Future of Media in Karmic

[mc4100]

Rhythmbox, my favourite Music player, is dying.
Jonathan Matthew said on the Rhythmbox mailinglist, on Monday:

I hope to be able to make a new release in the next month or so. This
will probably be numbered 0.12.0. After that, I'm not planning to do
much new development work on the rhythmbox project as it currently
exists. I'll still fix (some) bugs and review patches, but it's too
much of a dead end for me to do more than that.

Why?

... the underlying data model is too rigid
and limited:
- the set of query-able entry properties is fixed
- entry properties can't have multiple values
- albums don't exist, they're synthesized from whatever
entries happen to match the album name
- file metadata, observed user data (play count, etc.), and user provided data
(ratings) are all stored together when they'd be more useful separate
- the database is designed specifically to support implementation of the
genre->artist->album browser and doesn't work so well for other
things.
- it doesn't always make sense that sources are completely distinct from
each other

These things are pretty much baked into every aspect of rhythmbox.
Rhythmbox is fine for what it is, but I don't think I can make it into
what I want it to be.

I'm sad to hear this ...
But while Rhythmbox's core innovation slows, most new functionality coming in the form of plugins, Banshee development forges on ahead.

I've said before that I think Rhythmbox is superior at the moment, that Banshee was quickly bridging that feature gap:
So I don't know if Rhythmbox will be able to compete with Banshee (or any other player) in six months to a year if no one picks up the project.

It's been suggested for a while that Banshee be made default, perhaps now is the time.

Discuss

Edit: I should have said, I would likely remove Banshee if it were default, install Rhythmbox myself ... but would probably support the decision. See it from the point of new users, etc.

[ronacc]

I have never been a fan of rythymbox , I usualy use banshee or BMP , but with that said I am always sad to see a project die , diversity strengthens all .

[Nullack]

Yep, by being objective to the applications weaknesses improvements will come with diversity.

[olskar]

Rhythmbox, my favourite Music player, is dying.
Jonathan Matthew said on the Rhythmbox mailinglist, on Monday:

Why?


I'm sad to hear this ...
But while Rhythmbox's core innovation slows, most new functionality coming in the form of plugins, Banshee development forges on ahead.

I've said before that I think Rhythmbox is superior at the moment, that Banshee was quickly bridging that feature gap:
So I don't know if Rhythmbox will be able to compete with Banshee (or any other player) in six months to a year if no one picks up the project.

It's been suggested for a while that Banshee be made default, perhaps now is the time.

Discuss

Edit: I should have said, I would likely remove Banshee if it were default, install Rhythmbox myself ... but would probably support the decision. See it from the point of new users, etc.

I have had a feeling about that for a time..

I guess this would be more then reason enough to have Banshee instead (or something else, I haven't tried a lot. But looking on the forum the choice seems to be between Banshee and Rhythmbox)

[tgpraveen]

although i too liked rythmbox as the default but always felt it was not developed well adn looked ugly and was too simplistic taht it doesnt make a good impression on users being the default player /

banshee is under active development and the plugin model is good. so it would be good to make it default in 9.10. it would make a good impression for new users on the power of oss.

[kaivalagi]

I too use Rhythmbox, I like the fact it is written in python. I have written python tools for it and like the dbus interface. For me it does the job right now.

If it is soon to be dead in the water I would like to see another python/gtk based player take over rather than one based on mono...what about further development of exaile?

Or maybe someone should right a feature rich front end for xmms2....xmms2 has enough plugins for everything you could want and is light on resources. It is easily developed against too...

Admittedly I want a music player rather than something that handles all media though. I prefer using alternative apps for video etc so just need a decent music player.

[zekopeko]

If it is soon to be dead in the water I would like to see another python/gtk based player take over rather than one based on mono...what about further development of exaile?

please don't be one of those "I hate mono" people that scream microsoft technology but have no idea at all.

[directhex]

Banshee has a very fat dependency tree - it would need a bunch of fiddling to fit onto the CD in a rational manner

[olskar]

Banshee has a very fat dependency tree - it would need a bunch of fiddling to fit onto the CD in a rational manner

And I guess going over to DVD isn't topical this time around either


EDIT:

Installing rhythmbox gets 3396kB of packages and installing banshee including dependencies (banshee, libboo2.0-cil, libmono-zeroconf1.0-cil, libtaglib2.0-cil, podsleuth) gets 3686kB

Not a lot difference, or have I done something wrong?

[directhex]

And I guess going over to DVD isn't topical this time around either


EDIT:

Installing rhythmbox gets 3396kB of packages and installing banshee including dependencies (banshee, libboo2.0-cil, libmono-zeroconf1.0-cil, libtaglib2.0-cil, podsleuth) gets 3686kB

Not a lot difference, or have I done something wrong?

You likely already have a bunch of Banshee's deps installed - e.g. assorted gstreamer-foo packages