From: Mayur M. Patel <mayurpatel_at_houston.rr.com>
Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2004 10:35:54 -0500

Everyone, I have been interested in the iRiver for a while now because of
its similarity to the jukebox. I took the libery of mailing the guy at
iRiver who is apparently in charge of the firmware issues here in the U.S.
He told me that the firmware is not open source (which I already knew) but
was greatly interested in any suggestions. Below is the letter I sent him
this morning:


-------------------------------

Mr. Tran,

Thank you for the prompt reply. My main concern about the firmware at this
point is the releases. I have been reading on the forums that there was an
update promised for June but got cancelled. I want to know why this is and
what you plan to do to remedy this situation.

As far as open sourcing, please see the RockBox site at
http://rockbox.haxx.se. I am on the mailing list and there is currently
much discussion about person wanting to purchase your product because it is
the perfect platform for the introduction of RockBox. It is completely open
source and it keeps getting better and better. I urge you to seriously look
into this because of the potential.

As an example, Archos, the maker of the JukeBox, released firmware for a
time but was slow. RockBox started where it left off. I, along with
hundreds of JukeBox owners bought the product just to use RockBox. In my
honest opinion, I believe that RockBox improved the useability and
functionality of the JukeBox over 500%.

I understand that much of the source code for the IHP may be proprietary.
That is why I would recommend setting up firmware that is module based, i.e.
you could keep the parts you think are vital for your proprietary needs and
open source the other parts.

If you are serious about opening up discussions about these firmware
suggestions, I am more than willing to pass on the word. I can assure you
that if something of this caliber would be started, sales of your product
would dramatically increase. There are even users on the RockBox mailing
list I talked about ready to purchase multiple units of your product to
disassemble and work on to develop some sort of rudamentary firmware.

As a lover of technology, this proposition excites me very much. I wish
that RockBox could do for IHPs as it did for JukeBox. With more and more
players being released on the market and Apple hard charging with its iPod,
I think this would be an essential step for your product.

I believe that if you are willing to expand the use and function of your
product with open source, the benefits will be revealed through a surge in
sales.

Thank you and good day.

_______________________________________________
http://cool.haxx.se/mailman/listinfo/rockbox
Received on 2004-07-03