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Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

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Re: Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate? Are you saying there is FUD against Kodi or XBMC or BY them?

4-5 (ish?) Years ago there was a lot of media coverage about how kodi was a "piracy app" because some cheap set tops were shipping it with bundled torrent (etc) plugins. There were various legal threats against the project itself. Worth searching for in hn archives, lots of good discussion about it and how much of a coordinated smear campaign it was/n't.

To show just how much the XBMC Foundation is against using their work for piracy:

They chose the name Kodi because it was the most protectable trademark they could claim, which opened an avenue for them to sue the drop-shippers for trademark violation.

Re: Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

#42

Been using Kodi (XBMC) for nearly 20 years. The piracy FUD surrounding XBMC a few years ago really disappointed me. We use Kodi for streaming tv (Australia) and internet radio and it is perfect for this. That's all I wanted to say really. The piracy FUD has been disappointing.

It’s not really FUD in the vast majority of cases, though. Kodi is used to play pirated content the vast majority of the time. No value judgment either way by me but it’s obviously true. Same with Plex.

Re: Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

#43

For anyone new to it, Kodi is hardly new its been around for almost 20 years now, starting life as Xbox Media Player and later Xbox Media Center. It's been pretty okay at what it does for a while now and has really been competing primarily with Plex as the place to store "your own copies of movies" and has really become the leading open source solution as Plex has become something of a commercial option.

And Plex started as a MacOS port of XBMC before those devs split off, completely re-wrote, and renamed it Plex.

*My timeline is prolly slightly off, but those are the major plot beats.

Re: Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

#45
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4-5 (ish?) Years ago there was a lot of media coverage about how kodi was a "piracy app" because some cheap set tops were shipping it with bundled torrent (etc) plugins. There were various legal threats against the project itself. Worth searching for in hn archives, lots of good discussion about it and how much of a coordinated smear campaign it was/n't.

To show just how much the XBMC Foundation is against using their work for piracy: They chose the name Kodi because it was the most protectable trademark they could claim, which opened an avenue for them to sue the drop-shippers for trademark violation.

I feel they’re in the same position Dolphin is - attempting to keep a center of respectability above what everyone knows the product is actually used for.

Re: Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

#46

I used Kodi in its very early days as Xbox Media Center. XBMC turned the original-generation Xbox into a cheap and very functional media center PC - I actually didn't stop using mine until I upgraded to HD in the early 2010s. More recently, I've been running it on a Raspberry Pi 3A in my kitchen. It interacts with my DVR upstairs, so that I can pause TV there and pick it up downstairs. I credit the fact that it was o…

I got an XBOX because my late father was a .NET developer and very much into Microsoft technologies so he thought the XBOX was a nifty device. The software on that device was just so lousy. I was into Squaresoft type RPGs/Nintendo 64 era Rare games and the XBOX did not deliver. Only games I ever bought for that console were Shenmue 2 and Blinx the Time sweeper. However that simple 20$ LPC mod chip opened up a world o…

Modding my XBOX using a chip my friend was forced to sell me because it got his dad banned from XBOX Live was the best thing that ever happened to me. The first SCMs I ever learned were CVS and SVN in order to mildly tweak and compile my first ever program, XBMC.

It inspired me so much that in my second (or "interests") University of California admission essay I wrote at length about the experience and others like compiling and loading Rockbox on my DAP. In a happy twist, I was still offered a Regent Scholarship to a a few UC campuses. Even ones I didn't apply to.

Re: Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

#49
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

Intellectual property is theft by the corporations — it is literally charging us to partake in our own culture. And if you’re a creator and create something derivative, expect tens of thousands in a legal judgement against you just because you’re a creative fan. Even decades after the creator is dead, and can no longer benefit.

>it is literally charging us to partake in our own culture

If I create something it's not your culture unless I decide to share it.

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