Once upon a time, if you wanted to be a broadcaster, you needed to buy a lot of electronics and obtain a license from the government. But once the Internet came along, people could turn to software like SHOUTcast, which lets you start your own Internet radio station. Still, running SHOUTcast isn’t easy enough for everyone – and that’s where tools like SHOUTcast Management Interface (SMI) come in.
SMI allows administrators to set up SHOUTcast servers using a graphical interface. It also allows users to manage servers with the same interface; they can start or stop and upload music, or have the server run as an “auto-DJ.” And as of the latest version, released last week, the software runs under Windows as well as Mac OS X, Linux, BSD, and Solaris.
The project began after project founder Scott Harvanek and two other developers set up a SHOUTcast daemon for a mutual friend who was not very computer-savvy but who enjoyed broadcasting. “We had to constantly make changes for him,” Harvanek remembers. “We finally decided we should write some software so he could just do it himself.” SMI is written in PHP and MySQL, with help from SHOUTcast, MRTG, Ices, and cURL.
The three friends registered the project on SourceForge.net as soon as they began to develop it in 2006. “We needed an easy unified platform where all of us developers could work on it without relying on a single person to make releases or perform other administration.” As a side benefit, “a lot of people have been able to find it via SF.net and Ohloh, so we haven’t done too much promotion – it hasn’t needed it.”
The developers aim to make releases every three to four months. In upcoming releases they plan upgraded AutoDJ and media management, and to do that, they’re happy to have help from other contributors. “We appreciate user involvement, as it’s the only way for us to know what people want, and everyone brings something unique to the project. The best way to get in touch with us is through the SourceForge.net site.”
Harvanek has one final note: “I’d like to thank Kristian Resset for being such a humongous help with SMI while I’ve been in the process of moving and caring for my newborn son. He’s been fantastic at leading the project, code updates, and general releases.”