Open Source!

[[IDC]Dragon]

Hello,

I've been lurking here for a short while, now it's time for a developer coming out, I think. I am (or rather, have been) a developer of the Rockbox project.

I'm not a Sonos owner yet, have been playing with a squeezebox and various PDA/webpad remote clients. Not satisfied with it, they mostly lack hard buttons and a jogdial.

A week ago I went to a Sonos customer and have been playing with the system for a short while. Except for a few nitpicks I like it, more on the picks below.
By coincidence my idol Joel "on software" Spolsky raved about it just 2 days ago:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/11/10.html
He praises the product and Sonos' software process, citing Nick Millington. (Well, Rockbox is also not bad, we have an automated, distributed build being kicked off by any cvs commit).

Now for the nitpicking: My few reasons why I did't run and bought Sonos gear as fast as possible are:

- the 50k songs limit (hey, where is the database stored, can I piggyback a larger memory chip? How about compression, storing the DB on disk, etc.?)

- I've been immediately missing some features, like e.g. browsing by directory structure, better screen estate usage (more browser lines), sort albums by latest additions first, I'm afraid to discover more after purchase. Sorry if they exist, I found no docs about the UI.

- which brings me to the premium drawback: It's a closed system. The hardware could be a great platform for controlling e.g. other things in my home, interfacing to other gear, and who knows how online and offline music evolves. Of course nobody expects Sonos to help scratching everybodys personal itch, but I think they haven't discovered the potential of a developer community effect yet. If something becomes the standard platform to "hack away" with, it sells many years longer past normal product life and in higher volume. People can sleep assured their investment is safe over corporate faith and will, missing features can be taken care of.

Well, my question to Sonos would be: how about opening up? I think we even may have a right to, since all the hardware is driven by Linux and even other open source project internally:
http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT7647366603.html
It is probably a GPL violation not give access to the sources. However, I don't want to sound agressive in any ways, just kindly asking about what's reasonable. The TI DSP with most likely vendor libraries for the audio standards might be a problem, we had that at Rockbox for several players.

Thanks for attention and feedback,
Jörg

[Majik]

Originally Posted by [IDC]Dragon

It is probably a GPL violation not give access to the sources.

Sonos do give access to the source code of the GPL parts of the Sonos code.

They don't give access to all their source code, and I highly doubt this is a GPL violation.

It is a widely held misconception that it's impossible to combine proprietary code with GPL code.

(This view is perpetrated by companies like Microsoft who are trying to scare people away from FOSS, and on the other side by GPL "nazis" who believe that anything which isn't open-source is inherently bad or evil)

If it's done in a way that the vendor can demonstrate a degree of separation between the GPL code and the proprietary code then there is no violation.

For instance, if I write a PHP based web-site and run it on PHP3 (which is GPL), there is no mandate for me to provide the source-code for this website.

Equally, if I write a software app which runs on Linux, even though Linux is GPL (and even if i used a GPL devkit to develop it), there is no mandate for me to make my application open source. If this were not true it would be impossible for companies like Oracle and IBM to supply enterprise grade applications running on Linux. It would also be impossible for companies like Nvidia to provide closed-source drivers for their products.

Cheers,

Keith

Nice explaination Keith. Also, here's an FAQ we have about how to download the GPL code Sonos uses:

https://sonos.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/s...hp?p_faqid=232

-Mike

[cnewlander]

Originally Posted by Mike - Sonos

Nice explaination Keith. Also, here's an FAQ we have about how to download the GPL code Sonos uses:

https://sonos.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/s...hp?p_faqid=232

-Mike

is the download for udhcp-0.9.8.tar.gz current as of version 2.5 ?

http://www.sonos.com/support/downloads/GPL/

[Jason - Sonos]

Originally Posted by cnewlander

is the download for udhcp-0.9.8.tar.gz current as of version 2.5 ?

http://www.sonos.com/support/downloads/GPL/

Yes, for the ZP/CR but nothing has been posted for the ZoneBridge yet. It will be (I don't have an ETA).

-Jason

[cnewlander]

Originally Posted by Jason - Sonos

Yes, for the ZP/CR but nothing has been posted for the ZoneBridge yet. It will be (I don't have an ETA).

-Jason

Are you sure?

From what I see in the scripts there is a -o parameter specified and unless I'm missing something I'm not seeing a reference to the -o parameter in the source. And what's with the hardcoding to bestbuy.com?

(from /etc/Configuration)
if [ "$SUBMODEL" = "16" ]; then
/sbin/udhcpc -s /etc/dhcp.script -i br0 -w ath0 -h "SonosZP" -l 3 -o access.bestbuy.com
else
/sbin/udhcpc -s /etc/dhcp.script -i br0 -w ath0 -h "SonosZP" -l 12 -o access.bestbuy.com
fi


sonos:
"c : fbH : h : i : np : qr : s : w : l : o : v"
udhcp:
"c : fbH : h : i : np : qr : s : w : v"

[LazyBoy]

Bump.

cnewlander appears to have found a string that proves that application altered.

[cnewlander]

yes but just the udhcp component...and Sonos has mentioned they will post it for the Bridge.

[Jason - Sonos]

I don't get an E-mail when you edit a post .

I have the ZoneBridge data, I just have yet to upload it. We are moving some backend stuff around so now it will have to wait a couple weeks while my new upload tools are given to me for the new data center, but I can E-mail it to you Craig if you like.

-Jason

BestBuy has some quirky store setups that require us to put some specific stuff just for them.

[cnewlander]

Jason thanks. no hurry. I can wait until it officially posted. Thanks.