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Rockbox Developers Talk Open Source Firmware

Posted by timothy on from the be-thankful-for-their-hobby dept.

angry tapir writes "I recently caught up with some of the key developers of Rockbox: An open source firmware replacement for the stock firmware shipped on MP3 players. The project, which has been active for over a decade, currently supports products from more than half a dozen manufacturers, including Apple, Arhcos, iRiver and Toshiba. It involves extensive reverse engineering to figure out how the devices' stock firmwares operate, as well as the challenge of developing for greatly varied targets. You can read the interview here (or the full Q&As with the project's founder and some of the developers involved in it)."

16 of 179 comments (clear)

  1. secrecy is why rhombus-tech was set up by lkcl · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Over time it's only grown to be even more challenging as over the years the companies involved have gotten more and more 'secret'. In the beginning you could actually read markers on chips in the devices and then search for the chips online and find data sheets for them that told us how to program them."

    i've done reverse-engineering, and yes it is exciting, but it doesn't really get results: it's damn hard work, and for what? you're always behind the times - never innovating, always riding on the coat-tails of companies who, as linus notes on page 2 of the interview, end up making hardware design mistakes, and you invested _how_ much time in order to find that out?

    so we set up http://rhombus-tech.net/ as an initiative to create open hardware that is actually desirable as mass-volume products, with free software developers being actively engaged and consulted on the hardware _and_ software development at every step of the way.

    there are several such initiatives that could really do with working together - the most recent one is the plasma "spark" tablet - except that there, unfortunately, they appear to have picked a tablet from a company that is known to be willfully committing GPL violations (zenithink). not too many people spotted that one, in amongst the otherwise-exciting news reports, whoops.

    1. Re:secrecy is why rhombus-tech was set up by Jojoba86 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why mod this up? It is an uniformed post from someone trying to push their own project. If the parent read TFA then they would have realized that Rockbox has got results from the initial days of when it was on the Archos Jukebox players, and for most players is ahead of the proprietary firmware (especially for those who are fans of open standards such as ogg). Rockbox is sufficiently mature that support for it is a factor when I'm looking at mp3 players.

  2. Erm, yes? by sakdoctor · · Score: 4, Informative

    For sport. More rugged than any phone, long battery life, and disposable-y cheap if it gets smashed or wet.

    Also I have to display my lack of iDevices as an anti-fashion statement ;-)

    1. Re:Erm, yes? by vlm · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Weight. Never overlook the ability of fat rich people to spend $500 on a set of carbon fiber bicycle handlebars that are 1.3 ounces lighter than stock carbon steel. Oh, I can listen to my workout tunes using something that weighs 4 ounces less than my hefty iphone, and it only costs $50? I'm so there.

      Size. At least for the gym bunny crowd (exhibitionist mostly young and good looking women who don't actually exercise, but like showing off the goods to the guys who like watching) on some of those more ridiculous tiny tight spandex outfits where do you put a giant iphone? Walk around with it in your hand the entire time? That was the strategy at the gym I used to go to, they'd spend the whole time walking around trying to look at the guys who were looking at them. Some tiny dedicated mp3 players are nearly small enough to be a barrett (no thats a M82A1 rifle) .. barret (no thats for idiots who can't spell Barrett) Oh f it I mean that thing that you women clip in your hair. Even for an old guy like me who thinks "long distance" snow shoeing is hard core, less weight to carry always equals better.

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
  3. OSS Rocks! by Digital+Vomit · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A friend of mine has a cheap mp3 player that he bought a couple of years ago. He flashed it with Rockbox and has had his battery life more than quadrupled!

    I don't know why companies are so loathe to take advantage of free software like Rockbox and, instead, insist on writing their own, lousy firmware. There are people out there who will do it better, and for free!

    Just imagine how much better things could be if closed source software were outlawed...

    --
    Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
    1. Re:OSS Rocks! by ByOhTek · · Score: 4, Interesting

      My first comment was going to be "because nobody but a major geek wants an MP3 player with a UI that looks that bad."

      But I hadn't seen the UI in a few years. I looked on Google and found some screenshots. Damn it looks nice now.

      Anyway, there is still the answer that "the companies want to control it". With the flexibility available from Rockbox, it would be much harder to control the user environment, which would make end user support much more difficult.

      --
      Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
    2. Re:OSS Rocks! by jeti · · Score: 4, Informative

      I once worked for a company like the one that provided your cheap mp3 player. There were several reasons for not being more open:
      1. The only legal music stores at that time insisted on DRM, which is largely incompatible with open source.
      2. Chip manufacturers only provide drivers in binary form. They also have extensive confidentiality agreements that made it impossible to release relevant code produced by us.
      3. Documenting and cleaning up code, reviewing licenses and releasing or integrating code is a considerable workload and has to be justifiable. I think people overestimate the resources that small companies can spend on firmware. The firmware for some of our products was implemented by three or four people.
      4. Our boss hated the idea that our competitors could get a leg up by using software that he paid for being developed.

    3. Re:OSS Rocks! by ByOhTek · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The market isn't limited to "no name" and "Apple". MS, Sony and Creative are in there, at least. Although, Sony fits your no-name description to a T. Cowon, also a fairly unknown name, also has made good players in the past. Some people get these Non-apple players, believe it or not, because they have features that the apple player lacks.

      --
      Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
  4. Re:MP3 Players... by ByOhTek · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yep, even with SDCards, I don't think there are phones out there that can compete with some MP3 players in terms of storage.

    And, as the other poster said, you have issues of battery life as well.

    --
    Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
  5. Re:MP3 Players... by pugugly · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Poor, badly implemented playback with small storage and a lousy interface.
    Want Ogg? Flac? Decent Headphones? Good organization via tags?
    I would be a bit surprised if the iPhone didn't have quite a lot of that (Don't know, Don't much care). But your basic dumbphone doesn't.
    My MP3 player does very good on most of it - and with Rockbox installed has excellent results with all of it it plus the geek cred of playing Midi.

    Really, any good MP3 player ought to play Midi - {G}.

    Pug

    --
    An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
  6. Re:More than half a dozen? by jginspace · · Score: 5, Informative

    ... or go the full hog, list the half dozen ...

    Replying to myself. The list is: Apple Archos iriver Toshiba

    Plus: Olympus Packard Bell Cowon SanDisk

    Plus unstable port for models from these manufacturers: MPIO, Philips, Samsung

  7. Re:MP3 Players... by SuricouRaven · · Score: 3, Informative

    Android plays Vorbis. iPhone doesn't. Windows phones will play Vorbis when hell freezes over.

    Android codec support is actually quite impressive.

  8. Re:MP3 Players... by jcreus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I got a MP3 player from about 4 years ago, from the prehistory. The battery life is amazing, probably 20 times greater than those "smart"phones. I use it every they, and I have to charge it every month or so (and the battery charges really really fast). Yet it plays music, and smoothly. I don't give a damm about other features.

  9. Then get a decent one by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 3, Informative

    Cowon has support it for a long time and I believe iRiver as well and I would be highly suprised if Archos doesn't either.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

  10. Rockbox was the reason I bought my iRiver. by rjforster · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I had my iRiver H340 for less than 30 minutes before it ran rockbox. At the time of purchase it was, to my knowledge, the only way to get gapless playback and high capacity (40GB isn't enough now but it was the best you could get back in the day). I've tried it with a replacement SSD but while it works it is quite flaky and needs regular resets.

    It's a shame there are very few high capacity players on the market now, I would love to get a new device which supports:
    Lots of storage. Enough to encode all my CDs and a few 'try-before-you-buy' albums. Ahem.
    Gapless.
    Bookmarking capabilities that work with all files (apparently ipods require you to define things as an audiobook before they support bookmarking)
    ogg support so I don't have to re-rip my CDs (I'd compromise on this if everything else was offered - it's only a few weeks of feeding CDs to the PC)
    No need to 'make my own playlists' or any other such carp unless I want to. Music already comes with pre-defined playlists: also known as albums.

    If this ever happens it will most likely run rockbox - I doubt the hardware manufacturers would do as good a job.

    To Linus and the rest of the rockbox devs. Seriously. Thank-you.

  11. Rockbox Rules by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm an AC -- always have been, always will be -- so no one will see the comment, but I have to post anyway, just to give a big thanks to the Rockbox team.

    I have an old-ish Sansa (e200), and despite the fact that it's now "ancient technology," with Rockbox, a good sized microSD card (which, BTW, wouldn't be recognized on the original firmware), and replacing the battery once, it still shines. IMO it's as good as any new shiny bling, and I'll probably have it until I do something silly like dropping it into a toilet.

    Seriously, Rockbox is a great application. With the stock firmware I would have gotten rid of it several years ago, but with Rockbox there is no need.

    I don't want -- nor need -- a smartphone. What I need is a good MP3 player, and I use it every day.

    Thanks Rockbox!