XBMC recruiting developers for Mac OS X port | News

Help wanted from Mac OS X programmers! As you may or may not know, back in May last year a few developers from Team-XBMC began porting the XBMC media-player application to Linux (and OpenGL using the SDL toolkit), with the goal of it someday becoming a full port of XBMC containing all the features and functions available in the Xbox version of XBMC, (this Linux-port of XBMC is still in pre-alpha development stage. However, by now it is usable for white box testing by most experienced Linux users).

Now, a little over a month ago a new programmer named Elan joined Team-XBMC and began porting XBMC to the Mac OS X operating-system (from the Linux port of XBMC), currently only targeting Leopard on Intel x86 hardware, and his progress with this “XBMC for Mac OS X” port is going very well. However, this is a huge task which is why we are making this public request. We are seeking C/C++ programmers who are willing to assist with this XBMC for Mac OS X porting project. Whether you have contributed to The XBMC Project in the past or not, please consider doing so now. Those of you who are completely unfamiliar with XBMC can get a good overview of what XBMC offers its end-users by reading through the XBMC article on wikipedia.org

The XBMC code structure uses a fairly modular design (with libraries and DLLs), and we think that there are enough modules/libraries to keep a wide skill-level range of developers busy in the porting of them all. So please, take a look at the source code to assess where we are today and see if there are any areas you’d be willing to help out. Note that we are not abandoning the Xbox hardware, nor the XBMC for Linux port – Our aim is that XBMC will always be a cross-platform software application, supporting both the Xbox and normal computers, (the ‘old’ Xbox still have a good number of years to live for standard-definition playback, we hope). Developers who would like to volunteer should checkout the “Linux porting development project” and the “HOW-TO compile XBMC for Mac OS X from source code” articles in the official XBMC WIKI for more detailed instructions and contact information.

Note to all end-users of XBMC! Please respect that even though you may play with the Mac OS X and Linux ports of XBMC, Team-XBMC cannot yet offer support to end-users nor accept any bug reports and feature requests for these ports at this time. Additionally, we cannot give you an ETA as to when we will be able to do so. We have, however, added a separate XBMC for Mac OS X forum where early adopter end-users can help out other like-minded end-users. Just understand that you can not yet expect any help from Team-XBMC if you are not a developer.

Spread the news: Digg this – Slashdot – Technorati