Well in ...GENERAL DISCUSSION ... I got my post locked ... seems the moderators don't like what I have to say .... but I'm gonna say it again ..

PLEASE CLEAR UP

Why doesn't Amarok 2 have Mass storage device support as a full working feature ..... why has so much time been spent making it look pretty and making the podcast catcher work and not basic functionality ...

THE ONLY thing i can figure out is the following (and I'll get locked out for this but as this is open source .... here we go)

There is a For Profit element here somewhere that we are not being told about that has something to do with amarok being ported over to windows and mac ......... If I'm wrong .... explain ...


this is the only reason I can figure out for the development team to LITERALLY ignore usability issues and user response ...

thanks

t

Hi,

Don't feel like offending you, but I just don't UNDERSTAND that kind of...REACTION.
I'm not even part of the amarok project, but as a comuunity member, I am shocked by your reaction.
I mean,
do they OWE you anything ?
did you PAY for anything here ?
Why don't you take part of the amarok project to submit your views ?:((
It's not like we're dealing with Songbird here...(I like Songbird, but I guess you know it's a commercial product)
it's just up to you to turn constructive or move on to another software matching your needs !
(amarok 1.4, rhythmbox, songbird, exaile, listen, well...iTunes, whatever)

*sigh* Do we really have to go through this again?

1) Free speech does not mean having to give you a soapbox for trolling on _our_ forum. This is our house, we set the rules! You are free to post whatever the hell you want on your own forum/website/blog/twitter/whatever, and we would never dream of arguing against your right to do so or try to enforce any restrictions on you. So cut out the melodramatic titles please; free speech has nothing to do with it.

2) Device support is incomplete for 2 reasons. A)It is hard! (there are a million different devices out there, each with their own quirks and some, like iPods, with a company behind them that is actively trying to make it impossible to support them in 3rd party products and B) This is Free Software, done mainly by people in their own free time for their own enjoyment, and many of the developers do not use portable device much and thus are not motivated to work on this. Also the developer who did most of the work already in Amarok 2 has been insanely busy lately and thus not been able to work on it much.

About the entire "a For Profit element here somewhere that we are not being told about that has something to do with amarok being ported over to windows and mac" Let me be the first to say "HUH?!?"

We would love to have Amarok working well on Windows and Mac, but currently none of the regular developers are using Mac or Windows, so progress is slow.

Let me repeat something I already wrote once. Amarok is developed mainly by people working in their own free time, for their own enjoyment*. So people work on what motivates them. This might not fit with your ideas of what we should be working on, or even what would make the most sense to work on, but this is the nature of this kind of development. On the other hand, if you think something is missing or broken feel free to fix it, or pay someone to fix it, or ask nicely....

So there... There is no grand conspiracy, no big secret plan involving Apple, Microsoft, CIA or any other commercial or shadowy entity. There is simply a development model that you do not understand and your post which comes across as both trolling and uninformed.


- Nikolaj

* the notable exceptions to people working for free are the Google Summer of Code students who gets a grant from Google to work on as specific feature and myself who get sponsored by Magnatune.com to spend some of my time on Amarok (which makes sense for them as Amarok has an integrated Magnatune.com store)

@ coacharnold

You need to clue up on what free software is. Also, if you have any ounce of respectability in your bones, read up on forum trolls and go and meditate. Once you have digested that info come back crawling for forgiveness.

Even better, pay somebody to for the functionality you are after.

OK .... Trolling here ... but
for the last over a year now .... I have been trying to take part in the project ...

Amarok brought me to Linux in the first place going back almost to amarok 1.1 ... I have donated and woulf be willing to pay for it .....

I have suggested and added to the forums the problems i have had ... 1. No device support. 2. Unstable 3. Usability issues ....

These discussions haven't been meant as criticisms but rather reports of serious usability and technical problems .... the response ... FLAMES from the moderators. And none of the usable relevant features of amarok have been returned .... instead it has become bloatware.

WHY am i caring enough to bring this up in the discussion forum ( not troll) because Amarok 1.4 as it was before the upgrade to 2 .... is still bar none the best most usable media player out there. I would gladly donate (AGAIN!) to a media manager that works as well. But there isn't one ..... instead this community forges ahead without listening to it's users .... and this forum is continually edited or flamed when the moderators feel like they are being critiqued .. I would gladly help out ... but the leadership on this project doesn't want to follow the first rule of usability .... LISTEN TO YOUR STAKEHOLDERS...... Unless your stakeholders are someone different than
the Linux community .... also free software ... means also i can have an opinion about it and express it

troll

PS ... MSC device support = copying files to a mounted folder ... i. e. /media/mydevice .... if the issue is MTP ... sorry but its a bad format anyway...

coacharnold wrote:OK .... Trolling here ... but
for the last over a year now .... I have been trying to take part in the project ...

Amarok brought me to Linux in the first place going back almost to amarok 1.1 ... I have donated and woulf be willing to pay for it .....

I have suggested and added to the forums the problems i have had ... 1. No device support. 2. Unstable 3. Usability issues ....

You still missed the point Freespirit stated. The resources are missing. It's probably sad but true.

These discussions haven't been meant as criticisms but rather reports of serious usability and technical problems .... the response ... FLAMES from the moderators. And none of the usable relevant features of amarok have been returned .... instead it has become bloatware.

WHY am i caring enough to bring this up in the discussion forum ( not troll) because Amarok 1.4 as it was before the upgrade to 2 .... is still bar none the best most usable media player out there. I would gladly donate (AGAIN!) to a media manager that works as well. But there isn't one ..... instead this community forges ahead without listening to it's users .... and this forum is continually edited or flamed when the moderators feel like they are being critiqued .. I would gladly help out ... but the leadership on this project doesn't want to follow the first rule of usability .... LISTEN TO YOUR STAKEHOLDERS...... Unless your stakeholders are someone different than
the Linux community .... also free software ... means also i can have an opinion about it and express it

troll

Not exactly true. Let me quote the CoC:

As a user, remember that contributors work hard on their part of KDE and take great pride in it. If you are frustrated your problems are more likely to be resolved if you can give accurate and well-mannered information to all concerned.

Unfortunately, in addition to that and like stated above, the resources to fixing it are missing.
So, your problem might not be solved, but you got an explanation.
Repeating it over and over in a not-so-nice manner doesn't help either.
Please respect that.

coacharnold wrote:I would gladly help out

Well, that's great!
Check out the (really short) development howto:
http://amarok.kde.org/wiki/2.0_Development_HowTo
Also, I urgently recommend going through the Git introduction (also linked in the howto):
http://techbase.kde.org/Getting_Started ... t_Tutorial

Implement whatever you think is missing (device support, stability fixes, usability enhancements, etc. Create one branch per feature!), file a Merge Request on gitorious and watch your contributions become a part of Amarok