Here are my thoughts on the "what shall we do now?" issue...

First off, let's all keep our credit cards and checkbooks sheathed. Any time you introduce money into the equation, good things can happen, but bad things can also happen. Very few requests are as simple as Dave's "I'll give you 350 bucks if you can provide Japanese tag support." As an example, If I opened a PayPal account tonight to fund a 3rd party empeg player project, and people started donating to it, they'd want to know where their money is going, and every one of them would have a different idea of what the priorities should be. Doing it the capitalist way, the people who donated the most money would have the greatest proprotion of say in the direction of the player, and those who "only" chipped in $50 or $100 would feel like their donation was wasted.

This could lead to all sorts of bad blood between those who are funding the effort and those who are trying to make the project work, especially if the project slows down... Remember, no matter how much money is donated, most of us have other priorities that are going to get in the way. The great thing about not making any money on my empeg projects is that I don't have to answer to anyone if things aren't done a certain way, or if they're not done quickly enough. Software guys get enough of that type of stress in their real jobs, and developing pet projects like emphatic is a way to do all the things you can't do at work. Once the money starts coming in, as great of an incentive as it is, I don't think it's healthy in the long run.

Ultimately, my enjoyment of this BBS and the empeg community is more important than the cash I could potentially make from my development efforts. That's not to say I'm into doing charity work, far from it... Who wouldn't want to make some money off of something they do for fun? The thing is, before I signed onto such an effort, I'd need to feel like getting involved in it wouldn't ruin the good will and fun atmosphere that has always existed around these parts. I'd also need to be confident that there's a very solid understanding of the expectations on both sides (the buyers and the sellers) such that the workload and the project schedule don't encroach on my real responsibility to my employer.

Now, putting those more "abstract" issues to the side for a moment, the next question is how would we proceed? Upon first glance, the FireFox31/drakino "closed source core player build with bolt-on 3rd party functionality" sounds like a wonderful idea. However, as someone who knows a little bit about the player/app interface from the app side, I would imagine it would take a lot of work from our "empeg insiders" to bring about anything that would work. You don't just take an application and throw in some "hooks." You first need to unhook the hooks that are already there between your own components, then you need to know EXACTLY what the 3rd party developers want from their interface.

Furthermore, with empeg officially involved, there will be all sorts of red tape to clear before anyone can get started. It took me a couple months just to get official approval to use a couple player fonts in emphatic -- imagine what it'd take to get them to do the work it'd take to make the player extensible? Try to sell that one to management.

So, ultimately, if we really want this, I think it's on our time, and our dime. We'd not only need developers, we'd need testers, documentation writers, and the like. While the community is remarkably strong for an EOL product, I don't know if we're strong enough to sustain the momentum it'd require. If someone can make a good case to the contrary, I'm all ears.