A lot of people have been wondering what’s up with Tubular lately, and why there haven’t been any bug fixes. Well, before I explain why, let me tell a story.
After Tubular’s first private beta was released, I fired off an email to the developers of Perian, the open source QuickTime codec package that includes support for, among other things, Flash video. I asked them about possibly including Perian in Tubular, thinking that it would probably wait until a couple releases were out the door before it would even be viable. The next day, I got an email from the project lead for the Perian project. He mentioned that they were already in the process of relicensing the code from the GPL to the LGPL.
A quick note regarding the GPL and the LGPL. These two terms are different licenses for open source software. They stand for the GNU General Public License and the GNU Lesser General Public License, respectively. If you’re a shareware developer, and you want to use open source code in your app, there are some things you need to be wary about. If the code is licensed as GPL, and if you use the code in your app, then you’re required to license your entire application as GPL (and as a result, give away the source code to your program to the entire world). However, if the code is LGPL, you can use it in your code as long as the LGPL code is isolated from the application code without needing to license your entire project as LGPL.
Long story short, LGPL code can be used in a closed-source shareware app as long as the LGPL code and the shareware code are not built into one file, and GPL cannot (for the most part) be used in closed-source apps. (Don’t take this as legal advice, I’m not a lawyer, etc.)
Anyway, back to the story. The Perian guys were already in the process of moving the code from the GPL (which couldn’t be used in Tubular) to the LGPL (which CAN be used in Tubular). This was great news, but I was still under the expectation that the relicensing effort was going to take awhile to work out (possibly as long as a few months), as relicensing generally means contacting EVERY developer in the project and asking them for permission to relicense their code under the LGPL.
It wouldn’t take that long after all. A few short weeks later, they got back to me to announce that the LGPLization of Perian was complete.
The project of moving Tubular to Perian has been underway for the last couple weeks. We were going to wait until after the 1.0 came out, but using Perian will (believe it or not) make it easier to ensure that every video you want to play in Tubular will play 100% of the time. Same for iPod conversion. This is a huge deal, as it is one of the biggest issues with Tubular at the present.
Getting Perian running has, temporarily, been spun off into its own little project. This is pretty standard procedure - get something working by itself, and then integrate it. So, it hasn’t been running inside of Tubular yet, but once it is working more flawlessly, it’ll get built right in.
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Mitch Said
at 12:12 pm on January 15, 2007,What about making the features that are already in Tubular work? There are still major issues with the app that render it useless, and they have yet to be addressed. Search terms larger than the search box won’t work, searching more than once won’t work, unless you change the search results display, etc. When will we get those items fixed? It has been weeks now since these problems were reported, and still nothing. I was mislead by the screen-casts, as I thought that you had a stable application here that worked well, but when I got the beta, I realized I was thoroughly mistaken. I don’t think it is right that you are selling this beta, since it is most definitely not worth the money. I can use free alternatives for downloading and coverting YouTube videos, so what working feature does this application have to offer? Sorry for the rant, but this is just getting to be ridiculous.
alej744 Said
at 2:35 pm on January 15, 2007,This beta f-ing sucks. It’s bugtastic.
Tim Said
at 6:20 pm on January 15, 2007,Features I’d like to see:
A forum to discuss this program, we have ideas!
My subscriptions on the right side.
Tags. Let me see them, search them, etc.
Better searching, more advanced ordering.
Let me see the description, etc.
More functional viewing (maybe multiple columns of information, one video per row).
Filter out the japanese videos (sorry if this offends, but good heavens if I see one more Anime video in Featured, I’ll scream).
Most Viewed with View Counts.
A Stephen Colbert Channel on the Left Side (seriously, well just kidding, but seriously…)
Add to Blog Option.
Link to Comments to open in Browser.
How about a HIstory option with what I’ve Viewed?
Put My Favorites in the Folders I’ve Created.
Tabbed Browsing (maybe that’s asking for too much).
Did I mention a Forum so we can contribute?
Mitch Said
at 10:21 am on January 16, 2007,Tim,
All of those would be lovely, but at this point, I’d just like to see a working YouTube searchable application.
James Said
at 5:36 am on January 18, 2007,Yes, please make it work! We bought this app, even not seeing or testing it, and you keep promising that it will be out soon! At this stage of development this software really sucks…
Thorsten von Plotho-Kettner Said
at 1:04 pm on January 18, 2007,Before taking some new features in the boat, please fix the issues mentioned, and make it stable.
Steve Streza Said
at 2:01 pm on January 18, 2007,Perhaps I should’ve been clearer. Adding Perian will actually fix a lot of the issues regarding every video being able to always be played or converted to iPod. The fact that custom video player controls come along with it is a bonus.
James Said
at 3:25 pm on January 18, 2007,Hey Steve. And how long do we have to wait? Wasn’t this one supposed to be out by christmas?
Phil Lucsok Said
at 4:41 pm on January 18, 2007,i highly regret giving you my money…
this program is completely UNUSABLE! a lot of people are complaining for a good reason, you know.
Mitch Said
at 3:49 pm on January 20, 2007,Hey Steve,
The problem you describe is hardly the biggest problem with the application at this point. Maybe making the search field work should be more of a priority at this point? Downloading and converting isn’t a problem right now, since we can’t even search properly for videos to download and convert.
Chris Said
at 5:04 pm on January 20, 2007,I understand that you’ve got some development problems, but geez. I paid you. I gave you what you asked for, and you definately did not deliver. I can’t use tubular. I HAVE to use a web browser instead. I’d love for tubular to work. But right now that’s not happening, and it’s really ridiculous that you can charge money for this nonfunctional garbage.
Please change my blown tire before you work on the paint job.
Thorsten von Plotho-Kettner Said
at 1:49 am on January 21, 2007,Steve, come on, please give some feedback. You did a great job right now, but at that point, “a or b”, follow the line or do a break. 2 possibilities right now, come on with some functional beta across and give us some working stuff, maybe find a co-developer, or take the bitter one and recharge the money and work harder, then I promise you at that point, I will pay again if the result is as promised for me.
Regards, Thorsten
James Said
at 1:54 pm on January 22, 2007,Hello? Steve? Can you still here us? Or have you been on vacation from the money we gave you for this non working player? Dude, give us some feedback and do something for your money! This makes me really mad! The least you can do is give some comments!
Daniel Ruth Said
at 8:55 pm on January 22, 2007,I still haven’t received my e-mail with the pre-order feature? I sent 2 e-mails to the contact e-mail above with my reciept number and still nothing?
Steve Streza Said
at 9:36 pm on January 22, 2007,Daniel, I’ve sent about 3 copies of the email to your email address, and they all bounce because it’s an AOL address. If you’ve got another email address I can send to, let me know and I’ll get the link sent to you ASAP.
James, it was supposed to be out by Christmas, but circumstances outside my control keep dragging delays in the door. A lot of these involve school work, and I’ve been going through midterms week for awhile. It is coming, though, and the Perian integration will only make everything better.
Mitch, both will get fixed, to be sure, as the search issue is pretty serious.
Chris, I understand your frustration, but as I said above, adding Perian will, when finished, fix the issue with videos not playing or converting. And, I’ll be able to do it faster than I could have without using Perian.
Everyone else: I know we’re testing your patience, and am again very emphatically sorry about all these issues, but I’m working very hard to deliver this to you guys. Nobody wants Tubular to ship more than me, because as much as you guys are dying to get your hands on it, I’m ultra-dying to start putting some truly awesome features into it.
James Said
at 3:49 am on January 23, 2007,Well Steve, I understand some parts you say, but I do not understand charging money from people even if you do not seem to have enough time to code that app. You say school work and that just doesn’t seem very professional. Either you want to be a professionell developer and get things right or you can do it as some kind of a hobby, but then please do not charge people for a useless peace of software! You could have just put this thing out as it is, but I guess you were afraid that people will hate it and not buy it. I would not have bought this crap if I saw how it works. (Actually it doesn’t work)
You are loosing my trust man…
kmf Said
at 5:08 am on January 23, 2007,The Version I have working fine for me ….
Tubular is Worth Every Penny I Paid!
Steve don’t loose Heart … I think the App rocks … it is still Beta I’m fine with that, I agree with James on the Pro bit, but Hey … it’s your first time … I’ll cut you some slack.
As long as it’s stable by March
Rock On!
Daniel Ruth Said
at 1:00 pm on January 23, 2007,Hi, I’ve sent 3 e-mails from my e-mail address: email@removed.com which is my school address and has no affliation with AOL. Can you please try that one?
Edit: Removed your email address so it doesn’t become a spam farm - Steve Streza
James Said
at 1:48 pm on January 23, 2007,Hey Daniel, I think you really like SPAM, don’t you?
M.Bischoff Said
at 9:54 am on January 24, 2007,Well, Tubular is still pretty useless in its current form. I’m accepting bets on how long it will take until we see a final *and* working version. My bet is in about 6-8 months - similar to all the other overhyped apps.
Thorsten von Plotho-Kettner Said
at 2:30 pm on January 26, 2007,Make some final-line otherwise, if not taken, please pay back the money and restart. What about that?
Or hit the road and take a full-shot!
Regards, Thorsten
Tervor Said
at 12:06 pm on January 27, 2007,god you really fucked this up didn’t you.
Guess all that phil ryu hype was a bad idea in the end.
Mike Sheffeild Said
at 12:20 pm on January 27, 2007,Here is some advice, When making apps for Mac users, you have to understand.. It has to be perfect. MACOSX is a masterpiece OS and of course that is well known.
Mac users tend to expect perfection, and unfortunately, development on the Mac platform is a bit obtuse from what I understand.
You need to get your Mac app going my friend because I was at Midem and the Lambcast guys was showing a preview of their Lambcast 1.1 and their new Lambcase digital distribution system.
They said that 1.1 will be freeware in an attempt to market their other stuff and wipe out competition, so you’re charging people money for a product that is not currently better than their 1.0 is not too good. I have XP/Bootcamp on my Macbook Pro and theirs work, no money spent, no complaints.
Good luck on your future endeavors and hopefully you have learned a great lesson of many to come for the future.
Don’t sell tickets to a game then choke on the game winning shot!
Mike Sheffield
Tekserve
The Mac specialist
http://www.tekserve.com
NY, NY
Angel Said
at 7:51 am on January 28, 2007,This is probably a good lesson for people: Never pay for a BETA.
Thorsten von Plotho-Kettner Said
at 10:18 am on January 28, 2007,I paid for Disco aswell and I am very happy with it, I did a donation for MailTags as it was 1.X, and now I get the 2.0 for free. Good experiences by now, but that one here is with a bittersweet taste for me right at this time. Hope to get some faster information-stream now…… I am so unhappy at the moment.
victim Said
at 8:12 pm on January 29, 2007,If you guys want a working OSX YouTube app today, get DemocracyPlayer. It has everything this app promised and more!
Tank8131 Said
at 11:35 pm on January 29, 2007,Guys…he didn’t make you pay for anything. You voluntarily pre-ordered a product you knew little about. He’s doing the best he can so get over it.
Skippy Said
at 11:52 pm on January 29, 2007,Wow, I read thru the comments and thought what a evil bastard this Steve guy must be. Then I go to the pre-order page and see that the money in question is a whopping $12.99 So the question that comes to mind now is: “Are you guys that freaking poor - or just a bunch of whiny bitches”?
hah Said
at 12:00 am on January 30, 2007,AHAHhahah, damn skippy.
Tubular Killar Said
at 12:17 am on January 30, 2007,Wow, tubular fkd everyone over.
I bought tons of serials as xmas presents.
You promised something and cannot deliever.
If you didn’t know, thats against the law and you are required to refund EVERYONE. If we do not all receive refunds, you will be hearing from your ISP, feds, and my lawyer.
MajorD Said
at 12:35 am on January 30, 2007,What the hell is all this whining? You guys paid HOW much for beta? Maybe I’m missing something, but basically you are out 1 lunch if this software never ends up working for you. Jesus grow up.
kmf Said
at 12:54 am on January 30, 2007,Kids of today … they probably don’t even pay for their music
mediaphile Said
at 2:11 am on January 30, 2007,@victim: “If you guys want a working OSX YouTube app today, get DemocracyPlayer. It has everything this app promised and more!”
except that democracy doesn’t support youtube favorites lists or converting to ipod. democracy and tubular are two completely different apps with two completely different purposes. pay attention.
John Said
at 6:48 am on January 30, 2007,I’m not sure if the story was meant to distract or an excuse??? I know that things take time, but you started selling pre-orders way too soon. It’s not even usable at this point…but I hope you’re able to make it stable soon. Red Bull.
John
http://www.monomachines.com
Thorsten von Plotho-Kettner Said
at 7:13 am on January 30, 2007,The amount is not the problem, but the promises. So no one asked some trolls to raise their voice. Steve should make his job and all is fine. And he will do, I am sure of that. But some smashes would wake him from dreaming
And I bought my musics online, so meet the corner for such silly accuses.
Chris Said
at 7:18 am on January 30, 2007,I wrote up here on the 20th, and still no word or hint of an update. I’m disappointed, and by the time we get a working version of this software, it’ll be old had and there’ll be a bajillion freeware programs that do the same thing better. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple, in its new partnership with google and taking advantage of google’s aquisition of youtube, incorporated something exactly like this into Leopard’s version of quicktime or iTunes… maybe even the iPhone. Whatever; the point is you missed the boat, and that sucks for you because people are going to be hesitant to give you money for anything you develop in the future if they fear you’ll give them a crappy product again.
Best wishes and good luck.
lol Said
at 7:41 am on January 30, 2007,I just read about this on Digg… what a scammer you are, Phillip Ryu! You should be ashamed of yourself!
Jampini Said
at 9:50 am on January 31, 2007,What does tubular do? I tried looking it up online but it’s so vague, I have no clue what it does so why would I buy it or preorder it ( the main site barely talks about what it is or what it does)? Any info on this, or is it purposefully vague?
James Said
at 1:23 am on February 1, 2007,Gosh, you did not read quite well
http://tubularapp.com/blog/16/screencast
Pete Said
at 6:53 pm on February 1, 2007,I’m only a casual user of YouTube, but I watched the video demo and thought it was a reasonably useful piece of kit; but then I read this thread.
Man, have you upset your most important user base! Your early-adopters are your evangelists, and they are screaming at you. Whatever made you think it was a good idea to charge for BETA software? Surely you should have just done what the rest of the world does, and make it a free download which times out by the time the release version is shipping?
Regardless of whether it’s only $12.99 or not, you’ve already stuffed the future of this product by gaining a bad reputation.
Sorry Steve, I’ll be passing on this one.
Mitch Said
at 11:33 pm on February 1, 2007,What are the refund possibilities at this point. You have yet to deliver a working product, and falsely advertised the capabilities of the product on your video that you posted on this blog. I have a useless application that I paid for, and I would like my money back. Can this be done with the distribution of serial numbers, allow users to be refunded? I will guarantee that you will receive no further purchases from me and many others if you continue to “Scam” us with this useless application. You will not be able to make it as a shareware developer if you continue to run your business like this.
Waiting Said
at 5:06 pm on February 2, 2007,Could you please give an update, I really like the app I just want to know the general time we’ll get an update. MacZot thought this app was good and so do I.
will Said
at 7:58 pm on February 2, 2007,lol, guys, try http://vixy.net/flv_converter It converts youtube stuff online and gives you a link to your desired format.
Maybe someone should just build a little app to “scrape” off that instead of this youtube scraper..
kidzmatter2me Said
at 8:48 pm on February 2, 2007,I am an impressed Tubular user. Yes, it is heavily broken yet at this point. But it is not a massive horrible failure. I have used betas released by much larger companies (Microsoft, Adobe, Apple) that were buggier than this. That is why it is a private beta. No beta app can be expected to be perfect. There is still an outstanding bug with a shipped version of a Microsoft product that prevents it from being updated. (I know, it’s Microsoft. But that’s not the point.)
I am a student. I understand how studies come before the rest of life. Yes, I would have liked to see Tubular ready sooner as a paying customer. But I also realize that life quite frankly gets in the way at times.
kmf Said
at 2:01 am on February 5, 2007,Hi I have created a Google Group to Discuss the App.
This is in *NO* way affiliated with Steve Streza or Tubular.
This is a interim solution until a Forum is implemented.
Google Group is here :
http://groups.google.com/group/tubularapp
Karl
owemwhows Said
at 2:30 am on November 16, 2007,Two new studies show why some people are more attractive for members of the opposite sex than others.
The University of Florida, Florida State University found that physically attractive people almost instantly attract the attention of the interlocutor, sobesednitsy with them, literally, it is difficult to make eye. This conclusion was reached by a series of psychological experiments, which were determined by the people who believe in sending the first seconds after the acquaintance. Here, a curious feature: single, unmarried experimental preferred to look at the guys, beauty opposite sex, and family, people most often by representatives of their sex.
The authors believe that this feature developed a behavior as a result of the evolution: a man trying to find a decent pair to acquire offspring. If this is resolved, he wondered potential rivals. Detailed information about this magazine will be published Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
In turn, a joint study of the Rockefeller University, Rockefeller University and Duke University, Duke University in North Carolina revealed that women are perceived differently by men smell. During experiments studied the perception of women one of the ingredients of male pheromone-androstenona smell, which is contained in urine or sweat.
The results were startling: women are part of this repugnant odor, and the other part is very attractive, resembling the smell of vanilla, and the third group have not felt any smell. The authors argue that the reason is that the differences in the receptor responsible for the olfactory system, from different people are different.
It has long been proven that mammals (including human) odor is one way of attracting the attention of representatives of the opposite sex. A detailed article about the journal Nature will publish.
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