Talk:Features/BansheeAsDefaultMediaplayer

FESCo Concerns

• Has this feature been ran past the Desktop team? If not, it should be before going to FESCo. - Brian Pepple
  • That was not mentioned as a required step for feature proposal so no. I have sent a mail to the SIG mailing list requesting comments. - David Nielsen
  • Deciding the default applications for the desktop falls under the scope of the Desktop team, so they should sign-off on the feature before it comes to FESCo like it has the past with Empathy & swfdec-mozilla. This requirement should probably be put in the feature process if it isn't already. - Brian Pepple
  • As it was not part of the guidelines I did not interact with anyone, I assumed it was FESco decision to request more debate as they have done in the past. I would be happy to see this part of the guidelines clarified.

Rhythmbox to Banshee migration

I've created a Rhythmbox database importer which is committed in upstream Banshee an should be released with 1.6. It includes songs, podcasts and playlists. -- Paul Lange

• Excellent, if 1.6 is not released by the time the feature freeze is in place can I get you to backport it to give our users this funtionality in the version we ship at release should the feature be accepted? - David Nielsen

• Yes, I'm going to do that if needed. -- Paul Lange

• Thank you Paul, that would be most helpful. David Nielsen

FUD

One upstream developer has mentioned that there are some limitations to the current Rhythmbox architecture. Nobody has ever mentioned that development would be stopped. Given that there are 3 other maintainers for the program, and a lot of contributors, it would be far from dead. Bastien Nocera

Furthermore, I'll take offence to Banshee saying it has a history of stability. Given that I've been able to make it crash on a number of occasions, and without too much work, I'll refute that fact. It would also imply that Rhythmbox is crashy, which puts my skills as an upstream developer and a downstream maintainer of the project into question.

• • I find that one concern when replacing an application is historically that it's a new codebase, concerns over the stability is to be expected. I see nothing wrong in mentioning that Banshee historically has done well in this arena. Just because one product is stable does not reflect poorly on another. Just like another concern is how well we can depend on upstream to continue to handle bugs and continue to pump out new enhancements to the product. I would argue that Banshee does this to great effect, bugs are handled very effectively and new features are rolled out every few months. In addition there is a large vibrant community around Banshee. I will attempt to alay such common fears preemptively I think it's important so that focus might be drawn to the pros and cons of such a potential change for our users instead. -- David Nielsen

Features

Rhythmbox does have:

• Visual effects
• An integrated CD importer and player, which uses the non-deprecated libmusicbrainz3

--- I have clarified on the visual effects item in the proposal, thank you for pointing out that it was vague. Banshee contains a lot of custom widgets, animations and other nice visual improvements. While it might not be a technical concern as such, I find that users enjoy an interface that has a bit of pleasant bling. It helps make the application feel more usable and fun, overall it provides a nicer experience which I think we should not discount.

I am aware that Rhythmbox contains a ripper, however we are not depending on it, we still ship and default to sound-juicer. Meaning Banshee still lets us, from the current defaults, remove both and provide an integrated solution. -- David Nielsen