On the topic of central server dependence.. I'm pretty outspoken on that issue, even though I don't see all the ramifications yet.
My preference will *always* be a design that reduces dependency. Dependency usually means vendor lock-in and a number of other things. For instance I don't really understand why easy-to-deploy server packages are not more actively used on home computers. Any PC could be turned into a webserver. Opera browser has such an architecture with Opera Unite but it is horrible to have it as part of a webbrowser that crashes frequently. I would love something that easily allowed me to share content on my computer or send files to people using a client-server architecture that didn't depend on something like Windows Live Messenger. Something that wouldn't require me to use Dropbox. I will soon probably have it in the form of a Synology NAS. Dependency goes hand in hand with centralization, and that means control-at-the-top. It's a paradigm, or a system with co-dependent components. The future will see independency and decentralization as the main design, if I have my way ;-). A system with power at the roots; the grass-roots. But this world is run by centralization-driven dynamics and for something like Logitech it is only natural to employ a client-server architecture with an online service that is completely owned and controlled by Logitech, and that needs Logitech to continue existing and granting that service. It's no different from the consolidation of the big actors that create platforms that are mutually exclusive to the largest extent possible (for them), such as Apple with iOS, Google with Android, and Microsoft with whatever they are going to call it - Windows. Platforms that offer services all in conjunction with each other in order to dispersuade you from choosing anything sold by a competitor. In that world the small players are going to have a harder time competing on anything. Apple, Google and Microsoft will buy up any company that offers something enthralling that they don't yet have. For them it is unacceptable that some small company steals a piece of the pie they have envisioned for themselves. So we are seeing a world that gets segregated and divided in different 'worlds' and in which it only makes sense to belong to any one of them. SlimDevices was a company that you would expect to see in the alternative paradigm world. The small companies, run by enthusiasts, possibly teaming up with other small companies to create open platforms. Cooperation instead of competition. Differentiation as a way of specializing in a certain application domain so as to find a viable 'niche' for every player. If you serve a specific clientele, there is no need to compete to the death with other companies selling the exact same thing you are selling. For a worldwide technology company, this means selling a unique product that offers something no other product offers, and which no other product/company feels like offering, because there is enough room for everyone. Squeezebox is not Sonos, and should never attempt to be, nor the other way around. Squeezebox is also not AirPlay, although I wouldn't mind seeing Squeezeboxes support DLNA, at -least- as a way to push data (computing device acts as controller and server, SB acts as renderer) to the Squeezebox for playback. You can perfectly use top-down controlled standards such as DLNA as components of your bottom-up developed platform. I see the potential for an alliance of Winamp/Nullsoft, MusicBrainz, SlimDevices, Synology (and QNAP) to create a single 'platform' or 'concept' for enjoying personal audio in the home environment. - MusicBrainz acts as the tagging service and possibly the databank where you register and list your collection - Winamp acts as a compatible Windows audio player with DLNA support that is capable of displaying Picard-tagged files perfectly while being able to drive Squeezeboxes with gapless DLNA. - Synology and QNAP act as the central data store in your home to serve the music library enjoyed by both Winamp and SB. - Squeezebox acts as the hardware music player. There are more candidates for this alliance: - Whitebear is a media server wrapper that provides DLNA support for LMS. - BubbleUPnP is a DLNA control point for Android. Kinsky is a DLNA control point for iOS/Windows/Mac OS/Linux that is not being actively developed. - OpenHome has the 'ohMedia' (http://www.openhome.org/wiki/OhMedia) standard to extend DLNA (basically) with a more fully developed and understood feature set. It is more of a theoretical specification (it seems) than anything that has ready real world value, but these people might be persuaded to develop a true DLNA extension that would be carried and supported by this platform alliance. One thing to note: the typical open source project organizations such as Mozilla that provide products for free without any kind of accessibility and without a central point of accountability (or none at all) are not really qualified to enter such alliances. Ideally these alliances consist of for-the-money companies that provide an excellent customer experience both in terms of the product and the customer service offered. MusicBrainz is very different from Mozilla or Apache, and you may notice the topic changes in scope now. Mozilla and Apache provide no customer access entry point since they don't have customers; only users. Likewise Youtube, GMail, Google Search, Hotmail/Outlook, etc., don't have customers, only users. The customers are advertisers, which means control rests at the top of the pyramids that we know in this world. Apache also succumbs to demands from the top. MusicBrainz is carried by its users/editors, therefore users have a say. It is like Wikipedia. But let us return to the topic of small tech alliances. You want companies that are privately owned and that exist within a specific niche, or companies/orgs that are 'owned' by the public (users). Typical 'publicly-owned' companies are not publicly owned at all, they are owned by big money interests. So you could have such an alliance, and you would typically want to see 'one of each' to avoid competition which is the obstacle to cooperation. Therefore if you have 'two of each' they must specialize in a certain feature set or target audience or user experience that differentiates them from the other, and agree to uphold and out-develop this differentiation. Geographical disjunction (each company serves a certain part of the world) can also serve as a non-competition agreement, but that is only meaningful for hardware companies or webservice providers (e.g. the Netherlands has this Amazon-lookalike called Bol.com that basically only serves the Dutch-speaking language domain). Once this platform alliance exist, other (small) companies can seek to come together to create a competing platform that -also- differentiates from the first platform enough to warrant its existence, thereby arriving in the position to seek cooperation with the first platform such that the platforms become interoperable to some (large) extent. The cluster then gains in power. Suddenly there is an alliance of alliances. Until the hierarchy of alliances reaches the very top, from a grass-roots, bottom-up methodology, top-down standards such as DLNA/UPnP will continue to be employed and extended until such time comes that there exists a unified global alliance not controlled by any big money interests, consisting only of relatively small companies or user-controlled platforms, and the world will be a completely different place, because the power of the big actors has been broken; big-money exerts no influence; customers and users and employees hold all the keys, and the alliance of alliances is so large, so strong and so unified, that the multinational corporations tremble in agony as they see their whole way of being dissolve; their whole way of making money fade away; and their whole way of gaining power crumble to nothing but ashes. Amen to that. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Xenthar's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=57935 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=96188 _______________________________________________ Radio mailing list Radio@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/radio
