Hi all, I'll try to explain my suggestion with my poor english. I've got the feeling that icecast is full of potential but not growing as fast as it can or simply not having the support it could have. The greatest lack are the "open doors" for new coders, webdesigners, translators, etc. Icecast is open: the sourcecode is open, the mailing list is open, etc. But a skill is not enough. You need some kind of structure, some kind of simple tasks to do. Look at KDE. You can find many "How to help" pages on many sites with such things : - You're a coder? Welcome, go here and ask or look at this list of things to do and begin to code. - You're a webdesigner/PHP wizard? Welcome, go here and do that. - You're a PR/marketing/journalist pple? Welcome, we need to promote our work. - You're a happy KDE user? Go here and fill our form, we're glad to ear from you. Then, the guy who wants to help exactly knows where to go and what to do. Just look at me. Unable to code something correct, not good enough to be a standalone PHP coder but I can read english and german and french is my native language. So what? A week after having the idea to help, I was rereading some docs and working with the translation team. So my suggestion is: lets stop icecast. KDE is better. Ah ah. I know it is hard to have a clear roadmap, to communicate and explain all the things going around icecast. But that's also a way to open icecast. When I know what's going on, I know what I can do. The lack of open doors can also be known and not that bad if you want icecast to remain the fact of few people and keep it more or less to your own and be sure to grab most of the fama/pride/money. Here are my suggestions: - building up a simple webpage with a "bounties" system. A user can fill a form and ask for some specific feature. When a feature request already exists, a new user can simply vote for it. At the moment, I have to subscribe to the list and ask it in english. Such a system is a closed door to many users. The icecast developpers could have a "froze" feature. When they know that it's dangerous to work on some feature because it's going to be implemented or that the code is moving too fast, they froze the feature. When a coder see a feature or a bug he can solve, he registers, subscribe to the feature, get the code, work on it, give the clue to an icecast core team and that's it. He's now and the Hall Of Fame Of Nice People. Having such small things to do is a good way to begin. Plug coders on the main trunk is too complicated. Feature, bugs, etc., I'm sure that the main icecast coders are aware of some bugs but do not have the time to solve them. They could also fill some "bounties". And, why not, some company could give some money for specific bounties. Again, that's an open door. - have an internationalization team. First: translate the docs, second, translate the website, etc. That can be made without any specific tool. We just need a "start" and coordination. - have a "happy user" page with a form : why are you using icecast? how many users are you serving? etc. Then, when a new user discovers icecast he can know how strong and powerful the server is. When I first discovered icecast I could not know if the server could handle 100, 200 ou 500 users. How is icecast reacting when 200 streams @ 128kb/s are sended? Etc. That's easy to do. So. I'm ready to help :) PeM
Another idea. What about asking someone like Dag (http://dag.wieers.com) to include icecast in his repo? Having the ability to install icecast with a simple "yum install icecast" would give icecast many users. That's an exemple of what can be done by icecast zealots. You can help without coding the Theora core libs : you packages the softs. PeM Pierre-Emmanuel Muller wrote:> Hi all, > > I'll try to explain my suggestion with my poor english. >
Hi: I'll start out by saying that I'm just a humble user, though a user who has kept an eye on Icecast and related development for about 5 years now. To start with, Icecast is just one of the projects of the Xiph.org Foundation (http://www.xiph.org). So while some of the things you mention are not in place for Icecast specifically, they are in place or at least on the drawing boardfor Xiph generally. Some might disagree with me, but I find that Xiph is pretty open about what it's up to and what still needs to be done. Apart from the various mailing lists, there is the xiph.org wiki (http://wiki.xiph.org), which includes details of and transcripts of their monthly meetings which are a good way to keep across the various projects. For Icecast specifically, the icecast-dev list is a good place to look. There's also the ToDo file in the Icecast source tree, and the xiph bugtracker at trac.xiph.org (nice looking tracker BTW, much less intimidating than the one you guys had before). The bounty thing has already been thought of, and an attempt to start one up has already begun. See http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/Bounties . I note that there's no Icecast specific bounties in there yet, but some existing bounties would benefit Icecast (particularly bitrate peeling in Ogg Vorbis). I agree that documentation for Icecast in multiple languages would be nice. But I was looking at the docs today and I personally think they need a bit of work in English first before we go translating them into other languages. I didn't see anything regarding recent features of Icecast in the docs I read, and there's been a typo in the ReadMe for as long as I can remember. As for the website, the Xiph websites in general have a team of people working on them following a call for help that went out a few months ago. Judging by the commits I see, they seem to be doing good work. Not sure who to contact to offer help but I'm sure someone on here will know. Not sure if any of this info is helpful, hopefully it is. Geoff. -- Geoff Shang <geoff@hitsandpieces.net> Phone: +61-418-96-5590 MSN: geoff@acbradio.org Make sure your E-mail can be read by everyone! http://www.betips.net/etc/evilmail.html Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
Hi Geoff, Geoff Shang wrote:> I'll start out by saying that I'm just a humble userme too :)> To start with, Icecast is just one of the projects of the Xiph.org > Foundation (http://www.xiph.org). So while some of the things you > mention are not in place for Icecast specifically, they are in place > or at least on the drawing boardfor Xiph generally.I know and agree. I would like to make myself clear. Icecast is open and is a great piece of software and many tools are already avalaible. I do not wanted to say that Icecast is a "closed" project. I said that, in my humble point of view, some "entry doors" are missing.> Some might disagree with me, but I find that Xiph is pretty open about > what it's up to and what still needs to be done. Apart from the > various mailing lists, there is the xiph.org wiki > (http://wiki.xiph.org), which includes details of and transcripts of > their monthly meetings which are a good way to keep across the various > projects.You're right. But I must confess that I'm still a bit confused when I navigate between the icecast website, the xiph website, the vorbis website and so on. Although all the required informations are present, I, as an end-user, feel that all is a bit confusing. I'm not confused about what is icecast for xiph, but a bit confused on the user experience side.> For Icecast specifically, the icecast-dev list is a good place to > look. There's also the ToDo file in the Icecast source tree, and the > xiph bugtracker at trac.xiph.org (nice looking tracker BTW, much less > intimidating than the one you guys had before).Alles klar. The bugtracker is the perfect tool but for coders and tech aware guys. I was just wondering about the "d?cideur press?", the guy who needs a fast a clear view of where is icecast going. Why is the icecast roadmap directly awalaible from the icecast website? Why is not the icecast bugtracker on the icecast website with a clear "suggest a feature" link?> The bounty thing has already been thought of, and an attempt to start > one up has already begun. See http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/Bounties > . I note that there's no Icecast specific bounties in there yet, but > some existing bounties would benefit Icecast (particularly bitrate > peeling in Ogg Vorbis).Yes. But :) First of all: a wiki. Okay wikipedia is an enormous website but I'm not sure that a wiki is the most user friendly system for feature requests. That's not on the icecast website. Why are this bounties not stated (linked) from the icecast website? Bitrate peeling is for sure an important side of icecast but something like "automatic generation of relay config avalaible through HTTP" or "automatic config file generation from icecast.xml for darkice, ices, M3W, etc." are also some important points. In fact, I think that the point is that you can help, for sure. But you have to make your own way into icecast/xiph. It is not clear that help is wanted.> I agree that documentation for Icecast in multiple languages would be > nice. But I was looking at the docs today and I personally think they > need a bit of work in English first before we go translating them into > other languages. I didn't see anything regarding recent features of > Icecast in the docs I read, and there's been a typo in the ReadMe for > as long as I can remember.So :) Why not make an icecast bounty, on the icecast website, about "review the doc, add the new feature, correct the typo, translate the FAQ in French, etc." The icecast doc needs help but that's not said on the website. Why having a section on the website called "Help wanted" and state here clearly all the requested help : code, docs, etc. When you visit the site you know that icecast is growing but you do not understand that any new help is welcome.> Not sure if any of this info is helpful, hopefully it is.It helped :) PeM