Selling hardware bundled with XBMC?

I think there's still many step to reach if we want to use XBMC in such case.

- While xbmc don't have a centralised library database , it can't be used in big multiroom infrastructure. Would be a pain to sync lib of each room.

- TV/PVR fonctionality is not ready yet for production use, and is not scaled for big streaming environment.

Imagine the network load of 100 rooms streaming the same channel. For the moment it's one tcp/udp stream per boxe. We should need to switch in multicast streaming when at least 2 boxes are straming the same live channel.
Streamdev vdr plugin implemented multicast streaming, so it won't be a pain to add when pvr client interface will be more mature.

- for legal issue in some country you should need a way to have detailed stats of users consomation to make the Hospital/Hotel paying the digital right fees.

Gamester17 Wrote:@theophile, why would you go and recommend something other than XBMC for the frontend?

Primarily because MythTV was designed for such an application and XBMC isn't. If it were me, I would opt for an integrated solution rather than trying to patch something together with XBMC + VDR + VLC. Plus, as a TV-watching frontend, MythTV frontend is still superior to XBMC. XBMC is a video library that's perfect for HT systems. But for mass frontends with presumably unsophisticated users, I would definitely go with the comparatively simply MythTV.

Has anyone found a solid company building pre-configured XBMC PCs? I am looking for a plug and play solution. I love the software just do not have the time to troubleshoot the configurations. It looks like http://URL REMOVED SITE DOWN is starting work on one and I have asked them for pricing. They seem to be building pre-configured a XBMC platform based on Linux and Nvidia-ION boards. Do any other vendors have a product available now?

Thanks!

This has been discussed before in these threads with "selling" tag:
http://forum.xbmc.org/tags.php?tag=selling

Please respect that the word "XBMC" is copyrighted by the XBMC Foundation. You may not sell a product using the "XBMC" name without explicit consent by the XBMC Foundation, (you may however re-brand a XBMC based box to something else to your hearts content).

Know however that in my personal opinion (which may not reflect the opinion of the rest of Team-XBMC), it will only lead to trouble for us if unaffiliated third-parties starts selling "XBMC" branded set-top-boxes/computers. Third-parties should not be able to sell products using the "XBMC" name on them, ...they may however re-brand the open source software/skins to something else that does not contain "XBMC" in the name, (as long it of course does not violate someones else copyrights for that matter).

I think that them selling a "XBMC" or "XBMCbox" branded set-top-boxe/computer from a domain called xbmcbox.com will confuse their buyers and our users. I believe that all support cases and problems with their product will be addresses to us, thus any faults they have will probably be blamed on us, and any bad reputation they get will fall onto us. If they somehow misbehave or mistreat their customers in any way, intentional or unintentional, then I promise you that we will be the ones who suffers most, and it may seriously hurt the XBMC project in the long term.

Perhaps we could compromise and come to some sort of agreement to do something kind of what DivX (and Microsoft) does in their similar situation, that is, sell licenses or give out special approval/consent to third-parties so they may specifically market and label their products as "Designed for XBMC" or "Powered by XBMC" or "XBMC Approved Hardware", however these are just some ideas. Third-parties would still need to brand their hardware as something else, and would still need to make it clear that their products is not officially affiliated with the XBMC Foundation, Team-XBMC, the XBMC project. For the third-parties this would be similar to how IBM/HP/DELL sell computers with Microsoft Windows operating-system pre-installed and pre-configured, meaning all support cases should first of all go through the hardware manufacturer as the single point of contact, (same as IBM/HP/DELL does today, their customers do not directly call Microsoft for Windows support, they call IBM/HP/DELL as they have their own help-desk who in turn escalate to Microsoft only when absolutely needed, they do not direct their customers to call Microsoft directly).

Again, even if our approval/consent was given, re-branded or not, since XBMC is a free software, third-paries may not actually sell GPL software, you may only sell the hardware and the distribution/packaging service that you provide, which may or may not include a support contract with your users.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

In any case I highly recommend that anyone wanting to sell a XBMC based 'set-top-box' style computer should brand their hardware to something with a unique name, (with a name that does not contain "XBMC"), and they should also set up their own support channels for their specific hardware, such as forums, IRC/chat-rooms, and/or telephone support service, so that their users can first of all turn to them directly for help.

coteyanick Wrote:Also, are the skins licensed under GPL too ?

All skins in the XBMC Skinning Project SVN repository are open source under GPL:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/xboxmediacenter
However, just like with the "XBMC" name, their names/logos are not open source!


PS! Some other examples in the open source world are the commercial MythTV systems for sale:
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Commercial_MythTV_System

The term "XBMC" cannot be copyrighted, it's too short a work to be considered protected.
It can however, be trademarked (register ® unregistered ™).
XBMC team must assert these rights in order to maintain them

The use of the logo WOULD be subject to copyright... of whoever created the logo. It's usually advisable to assert the copyright symbol, but it's not mandatory.

Basically, if anybody sold a box called XBMC, there's nothing you can do.

Sure there is. We can yell at them and call them nasty names.

This is the internet, after all!

XBMC team ..

We are looking to load xbmc ( rather our distro of xbmc much like red hat version of linux ) and sell hardware .. what ways can we as a company obtain ( Official ) support from xbmc team ?

Appreciate your reply

Please share your plans with us via email. You can find our contact info here.

TheUni

You could just get the Dlink Boxee Box. it is as close to a plug n play XBMC your going to find. Its not officially released yet but test boxes have been popping up.


http://www.dlink.com/boxeebox

Gamester17 Wrote:This has been discussed before in these threads with "selling" tag:
http://forum.xbmc.org/tags.php?tag=selling

Again, even if our approval/consent was given, re-branded or not, since XBMC is a free software, third-paries may not actually sell GPL software, you may only sell the hardware and the distribution/packaging service that you provide, which may or may not include a support contract with your users.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

Sorry, I am a bit confused by this statement. It doesn't seem to sit with the actual wording and philosophy of the GPL

My understanding of the GPL is that I am free charge what I want when redistributing the software. The only limit I have on this charge is that if I distribute only binaries I MUST give the source at no extra cost. This has nothing to do with being a third party. The freedom afforded to me by the GPL means I am free to commercially exploit the software I received under the GPL, as long as I don't limited the freedoms of those I sell it to.

Thus, I could sell my modifications to the XBMC for $100, but I would be obliged to supply the source with the modified binaries. In fact, under the GPL i am allowed to compile and sell say tonights XBMC nightly build, as long as I provide the source with my sale (assuming everything I compile is under GPL). Of course, as a long term business this makes very little sense.

So, selling XBMC along with hardware is perfectly legal under the GPL (see the millions of routers shipping with Linux) as long as I provide source. There is no fudging with "selling the packaging" or anything like that.

However, there is one point that hasn't been mentioned. If you are going to distribute XBMC on hardware or in any way for profit, you should bear in mind that many codecs provided (e.g. the most popular ones) are patent encumbered. XBMC is (i'm guessing) a not-for-profit effort. The moment you start making alot of money I wouldn't be surprised to see MPEG-LA or some or "licensing group" beating down your door asking for fees. The same reason why Fedora or Ubuntu don't ship with mp3 or mpeg4 support by default is pretty much the same reason you can't sell hardware with such support (makes me wonder about Boxee frankly)