LibreELEC vs OpenELEC

adam.h. · July 16, 2016 at 8:15 PM

Guys,

I was awaiting for new OpenELEC release and surprisingly found that you forked it to the LibreELEC. It took me few moments to understand what had happened to my beloved project, so here are my thoughts (feel free to ignore):

1. I think you should more emphasize the fact, that your fresh green fork comes from the solid root/base work of sraue (and the rest of OE team). There is something mentioned on the "About" page, but in my opinion it is not enough - you could simply list 10 github commiters (with # of updated lines of code) at the time when you did the fork to create LibreELEC, to make the clear point.

2. Also, I think you should say few words of why you did this fork. This could help people to understand your approach and concerns. I spend unnecesary time looking for reasons and the best what I found was this: LibreELEC (fork of OpenELEC) : kodi You might want to elaborate it more on your own ground instead of keeping the "why" questions open...

3. Looking on all this I think that OpenELEC just grown beyond the point when one man can control it in reasonable way. So it looks that what you did is the right thing (considering you will not give up with the balance between having latest Kodi releases and keeping LibreELEC rock solid at the same time. Keeping my fingers for it.

4. I'm not sure if sraue will be ever able to accept this coup. Perhaps not. But perhaps some time in the future he will find that good things come out of it. Or perhaps your fork will die slowly by that time. Whatever will bring the future, I would keep the Lead Architect chair for sraue in LibreELEC if he will change his mind, and accept that now there is no single man in charge, but some council and that things are moving on, even when he is out of the town.

So looking on the reddit emails my thougts was that it went somehow personal, which is unavoidable when things are growing up. I hope this will endup in better product, because I'm just another selfish user of OE/LE who wants to have low cost great cinema experience in the home

**Klojum** · July 16, 2016 at 9:06 PM Official Post

Just a quick response.

0) Btw, his nickname is sraue, not srae. And as far as I've personally read on some internet platforms, he is currently on (a long?) vacation.

1) Like any divorce, we are not obligated to disclose the details of all that has passed in the last 2 years. So we won't do that.

2) As to the why of the fork, based on the creative differences, the other members of the OE team decided to do things differently. So after many conversations, we forked. See also Let’s rock this gig! – LibreELEC

3) The long-term planning is briefly outlined in LibreELEC (Krypton) v7.90.001 ALPHA – LibreELEC . We're linked obviously to Kodi, so our planning will be related to theirs.

4) Since the LE fork, things have been pretty quiet on the OE side. At this time, sraue has no official or unofficial seat in LibreELEC, also since there has been no contact between sraue and the LE team after the fork.

You have already read the About page, and I believe it's pretty clear what we stand for.

adam.h. · July 16, 2016 at 9:30 PM

Quote from Klojum

Btw, his nickname is sraue, not srae

ups, my bad, sorry for the typo

**chewitt** · July 16, 2016 at 10:00 PM Official Post

We have no plan to go into more detail as any attempt at explaining ends up reading like an attack on OE's founder, which would be inappropriate and broadly misunderstood. The fork was no betrayal or coup, and although the main reasons are "about a person and their actions" (or mostly their lack of actions) they were never personal.

LE's git codebase fully respects our origins in OE, and there is nothing to stop OE continuing as a successful distro. In all communications with Stephan before, during, and since the fork we have always clearly stated our desire for both projects to coexist respectfully. So there is no "LE vs. OE" situation and we would ask that nobody attempts to frame one. In the long-term the differences between projects can speak for themselves.

**vpeter** · July 17, 2016 at 10:36 AM

Quote from adam.h.

1. I think you should more emphasize the fact, that your fresh green fork comes from the solid root/base work of sraue (and the rest of OE team).

And who was the rest of the OE team by your oppinion? Who helped to get solid base.

**awiouy** · July 17, 2016 at 12:48 PM Official Post

OpenELEC runs, LibreELEC lives, you choose and enjoy

**escalade** · July 17, 2016 at 2:59 PM

You're seriously suggesting they keep the lead architect chair for the man that was the reason of the fork? That makes no sense at all. I suggest we let the LE team handle their own business. The commit logs speak for themselves as to where the action is

adam.h. · July 17, 2016 at 9:40 PM

Quote from vpeter

And who was the rest of the OE team by your oppinion? Who helped to get solid base.

heh, thanks for supporting my point of view I mean I suppose all this is clear for the gang of you 10 (20? 50?) who went for this fork. The rest of the community should suppose to guess it? Should they know more? Should they care? I think you need to answer these questions if you are going to build some community around your project. My hint here would be to compare Kodi Team page (Team Kodi/Members - Official Kodi Wiki) versus yours Team page (The Team - LibreELEC). Does it give any thoughts?

My thinking is that if you went under the banner of "libre" probably you wanted something better than freedom from sraue? If so then lack of transparency is kind of contradicting message.

and please don't get me wrong. I'm not here to preach or complain to support sraue. As I said in the first post, I gave you my first impressions after quickly browsing your pages and not being involved in any of these "divorce" events at all. Also please remember that I generously offered the option to ignore my thoughts

trogggy · July 17, 2016 at 9:54 PM

Quote from adam.h.

I think you need to answer these questions if you are going to build some community around your project.

I don't think you, I or anyone else has the right to demand answers to anything.
A statement's been made. If that's not good enough for you nobody's making you use this software.

**chewitt** · July 17, 2016 at 10:01 PM Official Post

LE has a strong "community" focus and is structured as a collective of people with a common interest. Although a number of us regard ourselves as "on the team" none of the people working/collaborating with the project have ever been asked to declare a formal affiliation to the project. Contributors are not asked to pick sides and are free to contribute to either project as they like. Establishing a legal entity for the project in the future may require us to formally distinguish between voting and non-voting members, thus creating a team, but that's in the future. Today there is no formal team, so it's not appropriate to publish lists of names. Our GitHub commit history provides the best guide to our regular contributors.

Junoxe · August 25, 2016 at 8:08 PM

Ah, here are OE community. I thought OE is dead. Now LE is reincarnation.

2ami · August 27, 2016 at 7:22 AM

just to remind everyone to look at the history of music, so many rock solid boyband has been vanished since they were split, take that, spicegirl, bsb, you name it, hope its not goin to happen in opensource industry

**Klojum** · August 27, 2016 at 7:38 AM Official Post

Not going to happen? It's the circle of life.
No one lives forever, but some just live longer than others.

buzzmarshall · November 10, 2016 at 2:20 AM

All things aside... i think most all make valid points as to how things have evolved and will continue to and i thank all involved in both camps as ive just kept to myself and done my own thing as im only interested in 2 particular boxes that i use... over all tho i tend to look at both projects as basically coming down to the boxes they each support rather then trying to pit one project against or over the other...

as i said im thankful for both camps and will continue to watch and learn from both...

LibreELEC vs OpenELEC

Similar Threads

[S812] MIII Plus 2Gb\16Gb eMMC

converted from openelec to libreelec screen goes black after boot

SO GLAD to install Libreelec over Openelec!