Since I created Boatswain, earlier this year, a lot has happened. Recently it was accepted as part of the GNOME Circle! As the app gets more popular, people are asking for more useful features that I cannot implement without having access to the actual hardware they depend on.
Specifically, I’ve received multiple requests to integrate Boatswain with Elgato Key Lights. This makes a lot of sense, and I’m happy to do so, but without hardware for testing the changes it’s not feasible. Of course, this is free software, someone with sufficient programming skills could contribute that feature; but as it turns out, the intersection of people using Linux, GNOME, Boatswain, Elgato Key Lights, and knows how to program in C + GObject is minuscule, so that’s unlikely to happen.
Thus I started a mini crowdfunding on my Ko-Fi page to raise funds for one Elgato Key Light, one Elgato Key Light Air, and a handful of work hours. This is the first time I explicitly account for development time in a Ko-Fi goal, so I’m not sure how well this is going to be received, nor how well this will go.
Achieving these goals and actually integrating Elgato Key Lights with Boatswain will be yet another step towards making Linux – and GNOME in particular – a viable platform for streaming.
Actually, I think we have come a long way already; after adding Wayland support for OBS Studio, improving screencasting on GNOME, allowing screencast sessions to be restored by applications, enabling Elgato Stream Deck devices, and of course reaping the benefits of these improvements myself over the past 3 years of streaming on my channel, I feel like we’re actually concretely approaching the point where streaming is simple and accessible for everybody on Linux with GNOME and Flatpak. If you appreciate these improvements, consider sponsoring a coffee!
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