Everyone always asks about how the bounties are going and looks to the headlines to understand the benefits of open source.  Of course, that's definately a part of it, but at the recent Ohio Linux Fest,  I was struck by how often the minor details were cited as the reason a proprietary software project implementation failed, etc.  The reality is that any software has a host of minor bugs, but to any one user, a particuliarly "minor bug" can be a deal breaker.  A recently example on the OSD really illustrated that.



The OSD uses remote codes that are shared with Sony devices.  We do this so that anyone can program any cheap universal remote to work with the OSD.  Unfortunately, one side effect is that there can be interference with Sony devices.  User Ducktayp had this situation with his PS2.  Apparantly everytime he'd try to use his PS2 remote, it would cause the OSD to go haywire.  One of the items on our "to-do list" is to implement an alternate code that you can program the OSD to avoid this.  Unfortunately our "to do list" is long and it's not entirely clear how long until we can get to fixing that particuliar isssue.



Because the OSD is open source, Ducktayp was able to implement a simple key lock mode where the OSD responds only to a single code.  It's a pretty minor hack in most respects and certainly not something that makes the headlines, but to any user using the OSD with PS2 with a remote, it's the difference between the device being usable and not.