Open Boxee Box Bounty

[openboxee]

http://boxeeboxwiki.org/wiki/The_Uno...Current_events

Openness Bounty

Openness of the Boxee Box is critical to its survival. In the words of Avner Ronen, "it *must* be open." http://blog.boxee.tv/2010/09/01/some...-the-apple-tv/

This is an announcement and a call to action for everyone who wants an open Boxee Box. If you can code, hack, crack or support in any way, please do so. If you can't, that's ok, because you can still advance the cause. Simply pledge your financial support and we will grow a bounty to get there.

As of this point, since I am not a programmer, the pledges must be on the honor system. Email your pledge to openboxee@gmail.com and I will be posting the totals to this site and Boxee's forum. There are many people who want to see an open Boxee Box for so many reasons, including running XBMC as the default software. By collecting support in a financial way, we can support those people who are able to accomplish this task, while providing extra motivation to actually do it.

If in the future, programmers are able to step up and commit to this project, we could be eligible for http://kickstarter.com, which is a project pledge funding setup that would provide greatly needed security in connecting pledgers.

[openboxee]

To start things off, I will be pledging $50 to the effort.

The pledges will only be collected if an open and working bootloader is produced and released. Please do what you can.

[Ozpeter]

Openness of the Boxee Box is critical to its survival.

Some have argued that openness of the BB will drive away the vital big content providers, thus not helping its survival. Who can tell?

[aaronwt]

I'd rather keep the big content providers than worrying about it being wide open.

[BBChopper]

Openness is the way forward.

If the Boxee Box and firmware was open there'd be a community of developers working to iron out the many bugs. At the current rate of repairs/improvements it's unlikely that Boxee Box will ever be a stable or enduring platform.

[Luterin]

I'd rather keep the big content providers than worrying about it being wide open.

I rather have it open and than worrying about "content providors".

And they don't have to be worried, because making the box open doesn't mean that the Boxee software will become open. So they can still have their precious content protected, while people who want can use other software in other ways.

It is possible to have both worlds, and it was orignally promised aswell.

[jbrodack]

Apple tv and many other devices have been hacked. I think companies would be scared away if devices were promoted as completely open but if unofficially hacked I don't think it would be a big deal.

[stevo81989]

Some have argued that openness of the BB will drive away the vital big content providers, thus not helping its survival. Who can tell?

Yeah you never can tell but it is likely that at least netflix would be pulling content. And i wouldnt be surprised if vudu, hulu, NHL, MLB all pull their stuff. As much as i love open source this is one product I would rather not see go that direction.

[MikeyN]

I would bring this up on the XBMC forums - I've been following it for sometime, but from what I've read, it's almost a futile effort. There was something about obtaining the SDK for the Intel chipset in the BoxeeBox, but the only way to do so is to be a large developer or business.

[stevo81989]

However, i think Boxee should start requesting the help of developers but do it in a way that doesnt comprise the content providers. So this way its kind of open source and you can expand your developement.