DevCon 2022: Moltes gràcies, Catalunya!

Hello - okay - new teeth, that’s weird. So, where was I? Oh, that’s right... Barcelona!

Well, we did it. After a couple of years of pandemic-induced isolation, we managed to get most of the team together in early April for the first time in forever. We successfully brought people in from as far afield as western Canada and Australia, from Europe and from India, for a few days of brainstorming, hacking, direction-setting, updates and, yes, beer. Without straying into politics, we had notable absences, of course, from our Russian and Ukrainian team members. Stay safe, guys: you were genuinely missed.

As a break from our normal day-by-day account, this year we're writing this as a retrospective of the whole conference, so you get the flavour of everything all in one go. Think of it as a badly-consumed tapas, then... so, off we go.

As usual, topics were many and varied over the days, including:

• SAKE: Simple ASCII Kodi emulator - an emulator for Kodi add-ons that can run and debug all the basic Python stuff
• PVR multi-instancing - so you can have multiple copies of the same PVR addon (e.g. for different backends)
• v20 and release management - a general conversation about how we do releases, when, communications to the community, etc.
• Generalised timeshift - extending the existing PVR timeshift mechanism to a broader capability, perhaps to be rolled back into core Kodi code (instead of duplicating in every PVR addon)
• TheDataDB - a special guest slot from a former Team member, talking about more generalised metadata storage - lyrics, logo artwork, etc. - separate from e.g. episode listings
• Smart home - ideas and existing developments to integrate home automation into Kodi in various ways
• LibreELEC update - a broad update on developments around one of the major platforms for Kodi
• V4L2 status update - HDR, DRM, ffmpeg patches, and everything to do with core video display on Linux platforms
• Binary addon sandboxing - ideas around improving security and resilience by improving compartmentalisation of binary addons
• C++ 20 - options and plans to modernise our code to current standards
• Jenkins deep dive - an overview plus challenges and opportunities around the open source automation server we use to test/build
• Board stuff - internal governance and oversight of all things Kodi
• Android maintenance and Play Store - our ongoing issues with a lack of Android devs, and implications (e.g. our current inability to update in the Play Store because of API versions)
• Flatpak - how we maintain an support our Flatpak, general Flathub changes and how to improve the user experience in the future
• GSoC 2021+2022 - Google Summer of Code - updates on students' work, plans, mentoring, and so on

There were also things we can't really talk about - top secret plans, and bar bills, for example - but this gives a flavour of what we discussed. There's enough here to keep us all busy for many years yet, and that's before new stuff inevitably gets added.

In the meantime, please delight in a picture of your favourite open-source devs, relaxing in the sunshine after a hard day huddled around laptops and projector screens.

Onwards!