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| The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
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1. The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
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| I hope everyone has had a chance to read the blog written by Adrian. Wow, he's paying the salary of a programmer mostly out of his own pocket which comes up to about 500 Euros a month! I think the only way to sustain this sort of development is to do what we did for the hardware for netlabs: set up a fund for donations from us for 6000 Euros for the development to continue for another year. cytan |
| Date: 15 Feb, 2007 on 22:17 |
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2. Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
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| Yes. That is a substantial amount of cash and the number floored me. My hat's off to Adrian. However, from more than one angle, I can see why he stopped ponying up the cash. While WV and UA has shown development over the last year, I can't say that those improvements have kept in sync with the money.Thanks, Adrian, for your significant and generous contribution. I sure hope that both pieces of software continue to be developed. A contributary fund would be nice, but who would do the development now?
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| Date: 16 Feb, 2007 on 02:41 |
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3. Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
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last updated at 16 Feb, 2007 06:34 (1 times) I really don't think the few minor improvements which have been made to warpvision and uniaud over the past year would justify 30 dollars nevermind 6000 euros.. and hell 20,000 you'd have to me smoking crack. This is just another disapointment in what has been a pretty bad year for news regarding OS/2. As I see it, this is pretty much what needs to happen: 1) The current uniaud code should probably be ditched (imho) 2) Working with the alsa code and some of the uniaud base drivers there should be concentration on a build system which would concentrate on maintainability. I'm sure someone can work a patch which could work off the main alsa code tree to support OS/2. Maybe branching off to uniaud was a bit too far, perhaps in the long run what would be best is getting an official branch in alsa (renaming the product to alsa) and while we cannot expect support from other developers atleast we can work to keep our bulds from getting broken by their efforts. Same with Warpvision. It is long known that warpvision is just bits and pieces of many other projects. How about opening it way up and trying to get the unix community cross compiling. Warpvision for Linux.. or whatever. The core system would benefit from it, and they could build a sdl build or something (for OS's which actually have good sdl.. ::cough:: not os/2). I mean.. none of this is anything original, but I think if we could pull it off then we would get enough behind the projects that they could actually move forward. I wouldn 't mind throwing 20 or 30 dollars every month or 2 their way if there was any progress to be made. I pretty much stopped contribuing to wo and warpvision when they basically broke both for my hardware. The newer warpvision builds while they had been baby stepping forward were taking leaps back at the same time (system hangs, lower quality video playback, inability to play videos the older version plays fine.. etc). I just tried out the latest KMP, and with a little improvement this could easily surpass warpvision, it is already playing video files which warpvision cannot.. though the newest build has a problem with some audio streams. It needs a PM interface, and overlay support but it has good quality video playback at 1:1 (better then warpvision) it's scaling it quite bad though. cytan (15 Feb, 2007 22:17): I hope everyone has had a chance to read the blog written by Adrian. Wow, he's paying the salary of a programmer mostly out of his own pocket which comes up to about 500 Euros a month! I think the only way to sustain this sort of development is to do what we did for the hardware for netlabs: set up a fund for donations from us for 6000 Euros for the development to continue for another year.cytan
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| Date: 16 Feb, 2007 on 06:23 |
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4. Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
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| Date: 16 Feb, 2007 on 15:14 |
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5. Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
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| The big disappointment for me, has been the UniAud drivers. There doesn't seem to be any noticeable improvement over time, and bugs remain a-plenty. About the only thing that crashes my system out will be those drivers. I think it started off as a great concept, but has ceased to develop. Too bad there isn't an upcoming replacement or something to give their development a good shot in the arm.
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| Date: 16 Feb, 2007 on 16:36 |
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6. Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
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cytan (15 Feb, 2007 22:17): I hope everyone has had a chance to read the blog written by Adrian. Wow, he's paying the salary of a programmer mostly out of his own pocket which comes up to about 500 Euros a month! I think the only way to sustain this sort of development is to do what we did for the hardware for netlabs: set up a fund for donations from us for 6000 Euros for the development to continue for another year.cytan
I'm grateful to Adrian for doing that. I'm grateful to Vlad for doing the work. But I'm also thinking that if I were to do the work, and I probably could, I'd want about 10x that. And, even with 10x, I still could not afford to buy health insurance. But that's a local US problem. Selling to end users doesn't work. SNAP sold for $39 or something, and the proceeds were able to cover the costs of selling SNAP, but not for developing or maintaining SNAP. They might as well have given it away. Paying Vlad was brilliant, but not maintainable. Someone could make a fund and promote it to pay Vlad some more, but that promotion is a full time job, too. What we need is a model to connect end users who want to pay 50 Euro with developers who want to do the work, but need to pay rent and eat food. The bounty system at OS/2 World is interesting, but won't work to support a developer, unless someone promotes it and raises the amount of the bounties by 10 to 100 times. My best idea is that a promoter at Netlabs could run a fund on a surplus basis. He'd raise money until he was ahead by 6 months to 1 year of salary, then offer contracts for programmers for specific projects. The fund would be run at a high level of transparency, to allow the community to see how their donations fund important new software. It would take about 400 donors of 50 Euro each to reach 20000 Euro. For 20000 Euro, I think we could get a new graphics driver, or support for booting on an Intel Mac. I love having all the source code at NetLabs in SubVersion. I'm now able to browse source code with SmartSVN way more easily that I could with the old NOSA client. It makes it much easier for a developer to look into some of these projects without committing too much time.
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| Date: 16 Feb, 2007 on 16:46 |
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7. Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
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[b]Blonde Guy (16 Feb, 2007 16:46):[/b I'm grateful to Adrian for doing that. I'm grateful to Vlad for doing the work. But I'm also thinking that if I were to do the work, and I probably could, I'd want about 10x that. And, even with 10x, I still could not afford to buy health insurance. But that's a local US problem.
This is by no means a full time job for anyone. It is patching against another organizations code. He wasn't developing uniaud, he was attempting (and I say attempting because few except the actual innotek release actually work right) to make a build of alsa which would work in OS/2. The biggest mistake was trying to make all these "enhancements" the concentration should have been on getting a workable mmpm/dart driver. A direct api for the drivers shouldn't have even been a consideration until a good stable build enviroment had been achieved. Selling to end users doesn't work. SNAP sold for $39 or something, and the proceeds were able to cover the costs of selling SNAP, but not for developing or maintaining SNAP. They might as well have given it away.
Selling to the end user is the market. You don't make software expecting to sell it to system integrators without a good word of mouth from end users. This is moot since warpvision and uniaud weren't being sold to end users. They were open source free software which end users sponsored. I believe there may have been alot more money in the sponsorship of the product had any improvements been seen during its developement. (actually most of the major improvements were made before sponsorship was even possible). I think snap could have been viable with end user sales, however they would have to charge for each time they upgraded. Honestly, if it was 39.99 to get in. and then 20 dollars for each update, I would have gladly bought every update. Or, pull something more out of microsoft's playbook and charge monthly (assuming you want continued support and updates).
Paying Vlad was brilliant, but not maintainable. Someone could make a fund and promote it to pay Vlad some more, but that promotion is a full time job, too.What we need is a model to connect end users who want to pay 50 Euro with developers who want to do the work, but need to pay rent and eat food. The bounty system at OS/2 World is interesting, but won't work to support a developer, unless someone promotes it and raises the amount of the bounties by 10 to 100 times.
This isn't meant to support a developer. This is assuming that someone is willing to work on the software and was going to do this (in their free time) anyway.. and it is basically a prize for accomplishing it. Think of it this way. I write a point of sale system for OS/2. Someone wants a new feature (this has happened) which is on my list of planned updates, and offers me x amount of money to prioritize on it. Now, I was going to do it anyway but now it is more likely to be an emphasis of my work. There is no way the OS/2 community can support full time developers. It couldn't do it 10 years ago and it sure as hell cannot do it today. We need to be more resourceful then that. Certain things it isn't important to re-invent the wheel. We need to find a project (like alsa) make a viable patch against it and let the alsa team do the majority of the work. Warpvision could become a patch against mplayer... I'm sure the mplayer team would even appreciate if the code was entered into the main source tree (they've been asking for that for some time). |
| Date: 16 Feb, 2007 on 17:23 |
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8. Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
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| The other possibility is a subscription service like for the OpenOffice port. I think a streaming video player is important enough that I'm willing to subscribe to this. cytan |
| Date: 16 Feb, 2007 on 21:36 |
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9. Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
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cytan (16 Feb, 2007 21:36): The other possibility is a subscription service like for the OpenOffice port. I think a streaming video player is important enough that I'm willing to subscribe to this.cytan
That would be the same thing as paying monthly =). I too would be willing to pay for it, however if I pay for it I expect it to work alot better then warpvision does. The free players with skyos already work better then warpvision. |
| Date: 16 Feb, 2007 on 23:46 |
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10. Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
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cytan (16 Feb, 2007 21:36): The other possibility is a subscription service like for the OpenOffice port. I think a streaming video player is important enough that I'm willing to subscribe to this.cytan
Get enough 'subscribers' to make it worth it continuing?
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| Date: 17 Feb, 2007 on 00:18 |
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11. Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
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cytan (16 Feb, 2007 21:36): The other possibility is a subscription service like for the OpenOffice port. I think a streaming video player is important enough that I'm willing to subscribe to this.cytan
I too would support this model for funding development on Uniaud and WarpVision. As part of this kind of funding I would expect a well documented project structured to easily leverage code produced by Alsa & Mplayer as posted earlier . Meaningful feature releases and bug fixes would also be expected How do we get started ? |
| Date: 17 Feb, 2007 on 04:22 |
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12. Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
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last updated at 17 Feb, 2007 10:25 (1 times) If you want to contribute some ideas about how the development could be improved, please add them to the wiki pages below. We are not only interested in development related ideas, but also in ideas how this could be funded! What would users request in order do spend money on this, how could this be organized.Universal Audio http://wiki.netlabs.org/index.php/UniAudio_Development WarpVision http://wiki.netlabs.org/index.php/WarpVision_Development If you need an account in the wiki, let me know and I can create one. (supply your desired user name, if you don't want me to guess) Robert |
| Date: 17 Feb, 2007 on 10:21 |
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13. Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
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| Not that my sentiments are generally appreciated but I think I will get onto the wiki. I personally don't ask for anything from uniaud except a stable functional sound driver. I have no cares for advanced api's or removal of mmpm dependencies. That simply isn't practical. Most OS/2 apps NEED mmpm if they have audio and trying to get every app out there rewritten to another standard is pointless. The main goal would be to support all the also supported soundchips and make them ALL work. Warpvision: It has been nearly four years we were told there would be dvd menu support. There needs to be a concentration on native codecs for the major video and audio formats. (these do not need to be mmos2 codecs, they could be in a warpvision format as long as it was documented so other apps could share the codecs). The streaming support needs to be greatly enhanced and some additional development on the mozilla/firefox plugin would be as well. I would pay 120 a year for either one if they could be made to work. 10 dollars per month per user, not baring outside contributions. If I saw radical improvments, I would be willing to sponsor additional units. I think the time for standing by and hoping that someone fills in the gaps are over, if we want to continue using OS/2, we have to offer something up for the developers. Again, going back to my original statement, I am not interested in PAYING a developer for fulltime development, but I wouldn't mind putting money into a system which rewards developers who in their spare time work to fix/fill in the holes in these systems. Warp5 (17 Feb, 2007 10:25): If you want to contribute some ideas about how the development could be improved, please add them to the wiki pages below. We are not only interested in development related ideas, but also in ideas how this could be funded! What would users request in order do spend money on this, how could this be organized.Universal Audio http://wiki.netlabs.org/index.php/UniAudio_Development WarpVision http://wiki.netlabs.org/index.php/WarpVision_Development If you need an account in the wiki, let me know and I can create one. (supply your desired user name, if you don't want me to guess) Robert
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| Date: 17 Feb, 2007 on 19:36 |
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14. Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
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| I generally agree with just about all of Sebadoh's analysis. I just have to emphasize that these events are a step in the right direction. As Blonde Guy pointed out, having the sources in Subversion is really nice. This is a time for UNIAUD's development to take a new direction, both in terms of its design and how the development is organized and funded. It seems Sebadoh has some constructive ideas for this, and I personally would encourage him to contribute to the wiki if possible. This newfound involvement of the larger community is a good thing for UNIAUD and OS/2. My only admonition is to try not to be so harsh when commenting on a developer's work that he has done. Paid or unpaid, developers put their heart into their work, and it is impossible for the end result to be without flaw, both in terms of error and elements of design, including scope and complexity. When the work is public, people can see all the defects, and publicly shoving the developer's nose in them is much more disheartening than you might imagine, and discourages developers as much, if not more than reducing funding. Good work has been done. More narrowly defined objectives will help it do better. Let us heartily thank Adrian and Vlad, and continue on with good cheer. |
| Date: 17 Feb, 2007 on 20:42 |
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15. Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
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Honestly, I don't wish to diminish Valst's work but it has been a long time and (apparently not an insignificant amount of money) and there has been little if any improvement. He has done some great things but it is obvious that no one person alone can work these projects, especially when it isn't their primary focus. I hope that he continues to work on it, and I hope that if this works out he manages to achieve some of the goals and collect money on his work. obiwan (17 Feb, 2007 20:42): I generally agree with just about all of Sebadoh's analysis.I just have to emphasize that these events are a step in the right direction. As Blonde Guy pointed out, having the sources in Subversion is really nice. This is a time for UNIAUD's development to take a new direction, both in terms of its design and how the development is organized and funded. It seems Sebadoh has some constructive ideas for this, and I personally would encourage him to contribute to the wiki if possible. This newfound involvement of the larger community is a good thing for UNIAUD and OS/2. My only admonition is to try not to be so harsh when commenting on a developer's work that he has done. Paid or unpaid, developers put their heart into their work, and it is impossible for the end result to be without flaw, both in terms of error and elements of design, including scope and complexity. When the work is public, people can see all the defects, and publicly shoving the developer's nose in them is much more disheartening than you might imagine, and discourages developers as much, if not more than reducing funding. Good work has been done. More narrowly defined objectives will help it do better. Let us heartily thank Adrian and Vlad, and continue on with good cheer.
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| Date: 18 Feb, 2007 on 05:23 |
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16. Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
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Let me propose the following as a possibility of funding the project: Collect up front $5000 to $6000 for $20 per subscription for 1 year. This means 200 to 300 people must subscribe to this project. Make 5 milestones. Subscribers vote as to whether the milestone has been reached and the programmer is paid $1000 per milestone. I really don't know whether this is actually workable, (because can we actually get 200 to 300 people interested in this?) but this is a start. Comments welcome! cytan |
| Date: 20 Feb, 2007 on 17:52 |
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17. Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
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Sounds like a good plan. It would require getting the word out so they can participate. Perhaps a poll to measure how many would be interested? The subscription price seems reasonable.
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| Date: 20 Feb, 2007 on 19:38 |
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18. Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
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cytan (20 Feb, 2007 17:52): Let me propose the following as a possibility of funding the project: Collect up front $5000 to $6000 for $20 per subscription for 1 year. This means 200 to 300 people must subscribe to this project. Make 5 milestones. Subscribers vote as to whether the milestone has been reached and the programmer is paid $1000 per milestone.
As a user, would you buy the subscription in the current situation? From a user standpoint, I would not, because I have no information about the projects! I would demand at least a list of goals and milestones before I purchase a subscription, what do you think? I would love to be proven wrong, but I don't think that people will throw money at a project without getting comprehensive information first. cytan (20 Feb, 2007 17:52): I really don't know whether this is actually workable, (because can we actually get 200 to 300 people interested in this?) but this is a start. Comments welcome!
As to the actual idea, I think we can get 200 to 300 people, if the conditions are right. If netlabs.org can show a list of well documented milestones, that are attractive for users and maybe even present a developer that would start to work on this right at the moment when the money is available....Robert |
| Date: 21 Feb, 2007 on 09:05 |
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19. Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
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Warp5 (21 Feb, 2007 09:05): [As a user, would you buy the subscription in the current situation? From a user standpoint, I would not, because I have no information about the projects! I would demand at least a list of goals and milestones before I purchase a subscription, what do you think? I would love to be proven wrong, but I don't think that people will throw money at a project without getting comprehensive information first.As to the actual idea, I think we can get 200 to 300 people, if the conditions are right. If netlabs.org can show a list of well documented milestones, that are attractive for users and maybe even present a developer that would start to work on this right at the moment when the money is available.... Robert
I totally agree with this idea, as long as netlabs.org can prepare this milestone document we can by the subscription. Chen. |
| Date: 21 Feb, 2007 on 16:16 |
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20. Re:The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
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Hi all, If Robert (WARP5) or Adrian Gerschwend can post their thoughts here about the proposal, the ball can definitely start rolling.cytan |
| Date: 21 Feb, 2007 on 20:09 |
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| The future of UNIAUD & WarpVision, netlabs.org blog |
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