There's a lot of boxes out there that claim support for XBMC and offer their own build of XBMC. Typically these are just tweaked/cloned AMLogic/AMLplayer builds of XBMC. We often will say "go to X website and get it from there", but I'm thinking that is making more work for us in the end. It's true that we can't track, let alone support, every wild build of XBMC for Android that is out there, but a directory might be another solution.
Simply put, it would just be a wiki page that would be "unofficial" and user maintained. It would allow all the various boxes out there to have a user updated link to what users should be trying out, but only if there isn't an official XBMC build (test or otherwise) that isn't more suitable. So, for example, no XAF builds, because official XBMC for Android already supports external players (and due to the extra add-ons that get installed breaking our forum rules). Companies themselves could even update the list, so long as we're talking about just updating links, conflict-of-interest is kept to a minimal.
For those wondering, in the long run there will hopefully only be one main XBMC build, even for AML boxes, libstagefright, etc. However, it all takes time. Until then, we might as well be able to point people in the right direction for both builds and support, without having to fling them to google first. It also helps us clear up situations where an official build will be better, like when people are using external players on chipsets that are now working on the experimental libstagefright builds.
This is all just an idea in my head at the moment, but I wanted to throw it out there to see what other people might think. This is also something I want to run past the rest of Team XBMC, but thought getting some preliminary data would help, since I honestly have no idea how many builds there are in the wild these days.
It can also help us identify "bad builds", should any exist. We certainly don't want to point people to a build that loses their data, etc.
This could be a great idea, or it could be opening a can of worms. What does everyone think?
Simply put, it would just be a wiki page that would be "unofficial" and user maintained. It would allow all the various boxes out there to have a user updated link to what users should be trying out, but only if there isn't an official XBMC build (test or otherwise) that isn't more suitable. So, for example, no XAF builds, because official XBMC for Android already supports external players (and due to the extra add-ons that get installed breaking our forum rules). Companies themselves could even update the list, so long as we're talking about just updating links, conflict-of-interest is kept to a minimal.
For those wondering, in the long run there will hopefully only be one main XBMC build, even for AML boxes, libstagefright, etc. However, it all takes time. Until then, we might as well be able to point people in the right direction for both builds and support, without having to fling them to google first. It also helps us clear up situations where an official build will be better, like when people are using external players on chipsets that are now working on the experimental libstagefright builds.
This is all just an idea in my head at the moment, but I wanted to throw it out there to see what other people might think. This is also something I want to run past the rest of Team XBMC, but thought getting some preliminary data would help, since I honestly have no idea how many builds there are in the wild these days.
It can also help us identify "bad builds", should any exist. We certainly don't want to point people to a build that loses their data, etc.
This could be a great idea, or it could be opening a can of worms. What does everyone think?