Selling Xboxes with XBMC pre-installed Online?

Hey.

I've set up a website to sell Xboxes with XBMC installed (http://www.xbmc.adamnaisbitt.com) and have received a couple of flames about what I'm doing. I've responded to the people in question but wanted to come on here and see where the land lies so to speak.

My understanding is that the GPL enables me to charge for the service of installing XBMC onto an Xbox, and obviously I can charge for the Xbox itself. For this I'm charging £47 (thats Xbox and installation) and a couple of quid to add dashboards/scripts etc... I dont think this is enough to warrent accusations of selling the code! (In fact, at the minute a I'm selling a fully set up Xbox with XBMC for £23.50 - that's a £3.50 profit on what I paid for the machines!)

I have posted links to this website, xbox-skins, xboxscripts, the GNU GPL and the source code on my site (last two just added after an email). Hell, I'm even advising people to download stuff themselves rather than paying us to do it.

Is there something I'm missing?

Last thing I want to do is step on some-ones toes, but I don't see where the problem is. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Lastly, I'm looking to sort this out properly (hence coming on here), so please don't flame this thread as I ain't gonna spend my time answering stupid posts (one email I got asked me how long it took me to write 2 million lines of code - why waste my time? )

I respect what you guys are doing and last thing I want to do is offend. But if I ain't doing anything wrong I'd appreciate the say so.

Please let me know, I'll try to log in tomorrow to see if anyone's posted.

Adam

Well I went and had a look at your site and you actually mis represent a few things on this page http://www.xbmc.adamnaisbitt.com/category-2.htm
you name the skins as
Product: "Apple TV" Dashboard (Awsome!)
Peoduct "Microsoft Media Centre" Dashboard
Product: "Xbox 360" Dashboard
these give the people false impression that you are actually installing products made by microsoft and apple on there xboxs when infact it is XBMC with skins on it so in effect you are actually lieing about the product you provide and I'm sure apple and MS would not be happy with it

Also you are selling the peoples work who did the skins as extra and providing no credit to them that they made it at all on that page

Jezz_X Wrote:Well I went and had a look at your site and you actually mis represent a few things on this page http://www.xbmc.adamnaisbitt.com/category-2.htm
you name the skins as
Product: "Apple TV" Dashboard (Awsome!)
Peoduct "Microsoft Media Centre" Dashboard
Product: "Xbox 360" Dashboard
these give the people false impression that you are actually installing products made by microsoft and apple on there xboxs when infact it is XBMC with skins on it so in effect you are actually lieing about the product you provide and I'm sure apple and MS would not be happy with it

Also you are selling the peoples work who did the skins as extra and providing no credit to them that they made it at all on that page

Will be ammended

(Cant find how to edit a post?)

Ammended

Hi there,

I don't have a problem with you selling a service for XBMC (or even a copy of it on CD or whatever) - this is fully allowed by the GPL.

What is not obvious at all from your site is the fact that XBMC is produced by people other than yourself. It's also not obvious from your site that people may obtain XBMC for free, or that there is a huge community of people out there who are happy to provide free service and support.

As far as I could tell, the only links to the real information are on the "Policies" page. This page has good information, and IMO it needs to be more centerstage in the site, rather than off on a page that has the lowest likelihood of being clicked on.

I know your excited about the possibility of earning a few bucks whilst "spreading the word" - I respectfully ask that you consider reorganizing the site to better indicate the service you provide, rather than what everybody else in the community is providing.

Cheers,
Jonathan

jmarshall Wrote:Hi there,

I don't have a problem with you selling a service for XBMC (or even a copy of it on CD or whatever) - this is fully allowed by the GPL.

What is not obvious at all from your site is the fact that XBMC is produced by people other than yourself. It's also not obvious from your site that people may obtain XBMC for free, or that there is a huge community of people out there who are happy to provide free service and support.

As far as I could tell, the only links to the real information are on the "Policies" page. This page has good information, and IMO it needs to be more centerstage in the site, rather than off on a page that has the lowest likelihood of being clicked on.

I know your excited about the possibility of earning a few bucks whilst "spreading the word" - I respectfully ask that you consider reorganizing the site to better indicate the service you provide, rather than what everybody else in the community is providing.

Cheers,
Jonathan

Thank you for that. I'm not going to get chance to look at it until this evening but I'll rework the sections under "About XBMC" in light of your comments. I can't go too overboard with the proposed changes (I'm not worried it'll lead more people to "do it themselves", but I think it will confuse people who don't have any understanding/interest in the bare bones of XBMC), but I will repost when the site is amended again and pm you. If you then get chance to review and leave me feedback I would be appreciative.

Same goes for anyone else.

Adam
(PS. I appreciate that feedback is being kept constructive)

Of course some of the profits should go into donations if you pricetag your work accordingly. I mean you are profitting off 100's or even 1000's of JM's, spiff's,elupus' and others work. Jet again XBMC is based on other opensource projects like mplayer for instance.
So there are many to thank for their work

jmarshall Wrote:What is not obvious at all from your site is the fact that XBMC is produced by people other than yourself. It's also not obvious from your site that people may obtain XBMC for free, or that there is a huge community of people out there who are happy to provide free service and support.

I like second that to start. XBMC is free and open source software so it should not be misrepresented as something that cost money.

I also like to inform you that what you are doing is most likely illegal, as you are in a form selling XDK compiled binaries, (executables compiled with Microsoft Xbox Deevelopment Kit, the XDK is officially only available to Microsoft approved developers, and those Microsoft approved developers sign a terms-of-use contract which state that they may not publish or distribute Xbox binaries outside their company).

http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/?title=XDK

Quote:Microsoft® SDK (System Development Kit) for Xbox (also known as the XDK)

The XDK compiler is only available to Microsoft approved developers/programmers and is used togeter with Microsoft Visual Studio .NET to compile source code into Xbox binaries (executables) that can run on Microsoft Xbox game-console. You can not run source code alone on the Xbox, please read this (link) why!

XBMC source code is in C/C++, Assembly and DirectX programming-language. XBMC require XDK 5778 or 5849 (5933 is reported to work, but is not supported) and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 7.1 (2003).
Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 7.1 (2003) can be purchased anywhere, but in order to get the XDK you must to register and be approved as an official Xbox developer (though even then you may not release compiled Xbox excutables/binaries/XBE's as you wish, you can only publish Xbox excutables/binaries/XBE's as part of a Microsoft approved game for the Xbox that can be purchased in retail-stores). For information on how to apply for the XDK see this site).

Note! Yes the XDK is also available illegaly (pirated copies) on the internet, private FTP-sites and P2P-networks. However Team-XBMC, for obvious legal reasons, can not help you obtain a such illegal pirate copy. We can only assume that XBMC users/developers have got a legal XDK copy and only use XBMC for personal eduction. THE XBOXMEDIACENTER PROJECT AND ALL XBMC MEMBERS DO NOT CONDONE PIRACY! See the XBMC Disclaimer and Term of Use information.

More information on the XDK here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XDK
This was also discussed earlier this week in this other topic thread: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=30620

Jezz_X Wrote:Well I went and had a look at your site and you actually mis represent a few things on this page http://www.xbmc.adamnaisbitt.com/category-2.htm
you name the skins as
Product: "Apple TV" Dashboard (Awsome!)
Peoduct "Microsoft Media Centre" Dashboard
Product: "Xbox 360" Dashboard
these give the people false impression that you are actually installing products made by microsoft and apple on there xboxs when infact it is XBMC with skins on it so in effect you are actually lieing about the product you provide and I'm sure apple and MS would not be happy with it

I agree. So along with the approiate credits you want to change the names to the skins proper name and a comment explaining that it is (also note that they are skins that change the apperence of XBMC, and not standalone "products", it is XBMC that is the dashboard, not the skin):
"xTV (an "Apple TV" skin replica)
MC360 (an "Xbox 360" skin replica)
etc.

Think if I'd written the dashboards ie xTV and 360MC etc I'd probably get the hump with you charging for them as an extra.... just my 2p

ultrabrutal Wrote:Of course some of the profits should go into donations if you pricetag your work accordingly. I mean you are profitting off 100's or even 1000's of JM's, spiff's,elupus' and others work. Jet again XBMC is based on other opensource projects like mplayer for instance.
So there are many to thank for their work

GPL means I'm free to use the software and charge for a service to install it - with no obligation to pay/donate etc. I am a very open guy and more than happy to see people right, however I would ask how much you have contributed to the XBMC code and how much you feel it is fair for me to pay you?

Geeba Wrote:Think if I'd written the dashboards ie xTV and 360MC etc I'd probably get the hump with you charging for them as an extra.... just my 2p

I'm not charging for them as an extra, I'm charging for a service of installing them.