alexander gibbons wrote:
> hi there, heres the question in this modern world of mp3 players why
> does rockbox only work on players that have been either deleated or out
> of date. i want to store my whole colection of music, but at the momnet
> rockbox does not suport a player that will do this, how long is it
> taking to create rockbox that will work on new players such as the ipod
> 5g 80g, the new arcagos machines i would like a firm date on what and
> when rock boxs will work on these players

Answer the following two questions:

1) Estimate the typical life cycle of a particular model of a consumer audio
device. (1 year perhaps?)

2) Estimate the amount of time it takes for volunteers, working in their spare
time, to:

   a) get a particular device (they're not free),

   b) disassemble, inspect, and or otherwise determine what components are in
the device,

   c) obtain necessary specs on those components, from manufacturer or
elsewhere, (Note that the companies that make the devices generally have no
desire or incentive to cooperate!)

   d) write and/or borrow open source code that performs the necessary
operations on that particular device, integrate it all into the existing rockbox
code tree - without messing up the code for any of the other rockbox target devices,

   e) do some testing to see how things work and perform preliminary debugging
before releasing it to the rockbox community.

Now if you know people who can do all of the tasks in item 2 in a shorter time
period than that given as an answer for item 1, by all means, get them involved
in rockbox ASAP.

Otherwise be patient and thankful for all the hard work that the developers have
  put into the project!
Received on 2007-04-13