News

The MediaPortal 2 core code is getting more and more stable and we are about to move our development power to the MediaPortal 2 standard plugins. In a few weeks, we will start a MediaPortal 2 skinning contest where we will publish an exercise to create a skin which follows certain requirements. Everyone can participate. The best ideas will be used in MediaPortal 2 - maybe you can obtain a place in our skinning team?

The development of MediaPortal was a long and bumpy road, but the destination was well worth it. Thanks to our great community, who submitted many bug reports and code patches to fix bugs, we now are able to present you MediaPortal 1.1.0 - the best release in our six year history. Complete list of changes: Please have a look at our changelogs for a complete list of changes. Changelog: MediaPortal (http://mantis.team-mediaportal.com/changelog_page.php?project_id=1) Changelog: TV-Server (http://mantis.team-mediaportal.com/changelog_page.php?project_id=3) Changelog: Installer - DeployTool (http://mantis.team-mediaportal.com/changelog_page.php?project_id=6)

Recently, there has been debate in the press about "Open Core". I don't care to debate the minor points but make a simple declaration:

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Open source is everywhere today and there is growing awareness that companies have to meet certain obligations when distributing open source software. Here are some useful resources to learn more about open source compliance.

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Last year I attended Open World Forum in Paris. It was a lively conference with broad representation of industry leaders, community organizers, and government officials and administrators. The warm reception by the Mayor's office in Paris (at the Hôtel de Ville) underscored what has become increasingly obvious in the analysis of economic statistics: open source software is appreciated, in Paris, France, and Europe. My reflections on the subject of last year's topic, the digital recovery, were captured in the blog posting From Free to Recovery. This year, the agenda of the Open World Forum (Sept 30-Oct 1, 2010) is more ambitious, and I am pleased to be on the program committee, an editor of the 3rd edition of the FLOSS 2020 Roadmap document, as well as one of the organizers of a think-tank session focused on, and beyond, the role of open source software and the future of the BRIC thesis.

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Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.

The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a non-profit corporation formed to educate about and advocate for the benefits of open source and to build bridges among different constituencies in the open-source community.

One of our most important activities is as a standards body, maintaining the Open Source Definition for the good of the community. The Open Source Initiative Approved License trademark and program creates a nexus of trust around which developers, users, corporations and governments can organize open-source cooperation.

http://www.opensource.org/
http://sourceforge.net/about
http://www.ubuntu.com/community/ubuntustory/philosophy
http://www.whylinuxisbetter.net/
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re-posted from jasenmichael.org

Pamela Jones, of Groklaw, thinks that OSI has a problem in Open Core. I think she has it backwards. The Open Core (most notably SugarCRM) folks have a problem. They'd like to convince people that they can achieve the open source effect by having two versions of their code: an open source version, and a proprietary version. They'd like to convince people that their proprietary code is going to benefit from the open source effect. Good luck with that!

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When I started working on GNU C++ in 1987, I could almost feel the course of history changing with every line of code I wrote. When I started Cygnus Support in 1989, I was convinced that it was only a matter of time before companies began to realize that proprietary software restrictions did nothing to help their competitive advantage and everything to harm it. And though early funding for my work came from government agencies (US DARPA in 1987 and French INRIA in 1988), I never quite expected to be visiting and promoting open source in Malaysia [short version] [longer version]. Yet such is the reach of open source software! Now the Government of Malaysia proudly reports an astonishing 97% adoption rate for open source software in this new report:

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Volume 1, Issue 8 Since joining the Team a few months back, I have been fascinated to learn how things work, and how to get fixes or improvements into MediaPortal. I did not realize that would be a nice side benefit of joining the Team. I now realize that I could have done much of this without being a Team member, so I thought I would share what I have learned with everyone. Here is the Inside Scoop on: How You Can Improve MediaPortal (blogs/team_blog/1.8_how_you_can_improve_mp.html)

RC5 was planned to be the last Release Candidate for MediaPortal 1.1.0 final. However, the fix of a major issue related to the detection of a timeshift buffer file being video or radio makes us believe that a big field test is required to ensure that 1.1.0 final will be the most stable release in MediaPortal´s six year history. If all goes according to plan, then this "slide-in" RC6 release will not delay the final version of 1.1.0, which is planned for release around the 16th of July. We need the help of our great community to ensure the fix does not cause any unwanted side effects. RC6 is as close to the final release as it can get. Changes since 1.1.0 RC5: 0002953...

I'm running a BOF at OSCON on Wednesday night July 21st at 7PM, with the declared purpose of adopting an Open Source Definition for Open Data. Safe enough to say that the OSD has been quite successful in laying out a set of criteria for what is, and what is not, Open Source. We should adopt a definition Open Data, even if it means merely endorsing an existing one.

Will you join me there?

SKIN VERSION FOR MP 1.1.0 MediaPortal 1.1.0 final is scheduled to be released July 16th. As you know, we disabled the skin version check for beta/RC releases. However, we will be reinstating it for MP 1.1.0. We want to inform all Skin Designers in advance that the skin version (references.xml) will be increased from 1.0.1.0 to 1.1.0.0 in the final version. We would appreciate it if new, MP 1.1.0 compatible Skin versions could be released around the 16th. We would like to avoid users getting the error message regarding incompatible skins, even though the skin is fully compatible with MP 1.1.0. Thank you for your assistance.

On April 20th, 2010, a methane gas explosion ripped apart the operational oil rig "Deepwater Horizon" in the Gulf of Mexico. This accident has become a catastrophe - the largest oil spill in US history. It has damaged the entire ecosystem of life in the Gulf. The ocean waters and shorelines of Gulf states all the way to Florida and the Mississippi river delta continue to be ravaged by the gushing oil. The spill is affecting millions of people, marine life and wildlife.

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Hi guys and gals, The last progress report for the MediaPortal 2 system was long ago and since then, many things were done. This blog entry gives a small overview of work items which were done.

Those of us who follow the growth of open source in the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China) know that both Brazil and India are leveraging open source at a rapid pace towards economic development.

India

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When I said recently that we still need the Open Source Initiative (OSI), it started a flood of comment. There's no doubt that we need OSI - but we need a better OSI. The one we have now is just too small to be effective and too mired in past successes; a renaissance is needed. You can help.

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Earlier this month, the OSI board held elections for the organization's committees. Board members interested in working on OSI initiatives such as membership, education, policy and economic development, outreach submitted their candidacy to the board. Based on the slate of candidates, the board voted the following chairpersons to lead each OSI initiative for the next year.

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Just a short news: Due to our active development for both our product versions MediaPortal 1 and MediaPortal 2, we decided to create an own SVN repository for MediaPortal 2 and we just moved all sources to it.

And by my earlier criticism of the IIPA position that open source == piracy...there might be something to that. Feel free to copy and distribute any of the open source software I've ever written. Give it to a friend, a neighbor, copy it to whatever devices, run it, use it, rip it and enhance it. I promise...I won't call the cops on you. If that makes you a pirate....ahoy matey...

One of the most interesting things to happen in the past couple of years, is Microsoft's embrace of Open Source. This means different things to various people I've spoken with at Microsoft. Some seem genuinely sincere. Some seem less so. What hasn't changed is Microsoft's behavior to the Open Source community at large.

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