Author Topic: MusicBee on other platforms  (Read 5329 times)

herodotus

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This is my first post. Please be kind if I make a mistake.

Firstly, hats off to Steven for developing and maintaining this app (and providing active support) for so many years. Asking for more seems shameful.

I know this has probably already been asked, so I will try to be more specific.

MusicBee is a wonderful program, and my favourite. Presently I use Windows a lot, but programming work forces me to switch to Ubuntu OS. There seems to be no satisfactory explanation anywhere about why different music players sound different, and some people seem to be confident that all such differences are illusory. But in my experience (and I am an avid listener), Musicbee sounds much better than other PC alternatives.

It would be much better if MusicBee be available to other platforms, not just for my benefit, but in general.

I know MS uses the .NET framework, which makes it starkly different from Linux based OSs. Expecting Steven to invest any more undue effort is quite unnecessary in doing this.

I'd like to offer an example I am aware of. Many of you must be already familiar with Scrivener. They started out in macOS and then took on more developers on board to help with the PC version. The creator, Keith Blount, remains in charge of the creative vision, but the PC version is maintained by Lee Powell.


[EDIT] A relevant example would be popular FOSS like VLC, Krita, Blender etc.



Might I suggest we do something of the same kind?
Last Edit: May 29, 2021, 03:30:42 PM by herodotus

frankz

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https://musicbee.fandom.com/wiki/FAQ
Quote
Is MusicBee open source?
No. There has been lengthy debate on this topic among users, but Steven is firm that he will consider making MusicBee open source only when he's no longer developing it.
Quote
Will MusicBee be ported to Mac/Linux/other OS?
Steven has not definitively ruled it out, but it seems unlikely. Please don't make posts on the forum asking for it; there are many and they can be easily found by searching.

hiccup

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https://musicbee.fandom.com/wiki/FAQ
Quote
Is MusicBee open source?
No. There has been lengthy debate on this topic among users, but Steven is firm that he will consider making MusicBee open source only when he's no longer developing it.
I am pretty sure the OP must be aware MusicBee is not open source, and indeed it's been made quite clear it probably won't ever become that.

The software he is using as an example is commercial software, and it's also not open source.
As he referenced to himself, that company hired 'more developers' to create a version for a different platform.
I don't see much difference with that specific example and any other commercial software that provides versions for different platforms.

So, the suggestion seems to be to make MusicBee commercial, payed-for software and then 'hire' a team of developers.
I'm pretty sure that also will never happen.

frankz

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I provided it as an example that changes to the development process of MusicBee AND the possibility of porting it to other platforms have already been discussed enough to warrant being answered in the FAQ and that the answer to both is that the developer will not be prompted by users to make these changes.
Last Edit: May 29, 2021, 01:52:25 PM by frankz

hiccup

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I provided it as an example that changes to the development process of MusicBee AND the possibility of porting it to other platforms have already been discussed enough to warrant being answered in the FAQ.
I got that, and agreed with your post.
My reply was to analyse the comparison that he made to that other software, which in my opinion is skewed.
That other software is a commercial product that has payed employees. Very different story.
So in fact he was asking a question that has been asked and answered many times before. He just chose a different approach to repeat it.
(not saying his intentions are bad)

herodotus

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I provided it as an example that changes to the development process of MusicBee AND the possibility of porting it to other platforms have already been discussed enough to warrant being answered in the FAQ.
I got that, and agreed with your post.
My reply was to analyse the comparison that he made to that other software, which in my opinion is skewed.
That other software is a commercial product that has payed employees. Very different story.
So in fact he was asking a question that has been asked and answered many times before. He just chose a different approach to repeat it.
(not saying his intentions are bad)

Oh no, I regret offering a completely wrong example. I pretty much forgot Scrivener was paid software. A better example for what I was suggesting would be something like Blender or Krita (which of course would require the code to be open-source).

From the links @franz has posted, it is clear there is little chance of the scenario I pose happening :C
Last Edit: May 29, 2021, 03:33:47 PM by herodotus

hiccup

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From the links @franz has posted, it is clear there is little chance of the scenario I pose happening :C

Because all the recurring requests for something like this have one thing in common:

It will require the developer to invest even more of his free time in this project. Not less.

Even if there would be some magical group of talented and self-motivating linux/apple coders that would volunteer for this, it would still put an extra burdon on him.
Communications, support, responsibility, etc.

If there ever would come a time he gets interested in some sort of cooperation with developers for other operating systems, I am sure he is able to announce that himself.

Until then, it would be good if requests for a MusicBee version for other platforms than Windows would stop.

phred

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Until then, it would be good if requests for a MusicBee version for other platforms than Windows would stop.
+1
I couldn't agree more.
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

----------
The FAQ
The Wiki
Posting screenshots is here
Searching the forum with Google is  here

ClementNerma

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From the links @franz has posted, it is clear there is little chance of the scenario I pose happening :C

Because all the recurring requests for something like this have one thing in common:

It will require the developer to invest even more of his free time in this project. Not less.

Even if there would be some magical group of talented and self-motivating linux/apple coders that would volunteer for this, it would still put an extra burdon on him.
Communications, support, responsibility, etc.

If there ever would come a time he gets interested in some sort of cooperation with developers for other operating systems, I am sure he is able to announce that himself.

Until then, it would be good if requests for a MusicBee version for other platforms than Windows would stop.

Well, each thread in the wishlist adds some additional work to do, right? So I don't think that is a problem as it is, it's more that it would require a LOT of additional work in order to make this work, as porting such a huge program on another platform is far from being simple unfortunately :/

hiccup

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Well, each thread in the wishlist adds some additional work to do, right?
This is not about some item in the wishlist that could possibly enhance or improve on MusicBee's functionality.

The problem here is that people keep asking for this, sometimes thinking they have some solution that will not create an extra burden on the developer.
My point is that they are wrong about that.

phred

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There is no point in discussing this any further so I am locking this thread.
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

----------
The FAQ
The Wiki
Posting screenshots is here
Searching the forum with Google is  here