VLC for the new Windows 8 User Experience fundraiser
videolan.org
videolan.org
I think this could become much more common for common big open source projects, i.e. some particular interesting missing feature or redesign which might need anyway some professional designer or so - financed by the community. And if I am interested in the particular feature, I am also very open to spend a bit money there.
Also, by doing separate campaigns for separate features/goals, you could see where the user really is interested in. For example, in this particular feature (a Win8 Metra GUI for VLC), I am not interested at all so I wont really give any money there. But if it would be something which I would like to have, I definitely would.
Maybe there could be an open platform similar to Kickstarter but maybe the users itself could suggest features and obligatory say how much money they would spend. And developers would say on what things they would want to work on. In the end, probably the project maintainers would then decide to start it and select the developers for it.
Or alternatively: People would not determine the amount of money obligatory but they would just say some amount. Developers would register for it. And then the users again would decide for what developers (or maybe other external needed resources) they would give how much money and if some constraints are given, it can be made final. That way, the official project maintainers would not have to maintain this work and many more random features on random open source projects, maybe even abandoned ones could be implemented.
As a backer you can put cash bounties on Github issues (other trackers to come) and when a project committer accepts a pull request for that issue, the developer gets paid.
On the flip side, we're about to launch Fundraisers, which is very similar to the Kickstarter model: create a project spec and get it funded. We're building specifically for open source, rather than a generic platform.
We'd love to hear your thoughts! (#bountysource on freenode)
And that's a major problem. Without distribution on the Windows Store, this thing isn't going to see any kind of mass adoption. I'd be wary about funding until they work out whether their code and licenses pass the Store certification requirements.
2) This seems like an awful lot of money, not to mention the precedent it sets, just to craft an interface for what is, ultimately, a transient 'design language'. Metro is ugly and a UX nightmare. It will be replaced with something completely new come the next Windows release, with inevitably mediocre backwards compatibility.
With regard to point #2 it is more than just a new interface look for VLC. It will require extensive rewriting to work within the Windows sandbox using appropriate security sandboxed API's to allow distribution through the Windows Store. There is also the subsequent project to get it to work on ARM architecture, which will be a challenging project due to the reliance on low level C and assembler code.
2) I'm more worried about the precedent this sets. Is VLC going to need new cash injections every time Microsoft change the rules of the Windows Store, or release updates to Windows 8 that break the app? As I say, the next major release of Windows will undoubtedly break everything all over again.
It just strikes me as an awful lot of time, money and effort to build a solution to a problem that really oughtn't to exist in this day and age...
Not really. Windows 8 hasn't broken anything (although there have been UI changes and some apps have a few bugs that have cropped up). Rather, they have introduced, for the first time in two decades (literally), a completely new foundation on which to build apps. That foundation won't be swept away in Windows 9, and I expect it will mean less things break, not more.
2) A project which isn't getting updated to work on new platforms and with new API's is a dead project that fades from relevance very quickly. VLC is obviously looking ahead and has judged the Metro interface to be something worth investing in to maintain relevance.
And yes, the next version of the OS may break everything, but that's life in the big city - operating systems evolve, upgrades need to be written.
I agree, but the various "scenes" resolutely refuse to adopt industry standards.
H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 Part 10 is the standard that describes the video format encoded by x264.
The FUD is so strong I don't even know where to begin. It doesn't jive with common sense, history or the rumors regarding the future of Windows.
Sadly, it's also the patent situation that's responsible for the proliferation of codecs in the first place. Companies wouldn't feel the need to make their own (or their own custom containers) if they didn't have to worry about patent issues.
2) That is all your opinion with no facts to back it up. It is extremely unlikely that Metro is going anywhere at this point.
This functionality really ought to be built into the OS these days.
Because Microsoft would actually be required to license every one of them that are possible to license legally.
The capability is certainly there, but the users will likely not pay for their availability. It'll be interesting to see how many users of Windows 8 do upgrade, in the case of DVD playback and the Media Center features.
VLC is even more necessary than ever.