Hi,
I'm a main developer of Ampache Doped (http://ampache-doped.github.io), an open source web based audio streaming application.Forked from Ampache project to keep it alive.
I'm also an happy Plex user enjoying Plex and myPlex services on another account every day.
We did several improvement in our software and one of them was to add API compatibility with other streaming solutions, like Subsonic and Plex.
I recently ended the first implementation of Plex API compatibility with myPlex support in our development branch (https://github.com/ampache-doped/ampache/tree/develop).
In short, Ampache Doped can be configured to emulate a Plex server for Music services, publish it to myPlex, optionally use myPlex authentication tokens to authenticate users and then stream media to all Plex compatible clients. Still in development branch but quite stable.
To the Plex team. As far as I know, you have tons of compatible clients but we are the first using the API to emulate a Plex server (or I missed it). And I'm wondering about your thoughts on it?
Could you please clarify some points to me?
Licensing
Plex Inc position is not really clear about licensing and I would not like to break your legal terms. We should be fair between ourselves.
Plex Home Theater is open source (XBMC inheritance), clients developed by Plex Inc are closed source and the server is also closed source. I believe that means images on Plex Home Theater are under GPL too, right? What about the other images available through Plex Server?
The API itself is in a gray zone: it is used by the server (closed source) and the client (open source). You explicitly 'allowed' the API use for client but never said/thoughts about a possible server emulation. I believe this legal issue depends of the country but I would like to have Plex Inc position on that. What about myPlex (I see Plex Server API and myPlex API as two different things that should be addressed separately)?
Implemented Features
Only the music stuff and what is required to work on most Plex clients including myPlex support (some clients allow myPlex only...). No plans for video (maybe music clips one day) and missing browse features should be added in coming weeks.
Money
Ampache Doped is a complete free and open source project, in fact we only lost money and time on it and don't even promote donation (I don't like doing alms and time has more value). Also: php sucks, you shouldn't pay for that or any related software :).
About your money, we do not break Plex business model as we shouldn't impact on myPlex services / associated subscriptions, or only in good way I believe.
Why?
Because Plex has a large variety of compatible TV and Ampache doesn't have one at all, and I would like to listen music to my TV based on my Ampache server/catalogs.
Because in my opinion Plex is oriented for movies/tvshow but not well designed for music. Ampache is the opposite.
Because it was fun to see how Plex/myPlex works in a technical view and only took two days to have something working good enough.
Not much as you see, but I would like feedbacks and the Plex Inc voice. Just to see where we're going before going in too deeply ^^.
Thanks guys ;)
