I have no idea what they can do to combat this. I don't see how they can distance themselves from this any more than they have.
Does anyone know why the consumer electronics industry is ignoring Kodi?
I really don't think the audience for Kodi is that big. It requires you to have DRM-less, local copies of any TV or movie you want to watch, and how many people - legally - have that? Not many. I know because I'm one of those people, and use Plex, despite its faults.
Also, last I used Kodi it was one (very big) codebase. Plex is split out into server components and client apps, which is essential for Smart TV usage. You're never going to get a full instance of Kodi running on a Roku box, you'll need some kind of client that connects to a remote server holding all your videos. There's nothing stopping the Kodi team from making that Roku app, incidentally.
This is partially true. While all the "questionable" boxes come with pre-installed plugins connect to servers that restream copyrighted content (including live content), there are also plugins that connect to legit content streamers as well.
To boot, Plex began as a fork of XBMC (Kodi's name at the time). Which, given Kodi's GPLv2 license, probably puts Plex out of compliance.
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/141186/possible-gpl-violat...
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/141186/possible-gpl-violat...
Ah, XBMC... I still have an original Xbox that I modded to specifically run XBMC collecting dust in my spare room. It definitely has come a long way.
And though it was big and heavy, it had an integrated PSU.
This was before raspberry pi was a thing, mind you. The alternatives were expensive (~€200) hard disk enclosures that couldn't do a fourth of this. I would have kept on using if it wasn't for its inability to cope with HD formats, and wouldn't be surprised to learn that it helped to promote the console quite a bit.
It was noisy as hell (from the fan) too.
The fact that know one even remember it besides me seems to point out why not a lot of others have followed.
Unfortunately most companies in the sector, from hardware manufacturers to integrators, have equivalent, if not worse open-source policies. They are willing to take the hard work of others where it will accelerate development, but view sharing back as a loss of control and competitive advantage.
This is in part due to pressure from operators and content providers, who are very fearful of losing control over distribution and tend to view anything open with deep suspicion.
I’ve never understood this mentality (disclaimer: I’ve worked on set top box software). The competitive concern would only be valid if the company’s closed source software was any good. Every closed source set top box software I’ve ever seen was beyond awful, at least compared to open source alternatives. Who on earth would gain any competitive advantage from even looking at the code, let alone using it in a competing product?
They don't have a business model and product that is designed to spy on their customers, which makes them a turd in the toilet bowl.
I don't think Kodi's reputation should suffer any more than Apple's does, but at the same time, I know that it will.
Require addons and kodi itself not to hardcode the Kodi name/brand (even in logos/addons titles, etc.), if an unauthorized addon is installed kodi replaces all the kodi brand with a generic name, the harder to google the better, something like "Media Player" sounds generic enough.
But I'm sure these box sellers would just "create" custom skins/addons and put the kodi brand there just to spite the developers.
I think Kodi could partially mitigate this issue by selling clean kodi boxes. I still don't know where I can buy one.
https://kodi.tv/article/xbmc-getting-new-name-introducing-ko...
[1] I don't buy that they needed to change the name because "XBMC" didn't make sense anymore. "Kodi" is just as nonsensical as "XBMC", if not more so.
They were only referring to ability to sue over misuse (say I make a KodiBox and sell it). Google omitting from auto-complete isn't relevant.
I think main reason wasn't that however, but was to prevent legal activity from Microsoft. (I suspect there were undisclosed related conversations)
I disagree. They wanted legal control of their name, yet now they have it and Google considers it a piracy search term. Microsoft speculation aside, they didn't gain anything because pirate-box makers don't care about legal action to begin with.