sagetv-addons project: EOL notice

[Slugger]

This is a notice that, effective immediately, all projects from my sagetv-addons project are at their end of life. What does this mean? Basically, "official" support for these plugins, libraries, etc. ceases to exist. I'm not leaving the community and I'll still be around likely for some time to come, but I'm no longer focusing on SageTV development and will move from a relatively active developer to simply a user. Instead, I'm moving on to other projects of interest. I won't bore people with the details on why I'm making this decision, though I'm sure most could figure it out.

So there are two things I want to address in this post with regards to the project itself:

1) I'll still answer support questions so ask away in the appropriate threads. Just be aware that code changes are very unlikely, even if a bug is discovered.

2) There could still be updates to plugins as time goes on, but it's likely only to be a result of a bug or missing feature that I encounter in my own environment. If I hit something that I just have to have fixed then I'll fix it and release it. If I can live without, at this point, I'm not going to fix it.

2b) The most likely plugins to see fixes moving forward are the EPG plugin and the web server. Everything else is probably frozen in time at this point.

Project Licensing

Effective immediately, I've stopped accepting payments for all single app licenses. Instead, if you wish to unlock a plugin, you can now only purchase the lifetime license at a reduced cost of $10.72 (CAD). After Paypal takes their cut, I'm left with $10 net on international transactions ($10.11 on domestic transactions) and that $10 will be donated to the Canadian Cancer Society.

Speaking of which, I would like to thank all who have donated to date. Since I'm shutting down this project (for the most part), I have emptied out the Paypal account and am very pleased to make a donation to the Canadian Cancer Society for a little over $500. I thank everyone for their support.

[LehighBri]

It will be sad to see you go... you've done an incredible job over the years developing some pretty unreal plugins.

Can you share any additional detail on what your new focus/priorities are? I personally am focusing less on the whole SageTV experience and trying to get the latest gen of HTPC tools like XBMC and Plex working in my environment. SageTV is certainly going the way of the dinosaurs, especially with mobile apps for those plus upcoming PVR functionality.

[Brent]

Understandable. I want to echo the above well wishes and thank you for your work on SageTV 3rd party apps.

[darcilicious]

Your work and support on these (and other!) projects has been great! Thanks so much for all that you've done to make SageTV better for all of us.

[cat6man]

Slugger,

It has been my great pleasure to be able to use your plugins.
Best wishes always (except for Jays against Red Sox).

Cheers

[stuckless]

Good luck on whatever it is you doing next!

[vividweb]

Thanks for huge contribution to this community. Hopefully something will come along to peak your interest again.

[PiX64]

It's a sad day when we lose an amazing contributor like Slugger.

Thanks for all you have done.

your contributions to the community helped make sage an unbelievably awesome product!

[evilpenguin]

Thanks for all your hard work, we all really appreciate your contributions to the community!

[spacecadet]

Thanks for all the great stuff over the years. I've been using SRE for years and love it!

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by spacecadet

Thanks for all the great stuff over the years. I've been using SRE for years and love it!

And probably a dumb question, but where would I go to purchase a license now? Was holding off on a getting a license to use with mc2xml until I needed it, but no point waiting anymore. Would love to purchase a license from you, but can't find the right working link on your addons site.

Thanks!

[gplasky]

Thanks for all you've done and good luck on your future endeavors.

Gerry

[jorton]

Thanks for everything Slugger. Good luck on your other projects!

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by spacecadet

And probably a dumb question, but where would I go to purchase a license now? Was holding off on a getting a license to use with mc2xml until I needed it, but no point waiting anymore. Would love to purchase a license from you, but can't find the right working link on your addons site.

Thanks!

https://code.google.com/p/sagetv-add...inLicenseStore

[nyplayer]

Thanks Slugger for your time and efforts donated in here.

[Skirge01]

Thanks for everything! We sure don't blame you, but we definitely will miss your development. This immediately came to mind for you, Slugger, and I think it says it best:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq0rF0kfrXA

(Replace "baby" with "Slugger")

[tmiranda]

Thanks Sensei.

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by LehighBri

It will be sad to see you go... you've done an incredible job over the years developing some pretty unreal plugins.

Can you share any additional detail on what your new focus/priorities are? I personally am focusing less on the whole SageTV experience and trying to get the latest gen of HTPC tools like XBMC and Plex working in my environment. SageTV is certainly going the way of the dinosaurs, especially with mobile apps for those plus upcoming PVR functionality.

I'm focusing on the cloud and how to best exploit it to do all sorts of interesting things. Most of my ideas have nothing to do with HTPC/PVR/audio/video/etc., but there is one project I already own in the cloud, which will be my initial guinea pig for a few ideas and that's the livepvrdata.com web service. It runs on the Google cloud and so I might end up rewriting that as an initial exercise to test some of my ideas I plan to use in other things in the future.

I didn't make this decision lightly or hastily. But I just don't see where we (3rd party devs) fit into the future plans of Google/Sage on this platform and over the last, let's say 3-4 weeks, I've had a few interesting ideas for enhancements, etc. for Sage plugins (active ones and new ones) but I always stopped and said, "why bother?" or "hmm... 2-3 evenings a week for 4-6 weeks plus a few weekends seems like a lot of effort for xyz and then is the next big thing going to be announced? Or am I going to have to switch platforms for one reason or another? Not worth the effort." As I kept saying that to myself, I realized it was time to move on. I certainly make use of my SageTV system (and will continue to do so for some time to come), but make no mistake that the driving factor of this environment is my ability to tweak it. Once I lost the desire to continue tweaking, it was time to find something new to "play" with. For the next little while, that appears to be the cloud.

Then I started looking back and realized it was March of 2007 when I joined the SageTV party and unbelievably five years has passed by! I chuckle when I think that prior to Mar 2007, I'd never written a line of Java - never needed to, didn't really want to ("if I can't do it in C/C++ then it probably doesn't need to be done!" ), but then this platform used Java so I needed to learn. Five years later, I'm out of the C/C++ game (at least on a daily basis, it never really goes away completely ) and now am a Java (and C#) developer/consultant in my "9-5" job - pretty much the go to guy for all things Java at the office. If not for Sage, I probably never bother with Java so I need to thank Sage for my current career path.

And maybe this isn't a long departure. Who knows? Maybe Jeff, et al. are just days or weeks away from announcing something. My gut says no, but my heart says "hopefully". And if I'm proven wrong and there is a place for us in whatever comes next from Sage then you'll probably see me right back here churning out some updates and maybe finally implementing some of those ideas I've been keeping in my head for the last little while.

As I said above, I'm not vanishing, I'm still a happy user and will continue to be an active user here on the forums. And I'm sure an update or two will eventually find its way to the repository at some point down the road, but at this time when I get the itch to play with something (code/tech-wise), that something, for the first time in five years, is no longer SageTV.

[graywolf]

Always loved your plug-ins and great support you have given.

That and your willingingness to share your knowledge.

"Better to teach a man to fish ...." comes to mind.


Thanks for everything

[HelenWeathers]

Love what your work has done for my SageTV install....

My Sage wouldn't be the same without your contributions.....

Happy trails man.