Matchstick Brings Firefox OS to Your HDTV | Hacker News Reader

Matchstick Brings Firefox OS to Your HDTV

hacks.mozilla.org

137 pointsbpierre59 comments

They politely limit participation to serious devs with this field on the form: "I have an existing HTML5 app that I will port to Firefox OS for Matchstick" with only one option: Yes.

Well, I could certainly edit the DOM and fill in my own answer >:) but I don't have an HTML5 web app.

Fortunately, the same equipment seems to be available via their kickstarter for $24.

What the heck is this? http://www.matchstick.tv/developers/hardware-apply-check.htm... An EULA?

"you hereby agree to be bound by Matchstick’s mandatory and automatic software upgrade mechanism to upgrade the trial version of the SDK to the production version of the SDK"

That's unusually peremptory for mozilla. I don't get why it's necessary, either.

This is not a Mozilla project; it is an embedded device using Mozilla's Firefox OS.

Thanks; you're right, I missed that.

"You may not decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, attempt to derive the source code of any software or software components of the Matchstick software including the Matchstick SDK software."

...said the makers of a supposedly open software/hardware device.

The Free Software movement needs a mechanism for dealing with heretics.

I propose a holiday. Let's call it "Punch Free-software/hardware Posers in the Face Day". The inaugural event should be held on 9/30/2016. More than enough time for everyone to get the memo. Then if they get punched, it's their fault.

This EULA is weird and has some drafting issues :)

First, if there is any GPL/LGPL code in there, that term would be a license violation (and for GPLv2/LGPLv2, actually auto-terminate the license). This includes things like "glibc" .

It's really hard to build a kernel space and userspace that doesn't require GPL/LGPL code, and works really well. I'm skeptical they did it

(certainly, nobody else who produces streaming sticks does it).

Second, it says "2. All source codes provided by Matchstick shall be granted to you under the Mozilla Public License (MPL) Version 2.0. You hereby agree to be bound by the terms and conditions of the MPL 2.0 for any software and source code provided by Matchstick."

This would also be highly problematic if it includes code under any other license.

Plus, the last line, humorously, goes from talking about sourc e code, to saying you agree to be bound to MPL 2.0 for software and source code provided by matchstick.

While likely a drafting mistake, given the EULA has no integration clause, i wonder what the effect would be.

My guess is that Mozilla doesn't know about this.

Then they should probably read the EULA before promoting the project on Mozilla.org, no?

I hopped into the #b2g irc channel and mentioned this thread. A user told me that s/he has notified someone who might be able to do something about it. I guess they have a bug/ticket open somewhere which they use to track "brand use" issues.

In my mind, the appropriate outcome is that the EULA be removed. It's obviously the work of someone attempting to cover their bases while not being knowledgeable about software licensing.

Not shocked. I've now been notified that there a bunch of fishy legal things about this project, it turns out the EULA is not the only issue.

Care to elaborate?

I sadly, cannot. This is where the "i'm a lawyer with clients" part takes over.

No problem. I'm intrigued since people are asking about porting Popcorn Time for it and I'm wary of Rockchip's "history" with the GPL

Mozilla/Firefox OS aren't wrapping themselves in the glorious cloak of the "Free Software" brand, so you probably don't owe them any violence (at least, not along those lines).

(seriously, take a look at the materials on their website. They don't go a lot further than calling it a (lowercase) open operating system)

except for the fact that the OS is open source and free and available right now at https://github.com/mozilla-b2g

Also on https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox_OS which is the main page for Firefox OS development, in the very first phrase they say "Firefox OS is open source"

If you use the boot2gecko source, you can ship whatever you want no obligations. If you want to call it Firefox OS then you need to enter a branding agreement with Mozilla. Boot2gecko is Firefox OS sans branding.

As mentioned elsewhere on this page, this Matchstick device is not made by Mozilla. It's just a dongle running b2g (aka Firefox OS).

My proposal was to pop the random hordes of "open hardware!! will post links soon!1" folks on Kickstarter in their collective mouths. :)

Not Mozilla. I'm fine with them. In fact, it seems to me that the Mozilla folks aren't just wearing that cloak, they've putting a Free Culture lining in it and wearing it with pride. I repeat, I do not propose punching any Mozillans; I like them.

The point about them not being Free Software heretics appears to apply equally well to Matchstick. If they aren't actually part of the movement they can't be heretical (I guess if you wanted to stick with that heavy imagery you could call them blasphemers or something).

I also stand by my assessment of Mozilla. They have much in common with "Free Software", but I don't think they 100% share the ideology (which was my intended meaning with the cloak statement, "to wrap yourself in an idea" is going past agreeing with it).

Yeah. Okay.

Basically, a bunch of startups are "open source" in name only. That is, they are labeling themselves as open source without paying the piper.

To those startups I say: you don't get to do that. You don't have to publish your hardware designs on the net, but if you don't, you don't get to call yourself open source hardware.

The free software/hardware/culture people must [speak out against companies] who use the brand inappropriately. Failure to do so means dilution of the brand.

[edit: defame is not the word I was looking for.]

I hope you mean something more like "call out" or "identify" or something. Defame has strong connotations of doing something unfair or unethical (in U.S. law, defamation usually starts when someone makes a false statement...).

Thanks. Fixed.

Re: Mozilla: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/

Any chance that you are projecting your own feelings about the ideology onto others?

I think "Free Software", but I don't think they 100% share the ideology is a pretty mild, not at all controversial statement, you'll have to explain further what you mean (or maybe what you think I mean, or...).

Okay.

Well let's start at the front.

What is the ideology of the Free Software movement? If we suppose that Richard Stallman can speak for the movement (and he's frequently asked to do so), then we can just look at some of his writings. [1],[2]

What is the ideology of the Mozilla foundation? Well, as I mentioned, they publish their own manifesto [3] and a spiffy video [4] (marketing, soliciting donations). The Mozilla Licensing Policy [5] links back to gnu.org for the definition of "free software".

So, I suppose it's now time to distill all this information into two lists of bullet points, one for each side, and then compare them. But meanwhile, I got sucked into the Mozilla wiki. Apparently they broadcast their internal meetings online. Neat.

[1]: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-import...

[2]: http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html (I particularly like the bit about asteroid mining. What, you haven't read this recently?)

[3]: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/details/

[4]: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mission/

[5]: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/licensing/

100% is a really high bar. I doubt they agree here:

https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/05/reconciling-mozillas-missi...

Ok, point to you. If firefox were a GNU project, I think it would not have got EME.

Update: Thanks for the link. Grr, now I am SURE that GNU would not have implemented it. Firefox is going to ship with a proprietary blob called the CDM, made by Adobe? wtf.

If Mozilla were fully committed to the free software movement, they wouldn't distribute, feature, and even recommend many proprietary add-ons on their own website.

The "makers" of this device had this EULA imposed by Chinese ODM - company licensed by Rockchip to implement their SoC, company holding all the NDAs, all the 'secret sauce', and all the kernel sources that they WILL NOT release because they DONT GIVE A FLYING FUCK ABOUT GPL.

Rockchip isnt a Linaro member. Heh, Allwinter is a group member, and even they dont give a duck about gpl and only release some sources with 6-12 months delay.

Rockchip is hostile, all they do is take from open source community.

BTW: Rockchip ODMs started spreading this cancer beyond Linux kernel. They hijacked XBMC now and distribute closed source fork with hardcoded support for their inhouse proprietary h.265 decoder

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=202924&pid=1795164#...

Quote from one of Chinese Rockchip ODMs:

"i have no idea of GPL as it is Rockchip released this XBMC version for all factories, after confimed wtih our engineer, we tried to get the soure, but RK did not give it to us."

I would love to see this take off. I haven't bought a Chromecast because I don't use Chrome. I'd love a way to point my TV at arbitrary multimedia streams using any device I happen to have.

You don't have to use chrome.

Yeah, Youtube, Netflix and Plex apps on Android and iOS all support it. And that's just to name a few.

I will probably get one of these but thought I would point out that chromecast does allow you to do this assuming the app has integrated chromecast streaming. It is lame that its not a driver level integration in some lights but that would come with some issues around power. Doing it higher level allows for a nice handoff so that my phone isn't the middle man for hd data from netflix to my tv.

Hi.. I am not a very technical guy, (so I'm up for any opinions from you techno guys), but from what I've read about Matchstick, google chrome, apple TV, Intel TV etc is that none of them seem to be able to offer up the content people are expecting these day (what they are used to getting from the various cable-satillite monopolies including live TV channels. Triniti Comm seems to be offering a great solution to high cable costs without sacrificing any content. In fact they are claiming that they can offer up to 470 channels including all the pay TV channels like HBO and Netflix, in addition to making peoples TVs into fully functional web browsers, making and receiving phone calls on your TV, home security, video conferenceing etc They also claim to be developing something called ala carte TV, which means just paying for what you like to watch. I would personally be interested in that. I'm sick of paying comcast over 150 bucks a month! I also heard they are going to be their own ISp starting this winter. I found this website to be interesting... www.thetrinitisolution.com What do you guys think?

This looks promising and is certainly needed in a market dominated by a $30 Chromecast. I do wonder about the quality of it all - as a Flame reference device owner I know first hand how immature Firefox OS is (dropped calls, random reboots, missing basic everyday functionality). Isn't the platform too young to go beyond phones?

FWIW, I use a Flame as my day-to-day phone and I haven't had any problems with dropped calls or random reboots or other bad behaviour. It's a fairly solid phone, in my experience.

(I'm not saying your aren't having these problems; I'm just saying that not everyone has these problems.)

The Flame is my day-to-day phone as well. I got it a few weeks back and was very stoked to try it out. The phone came with Firefox 1.3 installed and it had quite a few issues -- not logging missed calls, multitasking view not working, slow browser speeds. I blogged about my experience and got a Twitter reply [1] from a Mozillian to give Firefox OS 2.1 a spin. A couple of days later I flashed the 2.1 image on the phone and, unfortunately, it created more problems than it solved. The dialer will randomly lock up not allowing you to call a number, on incoming calls the slider will not react and you can't answer, quite often with no usage at all the phone will reboot out of the blue. Overall 2.1 and 2.2 and very unstable and appear to improve on visuals only. I.e., you get more polish, but a less usable phone.

Hence why Firefox OS may be too young to move beyond the phone. They should focus more on testing and stability in order to have a reliable foundation to build upon.

[1]: https://twitter.com/asadotzler/status/506516018961719296

Make sure to watch to the end of the Kickstarter promo video, hilarious!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2040419302/matchstick-t...

That was unexpected. I hope the product will be as "good".

What is the release schedule of Firefox OS, anyway?

I keep searching for Firefox OS releases periodically, but the news keep coming up only on obscure non-English language blogs. I can Google-translate, but shouldn't the press releases, like, be announced in English, too, and make waves around the internet?

According to https://wiki.mozilla.org/Release_Management/B2G_Landing the 2.0 reached "Code Complete" on September, 1, 2014. Does it mean that it has been released on that date? If not, then when?

Code Complete means that the work is mostly done on Mozilla side on this release (we still fix/backport some blockers that are found late in the testing cycle). Then OEMs have their own shipping schedule so it takes some time before you end up with devices sold or updated to this release.

Is Code Complete the planned or actual date when Firefox OS reaches this stage? I didn't see any news regarding 2.0 around September, 1.

Is the release model significantly different from Android, where Google publicly announces the release of each version, even if it will still take some time for phone manufacturers to incorporate this version into their releases?

No commercial Firefox OS devices are shipping in any English speaking country. It looks like you're finding community blog posts probably clustered around launch countries. Anyway, press releases are always announced in English here: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/category/press-releases/

Sure. But isn't it up to Mozilla, rather than its partners, to announce the release of their Firefox OS?

I can see no release announcements in this blog, either.

I'm definitely interested but saying it "has arrived" is premature. It's still in preproduction and the kickstarter says they're targeting February.

November for a limited run of dev kits.

Well crap, I was signing up on the kickstarter and someone beat me to one of the last 10 dev units.

I'd be willing to bet that they'll add more soon.

Same here. I hope they put up more devkits.

Sorry! :)

I signed up for a dev unit but the "early prototype" part makes me think it won't work all that well ;) We'll see.

RK3066 is an old battle tested design, there is nothing special about cheap hdmi sticks build around this SoC.

Can anyone speculate on how WebGL will perform on this device? I am not familiar with the hardware or the current state of B2G/FirefoxOS, but have some ideas for music visualizers and interactive artwork that I'd love to port to this device.

Does this mean we will be able to get around the codec limits that a device like Chromecast has?

It's going to be hard to get support from major apps without DRM support.

(Edit: I don't know if this necessarily applies to Matchstick, or what Mozilla's relationship to Matchstick even is, but the following does apply to Firefox itself.)

Mozilla is building an open-source sandbox for HTML5 Encrypted Media Extensions, and is working with Adobe to build a Content Decryption Module that will run inside that sandbox. This will allow Firefox users, if they choose, to consume DRM'd content, while also limiting the power of the DRM'd black box, ensuring that it can't fingerprint or run amok on user systems.

More details:

https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/05/reconciling-mozillas-missi...

https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/05/14/drm-and-the-challen...

http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/eme/basics/

Does anybody know what video codecs are supported?

have a look here: http://www.matchstick.tv/developers/documents/supported-medi...

Thanks! I didn't see it the first time I skimmed through the docs.

No Theora, FLAC, or Opus?

Wierd.

Flac is listed (under audio container rather than codec, but since it's alongside APE, so the only reasonable interpretation is that they support those codecs).

This seems to be a copy-pasted list of what the chipset supports. Opus is new enough to not really be on those kind of spec sheets, and as an audio codec shouldn't really trouble something with the specs of this. Theora can probably also be done in software, but generally there's no reason to use it these days over VP8.

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