[Ned Scott]

Looks like the discussion about Koying's "hack" has moved to private quarters... which is good, but bottom line is, agree w/Skank; we all need Koying's efforts in Android in Kodi, whether mainline or fork (would much prefer former though).

+1 for both points, but from my very distant point of view I think FernetMenta is correct to challenge sustainable and long term solutions, so I would use a forked pass-trough solution until v.17 with great satisfaction

This is very true. FM is entirely right to challenge this. If this was an isolated issue then Koying would be frustrated, but not so much that he was considering leaving. However, he has been constantly blocked on several Android fixes by FM, and this is the straw that broke the camel's back. It's not really about this specific issue, but about growing tension.

I think FM and some others feel that Android gets too many "free passes" from the normal rules already. Android has been the source of both success and great frustration for the project, both with code and with the users (the flood of cheap devices, etc). He's worked his ass off to get Kodi's core platforms up to snuff, rewriting major parts of the program. And then here comes Android wanting to change something big during the beta cycle, and that is very frustrating. It feels like being in the shadows even though you are holding the project up.

That's what I speculate is going on from their perspective.

From the other side there is a different perspective. You have Koying and others who are trying to keep up with demand and bringing Android in line with the other platforms. They're struggling against the sometimes-slow evolution of Android, waiting for improved APIs, dealing with poor firmware on many devices and non standard tricks that they use, hoping that Google can unite the platform. He's basically the only Android dev on the team and has everyone looking at him, expecting him to fix things and push the platform forward. In the last year a ton of Android "hacks" have been removed, replaced by code that meets Kodi's platform-agnostic standards.He's trying to keep his head above water.

So here we are, close to v16 release, and something happens. Maybe a Google fix or something, I don't know, but Koying, Martijn, and others feel that they could reasonably add pass through for v16. They know it's not normally allowed, but they've weighed the pros and cons, they've looked at the risks, and the demand from the users, and they think it's worth it. It has enough support in the team to be added, so Koying double downs and gets the code ready.

Due to the frustration that FM felt in the past, he disregards the consideration that Koying and Martijn have done. He feels it is more important to the project to put his foot down, but that also means he's not considering the is wishes of the whole team. This has happened before. Koying only worked on this because he expected FM to respect the decisions made by him and the release manager. FM thinks this is just another Android hack/free pass that needs to be stopped. This is how two reasonable and smart people get locked into a standoff, both feeling ignored by the other.

The actual feature doesn't matter. FM needs to look past frustration and not take it personally, and not look down on Koying or Android. Koying needs to believe that there is a way to work on Kodi without always being blocked, even if passthrough doesn't make it in for v16.

That's my guess. I could be wrong.