even arrange bounties (somewhat like Google's Summer of Code), if someone really needs a feature he might sponsor the feature request with an amount of money (whatever he think it is worth). Then the person implementing the feature receives the money. This may motivate existing developers but also attract outside developers to contribute.

Well, well... maybe I'm just ranting and sad to see a knowledgable developer to go...

 

[LordMessi]

I'm rather new to MediaPortal and it's community. I've just recently started to build my HTPC and I've been looking at everything from MCE, Beyond to Meedio and MediaPortal. I've decided to go with MediaPortal, mostly because it looks very good, it has the bling but most importantly it is open-source so I as a developer may contribute in general but also being able to add features myself that I see I want.

Welcome aboard - Yes, this is one of the main strong features in MediaPortal.

So, I'm new to the MediaPortal community so I'm not sure of all history and everything. With that said I must say the situation with "ungrateful whining users" is unfortunately all to common and exist in nearly all projects (open source or not). I've been developing an application (unrelated to this) for the past 7 years, and I now the feeling. Some time the motiviation really disappears when you work hard but there are still people complaining that the new release didn't include "their" feature, etc.

So my point is, we need to come up with a solution to deal with this, because the problem isn't going away.

When browsing the forums I've noticed there are some dedicated users, who may not be developers themselves, but they do contribute a lot to MediaPortal by being active in the forum. These users are really valuable! And they may do even more.

One thing is to improve communication to minimize "when is it going to be released?" question. Put a roadmap for everyone to see on the frontpage of the website - and keep it updated. Be restrictive with dates (if any). That's one little thing...

The most important thing, I think, is to start some kind of support team (preferably by those existing dedicated forum users) that may handle - and filter before it is reaching the developers - many of the forum postings. Being everything from bug reports and feature requests, thus releaving the developers both from the time but most importantly from dealing with the whining.

Maybe some of these things are already in place, I'm not sure.

Another thing may be to try to structure up the documentation/FAQ (also something not requiring programming knowledge). At least as a new user it seems like quite a mess with some part in the forum, some in the wiki, some on the web. Some outdated, some new. All under different domains so you never know what is official and not. Maybe doing that may ease up the flood even more.

And may it has to be communicated even more, if you need a feature or a change. Do it yourself or get a developer friend to do it for you - that's the power of open-source (and additionally you are contributing to the project).

Maybe even arrange bounties (somewhat like Google's Summer of Code), if someone really needs a feature he might sponsor the feature request with an amount of money (whatever he think it is worth). Then the person implementing the feature receives the money. This may motivate existing developers but also attract outside developers to contribute.

Well, well... maybe I'm just ranting and sad to see a knowledgable developer to go...

It's always nice, when someone comes around and says something usefull (not that I'm saying what ISN'T usefull). People tend to talk more then they do - and people are talking alot....

The problem is - yeah, it's nice ideas u've got. But we can't do all on our own - we need help. Mostly documentation and development help is needed - so my question to you is:

In what capacity would you like to assist ?

 

[stefpet]

The problem is - yeah, it's nice ideas u've got. But we can't do all on our own - we need help. Mostly documentation and development help is needed - so my question to you is:

In what capacity would you like to assist?

I understand why you are asking, yes, I did a lot of talking in that post...

Since you are asking, let me outline my own little personal plan (although it may be a little OT)... As I mentioned, I'm just about to build my first dedicated HTPC (I've been building my own computers for long, just not an HTPC). And my software of choice after a lot of testing is MediaPortal. I hope to have everything up and running during the christmas holiday.

I have no previous experience with C#, but I've been programming for the last 15 years (professionally as well as a hobby) so I assume I'll be able to pick it up rather easily. To get started I intend to do something small following the plugin development guide, just to get a feel of how MP is structured.

Since I'm a developer (mainly Java and Delphi (and PHP/MySQL stuff for web development). But even some C++ and assembler) and like to tweak as well as improve things, I intend to run the latest CVS version, and whenever I stumble upon things I'd like to see fixed or added, I hope I will be able to do that myself and contribute. Initially only small things until I feel confident of how MP is architectured and what is expected.

I hope I will get the time to actually do this, so it's not just talking and whishful thinking from me. I've got my own personal project that will still be my main thing, and I've got a daughter and family, as well as I'm now also fulltime trying to get my M.Sc. in Computer Science. So I've not got the luxery of unlimited sparetime with no idea where to spend it, but none the less, I'm very interested in both learing some C# as well as contributing to MP as a whole.