2021-07-14, 03:35
@DarrenHill, @PatK
Thank you for your answers and the added clarity. I've always appreciated to hear about the team, not just Kodi.
I think we're fast approaching the crux of all things, and while I'm not the best one to identify it I'll try to write about it while I don't mean to offend.
I struggle with this reality, with some of the points made above; especially because they are true. Kodi is all free work. More; Kodi is other people time and effort donated for free. And we ripped the benefits of that for what is close to 2 decades now. For free. Probably a faceless team to most, too often pounded with "when is it ready?" the team kept working all these years. One would have to have a pretty poor character to argue against it.
Maybe you sense a "but" coming. It's not that. I just read the playing field.
A new version of Kodi used to arrive about once a year (official, final releases). Leia took 2 years. Matrix took 2 years. With the Python 3 switch flipped somewhere within the cycle of Leia development, the said migration took... 2-3 years? Not that the implementation of Python 3 took that long but to get all the dependencies migrated, it suddenly showcased how vulnerable Kodi was to the will and timetables of a lot of people from all over, who have no responsibility, implied or otherwise, to keep contributing.
The Kodi skins, probably the most visible aspect of Kodi.... I wanted to write a piece in the skin dev section, but I didn't know how to avoid making it adversarial. It mainly asked one simple question: "Why is it OK to wait a year for a skin to be released?" Me a supporter of the Aeon-flavored skins I know too well how it took much longer for certain releases while others are still in the pipeline after many years. Because life gets in the way. What can be done about that (specifically skinning)? Change the framework they are produced within so it's accessible to more people? (I leave it at that as this is not the main point of discussion; besides my next few words would be anathema around here
)
I'd say the delays are obvious with various causes (and pandemics definitely don't help). I don't have a problem with that. This is the world of Open source. But think about the position that Kodi as a project is in. If this would be a commercial product, this position would be deemed untenable by its management.
Kodi has become too successful, and too important to too many people to continue to be developed on enthusiasm alone.
This may go counter to everything the team believed in (and may still do) when the project started. But this is not 2003 anymore and everybody who was there are a bit older now and all have their own lives to worry about. Users too (and the users are in far greater numbers now). And if somebody was a broke guy in his early 20's back then, he's probably much closer to "take my money and expedite this" now. As a thought, other (unrelated) projects kept their releases free for individual use and had a different, paid license for business use. I just wish that somehow you guys rip more benefits for your work and in turn, it creates more (tangible) interest to contribute.
How many Kodi users are out there? Half a million? 30 million? Many more after all these years? This far exceeds the mechanics and the sustainability of a passion project. It is probably a testament to the strength of Team Kodi that things are moving ahead even under this completely out of whack balance devs vs users. But is this the best way for the future?
Thank you for your answers and the added clarity. I've always appreciated to hear about the team, not just Kodi.
I think we're fast approaching the crux of all things, and while I'm not the best one to identify it I'll try to write about it while I don't mean to offend.
I struggle with this reality, with some of the points made above; especially because they are true. Kodi is all free work. More; Kodi is other people time and effort donated for free. And we ripped the benefits of that for what is close to 2 decades now. For free. Probably a faceless team to most, too often pounded with "when is it ready?" the team kept working all these years. One would have to have a pretty poor character to argue against it.
Maybe you sense a "but" coming. It's not that. I just read the playing field.
A new version of Kodi used to arrive about once a year (official, final releases). Leia took 2 years. Matrix took 2 years. With the Python 3 switch flipped somewhere within the cycle of Leia development, the said migration took... 2-3 years? Not that the implementation of Python 3 took that long but to get all the dependencies migrated, it suddenly showcased how vulnerable Kodi was to the will and timetables of a lot of people from all over, who have no responsibility, implied or otherwise, to keep contributing.
The Kodi skins, probably the most visible aspect of Kodi.... I wanted to write a piece in the skin dev section, but I didn't know how to avoid making it adversarial. It mainly asked one simple question: "Why is it OK to wait a year for a skin to be released?" Me a supporter of the Aeon-flavored skins I know too well how it took much longer for certain releases while others are still in the pipeline after many years. Because life gets in the way. What can be done about that (specifically skinning)? Change the framework they are produced within so it's accessible to more people? (I leave it at that as this is not the main point of discussion; besides my next few words would be anathema around here
)I'd say the delays are obvious with various causes (and pandemics definitely don't help). I don't have a problem with that. This is the world of Open source. But think about the position that Kodi as a project is in. If this would be a commercial product, this position would be deemed untenable by its management.
Kodi has become too successful, and too important to too many people to continue to be developed on enthusiasm alone.
This may go counter to everything the team believed in (and may still do) when the project started. But this is not 2003 anymore and everybody who was there are a bit older now and all have their own lives to worry about. Users too (and the users are in far greater numbers now). And if somebody was a broke guy in his early 20's back then, he's probably much closer to "take my money and expedite this" now. As a thought, other (unrelated) projects kept their releases free for individual use and had a different, paid license for business use. I just wish that somehow you guys rip more benefits for your work and in turn, it creates more (tangible) interest to contribute.
How many Kodi users are out there? Half a million? 30 million? Many more after all these years? This far exceeds the mechanics and the sustainability of a passion project. It is probably a testament to the strength of Team Kodi that things are moving ahead even under this completely out of whack balance devs vs users. But is this the best way for the future?
