Observations on the state of EG coding & support

[Livin]

I've used EG for about 6 months now and have used/watched the forum and the community. I have a few observations and would love to get feedback from the community, and especially Bitmonster.

I use EG mainly to control XBMC and have recently been trying to use it for other things with limited success. I see this being able to do so much more and have high hopes for the app. I love the core EG functionality... but there are a few things that concern me for long term usage.

1. Coding issues - builds breaking core functionality.
I have tried many builds of EG. Most have been unusable due to one or more core functions breaking. I'm stuck at v0.3.6.1459 and I know a few others are even father back. This leads me to Item #2...

2. If EG is going to blossom into a more widely used app I feel more focus needs to be placed on testing and debugging issues.
I'm not talking about just the developers doing all this, the user base needs to help too. BUT the support needs to be taken to the next level. This leads to Item #3...

3. More forum support from Bitmonster. I rarely see posts from Bit and on most occasions I've posted bugs I don't even get a response from him. I know this is free software, and I respect that. I am willing to test and try to help the community but I cannot if development does not allow me to by assisting.

Please don't take this as a flame, it is not. I think EG could be fantastic if the community and development work together more. It could become a vital part of the DIY HTPC community and can be so much more than it is today with only some minor tweaking.

[Bartman]

Although I did not have problems with some broken core functionality myself, I see the problems too.
I did not find the time to do more support although I might help with a reasonable percentage of the coding questions.
I just haven't upgraded to 3.7.xxx because I have to reassign the USB UIRT events.

[Livin]

Interesting that is has been over a month and Bitmonster has not replied. As much as I do love EG, I may just spend the time to switch to Girder. I own it and at least I know the developers are around.

For free software EG is fantastic... too bad it does not get more attention by Bit. If it did I think the EG community would get the word out more and it could blossom.

I think it would be amazing if EG became an integral part of XBMC. They both use Python and EG fills the gaps of XBMC nicely.

oh well...

[Melloware]

Livin,

I can totally empathize with BitMonster. As you may or may not know I have a competing product to EventGhost and Girder called Intelliremote. I used to give it away for Free for years but then the support requests and coding enhancements became such a time burden I had two choices.

1. Stop supporting the app and let it go fallow and disappear off the forums.

2. Start charging money for it to motivate me to keep supporting my users and the community.

I chose option 2 for the same reasons that you are stating in your post above. So I feel Bitmonster's pain in that there is just not enough hours in the day to support a Free open source product when it becomes too big.

Just my two cents on the situation....

[Livin]

Mellow,
I understand what you are saying. On the other hand, look at many other free (and open source) apps like XBMC that are not only free but because of being free, they attracted more developers. So much so, that the founder of XBMC has not developed on it in many years.

If Bit give it a little care and feeding it could take off.

And, as I mentioned, it is a perfect compliment to XBMC.

[Melloware]

You are right that should have been my choice number 3...

3. Look for developers to help share the burden of coding and forum monitoring!