[kybernetikos]

One thing you will come to see is that most open-source and free software is always WIP. You need to treat it as such and forget about "releases".

Just use the build(s) you are happy with if you have issues with something.
...
Take it for what it is, great free software.

Of all of the great free software that I use regularly - Firefox, Open Office, VideoLanClient, audacity, anyterm, apache, Eclipse, etc... this is only true of XBMC. The other thing that is only true of XBMC is how likely devs are to get offended at relatively innocuous questions that would be perfectly acceptable elsewhere - just see earlier in this thread for an example.

Now, I love XBMC and am waiting patiently for the release. Creating such a complex system is very impressive, and I understand that it's a volunteer effort, and I'm really grateful for the work you do. I've already donated some money to show my appreciation, and I will donate some more after the release, but do you guys know that you come across as really touchy?

Just because you've created something awesome, doesn't mean that you don't have some things to learn when it comes to interpersonal skills - in fact, the fact that you've created something awesome means people expect you to behave more professionally than people who have just chucked together something neat. Take it as a compliment, or find one of your members who can respond to stupid queries without taking offence and get them to do the posting to this forum.

If you guys don't want to run XBMC like a professional product, with regular releases and timescales and respectful support, etc. then that of course is your right. Just please don't get upset when people who have got used to the fact that most other successful Open Source Projects do run themselves like a professional product are a bit confused about XBMC.

kyb

[pike]

Of all of the great free software that I use regularly - Firefox, Open Office, VideoLanClient, audacity, anyterm, apache, Eclipse, etc... this is only true of XBMC. The other thing that is only true of XBMC is how likely devs are to get offended at relatively innocuous questions that would be perfectly acceptable elsewhere - just see earlier in this thread for an example.

I don't have time to find what your referencing to now, so I'm gonna assume it's plugh's post.
plugh clearly has his own agenda, he wants a stable version today or prefferably yesterday. For what reasons I don't know. Obiosuly we aren't going to fork of from such an old date.

Now, I love XBMC and am waiting patiently for the release. Creating such a complex system is very impressive, and I understand that it's a volunteer effort, and I'm really grateful for the work you do. I've already donated some money to show my appreciation, and I will donate some more after the release, but do you guys know that you come across as really touchy?

I don't frequent the "support channels" for other projects, but I'm VERY doubtful they have what we have (maybe on or two of these, but 3? I doubt it):
1. An IRC channel where you can get live support usually 24/7
2. A relatively uptodate online manual
3. This forum

We get crap on atleast 2 of those all the time, and have no real incentive to stay polite to everyone who knows better than us.

Just because you've created something awesome, doesn't mean that you don't have some things to learn when it comes to interpersonal skills - in fact, the fact that you've created something awesome means people expect you to behave more professionally than people who have just chucked together something neat. Take it as a compliment, or find one of your members who can respond to stupid queries without taking offence and get them to do the posting to this forum.

You may have a point here, but NOONE can take endless amount of crap and not "boil over" one day, especially if they don't get paid to do it.

If you guys don't want to run XBMC like a professional product, with regular releases and timescales and respectful support, etc. then that of course is your right. Just please don't get upset when people who have got used to the fact that most other successful Open Source Projects do run themselves like a professional product are a bit confused about XBMC.

This statement however is a bit too much for me to handle. If you can find several instances when we haven't been polite, show me. Meanwhile, know that part of this "impoliteness" comes from people telling us how to run our project, you can't do that and expect to not get attitude back!

Know that I always strive to be polite (disclaimer: unless someone break the cardinal rules ofcourse)

[kybernetikos]

I don't want to say too much on this topic, because as I hope is obvious I really do think you're an awesome group of people doing an awesome job. It's quite possible that I was a bit harsh in my last message as well.

I really do understand that you guys aren't paid and it must be really annoying to continually have people treat you as if you were, and they have some right to what you provide.

I suppose where I was coming from was that everytime I've seen a post asking what progress has been made, or for an estimate about time for the release, there's been a reaction that made it seem the person was attacking the project. I'm sure they didn't mean that. Some projects do have fairly strict timelines (must be very difficult to work on, since I have enough trouble with that at work!) and such a question would make sense to those projects, so these questions are almost certainly not coming from maliciousness.


They're probably more like the kind of person that I am - people who only upgrade the software on their Xboxes every now and then, are very excited about some of the new cool stuff you guys have put in, and want to know if they should wait for the stable release, or if it's more than 3 months or so away and they should just use a recent build. I used to check the news page on http://www.xboxmediacenter.com, but if that's what you do for news you start feeling pretty starved quite quickly.

Anyway, I'll shut up about this now - I certainly don't want to tell you how to run the project - you've created something great with your process so far. I hope that if I ever forget myself and ask for project status on this forum, you'll all forgive me, and understand where I'm coming from.

kyb