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TheQuestor · 2009-08-13, 06:15

I don't know about you, but I find this well to suck. I REALLY hope they give some of that money to who made it possible for them in the 1st place!

http://blog.boxee.tv/2009/08/12/boxee-ge...-catalyst/

and I meant "fork" in the title, not form Sad

Craig

**natethomas** · 2009-08-13, 07:02

Fixed. And I wouldn't worry about it too much. The Boxee guys are VERY supportive of XBMC and have helped this project pretty dramatically. I don't anticipate anyone kicking back a couple mill, but I'm sure they'll continue to be supportive.

TheQuestor · 2009-08-13, 07:51

just seems so wrong to me on too many levels. And while it is great that they have given back to XBMC and probably will continue to do so, it just seems that too many groups have forked this and are profiting from the hard work of the devs of this project.

Oh sure there is part of me that is like, way to go guys, 6 million rocks! and part of me is like man that sucks.

The biggest part that blows is few actually credit you guys or even XBMC as a whole. GRRRRR

Craig

rwparris2 · 2009-08-13, 08:06

TheQuestor Wrote:just seems so wrong to me on too many levels. And while it is great that they have given back to XBMC and probably will continue to do so, it just seems that too many groups have forked this and are profiting from the hard work of the devs of this project.

Oh sure there is part of me that is like, way to go guys, 6 million rocks! and part of me is like man that sucks.

The biggest part that blows is few actually credit you guys or even XBMC as a whole. GRRRRR

Craig

A lot (most) of this has to do with how XBMC has handled PR in the past, and no so much how often Plex & Boxee mention XBMC. Both are completely separate projects, and it would be unreasonable to expect them to give credit to Team XBMC in every blog post; they work hard on their projects and deserve credit (especially boxee as they're taking a much different direction than plex & xbmc).

Fortunately there has recently been a lot of internal discussion about how to improve PR and get more recognition, so I think things will improve in the near-future.
When that happens, we'll start to see an increase in our user-base (and hopefully and increase in donations).
With a little luck we might even see some corporate donations Wink

.

TheQuestor · 2009-08-13, 09:34

let me know what i can do to help

padrino · 2009-08-13, 15:19

TheQuestor Wrote:let me know what i can do to help

I don't image they will turn down any donations Laugh

kizer · 2009-08-13, 16:22

In my mind when ever I mention my XBMC they always ask what it means and I spell it out Xbox Media Center and they instantly look at me like I'm a hacking pirate. I'm not sure if that's a generalization that everybody else gets, but that's generally what I get.

Nevermind the fact I have it running on 3 different machines with 3 different builds because I'm normally tinkering around with things.

MDPauley · 2009-08-13, 16:34

from the about page: '...XBMC, recursive acronym for “XBMC Media Center“' XBox isn't in the name anymore.

rwparris2 · 2009-08-13, 17:06

Just tell them it is Home Theater software.

kizer · 2009-08-13, 22:22

I just end up telling them don't knock it until you try it.

I tried the other today and well you guys are safe to know I will not be leaving anytime soon. Big Grin

Robgue · 2009-08-14, 06:49

Boxee has a great product. Nothing wrong with that. And they do contribute back to xbmc. Also they're going in a different direction.Thats the beauty of oss.

I'm glad we're working on PR. I imagine people's view of xbmc has to do alot with the origin. Developed on the xbox. In a sort of illegal/grey area of the law.
XBMC has evolved beyond that platform. It'll take a little time for others to figure that out. I understand the whole "hacker-centric" aura around xbmc having used it on the xbox and still using it. Honestly it took me a while to find out it worked so great on other platforms.

I say bring on the "newbs". Reintroduce it to a broader audience. Attract more developers,skinners etc. Build a little excitement around releases. XBMC keeps getting better and better. After a while this quality/innovative product will speak for itself. Nod

**kortina** · (This post was last modified: 2009-08-14, 14:43 by kortina.)

I really like this bit:

Quote:Bringing Boxee into devices – Boxee today is mostly serving a tech-savvy audience – those who feel comfortable connecting a computer to a TV. To make Boxee more accessible for a mainstream consumer it’s important for us to get Boxee embedded into connected TVs and Blu-Ray players, game consoles and set-top boxes. We’re already talking to device makers to ensure Boxee works on a variety of platforms for 2010.

I think this would be a huge step forward for XBMC to see it running on retail hardware.

One major setback is that people cant buy an XBMC appliance. Boxee are on to a good thing here, and it should really benifit both both parties.

"Computers" in the lounge room are not cool, and typically dont look good. Flashy new retails appliances are all the rage.

I think the Acer Revo is about as close as you can get at the moment.

Telling your non tech friends that you just got an "XBMC Revo" is much more interesting than "I just built a PC for my lounge room and installed Linux on it"

XBMCLive is great, but it turns people off when they have to research and build a device for their lounge room.

kizer · 2009-08-14, 17:44

Yeah I have a few friends that are not very tech savy and they'd rather buy a done box and walk away. I even expained to them why not peice it together and I'll help you get it running.

How to I rip dvds, how do I put videos on it, how do I....... I ended up thinking man its to much effort to set them up when they really don't want to learn they just want to push in a disk and click a button. I'm sure we all would as well, but I guess thats the excitement of knowin I did that.

DaveGee · (This post was last modified: 2009-08-21, 17:42 by DaveGee.)

While I feel for the developers of XBMC and feel their project is the ONLY way I'd ever go...

But remember, a spin-off (forked) project being given venture capital isn't like it was back in the dotcom craze where anyone and everyone who could spell internet was just given a big pile of money with a bright red ribbon on the top and very few questions asked (cause they didn't have the foggiest idea what you were actually doing in the first place!

It's not the late 90s people, the **brilliant** concept of "lets just start throwing money at everyone and we're bound to get a few winners!" is forever erased from any sane VCs mind.

Today is as it was in the years of old, VC money comes with a leash. Attached to that leash is a vicious pit bull with razor sharp teeth who will be watching that funding like a hawk. VCers are still pretty shellshocked from the dotcom implosion and, if anything are even more strict then they were prior to the craze.

Try telling the VC manager... We would like to give 1MM (20%!) of the cash you gave us to the development team that helped us get to where we are now... After first being asked if there was some legal requirement that boxee didn't tell the VC manager the next thing the manager would do is as two simple question:

Q: How does giving 20% of my money to another group of developers make me profit?

If you provide a valid answer then a followup would be in order....

Q: Why am I bothering with you....

So yea... it SUCKS.. but as we all know Boxee is a very very very different animal than XBMC... Its something that the AD hungry whores (I say that in a nice way) at Google would LOVE to implement. After all, google is all about the data... and all about the numbers... more data... more data.. more data... Accurate (targeted) AD revenue is a BIG number... and the more precise Google can get with its targeting (more data) the more money they can ask for their ADs.

Like it or not, that is the road Boxee will be traveling.

They might tell you otherwise, they might even believe what they are saying. but trust me the VC manager has made a financial investment and is GOING to have a BIG say about where the future direction will lead and my guess is to the door of Googles corporate offices (maybe in a few years maybe longer) but one day I'm sure his dream is to sell his stake in Boxee to Google for a nice fat profit.

I just wonder how much of ownership in Boxee the VC firm has... Do they have controlling interest (aka: >50% ownership)? It wouldn't be unheard of...

Now all that speculation leads to a very interesting question for the developers.

Lets, for a second think about being offered 1MM of the VC money that was given to Boxee.... Would you take it (and then have to carve it with the other major developers & artists) and then be happy that the VC firm now had a final say as to the features and directions XBMC would take from this point forward?

No, I'm not asking for them to answer it for real... but just something to think about...

Dave

**spiff** · 2009-08-21, 17:47

just to make it clear; we have a very good relationship with boxee, they have sponsored both our dev cons and personally i am very happy to see them getting the finances they need to do their thing. as a side note, i can say that we already got $25k donated from boxee a while back with no strings attached (we have used a good bit of it for covering travel expenses to dev con, as well as hosting - things that benefit the project and not the individual). they know where they come from and honor it well beyond what they are required to do (obey the license).

1MM would allow us a great dev con and pay for hosting for like forever.
but the team is not for sale, nor the direction we want to take the project. that being said, we are humans and saying that we wouldn't be more inclined to listen to your ideas if you just dropped that amount of money on us would be a lie. but in general it would be an extremely expensive way to get us to listen to your ideas, and you would still have to convince us that it made sense.