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Motorola Acquires IPTV Embedded Linux Developer
segphault writes "Ars Technica is covering Motorola's acquisition of Kreatel, a European company that designs Linux-based Internet Television Protocol (IPTV) technologies, including a set-top box powered by embedded Linux." From the article: "I'm not big on television (I generally prefer to wait for the shows I like to be released on DVD), but the sheer extensibility of Linux-based IPTV technologies is more than enough to capture my imagination. If provided with a good on-demand service that lets me watch what I want, when I want to watch it, I would definitely be interested. As tantalizing as this Kreatel stuff is, it appears as though the SDK isn't available to average consumers yet. I hope that Motorola has the sense to realize that a devoted fan base of eager Linux device junkies will be a good thing for the platform."
For decades, advertising firms and the companies they represent have held sway over the content of television. Not a few good shows haven't arisen despite the reigns of commercial liability, but if broadcasting companies really want to expand their markets, they need consumer demand in complete control without advertisements. Too many times has a well written program been cast off because they couldn't find companies willing to advertise on the show because of controversiality or because they didn't have a large portion of one demographic (You know, when all those big companies removed their advertisements from "Ellen" is one example that comes to mind). Perhaps a more massive switch to complete on demand viewing could change that.
Corporations might even be forced to put more money into product developement that insipid, mass advertising campaigns.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
The irony is that Motorola lots its IPTV skills when it closed down its world leading Stream Master project a couple of years ago to save money after the dot-com crash.
The Streamaster 5000 was a very nice piece of hardware indeed. After that project was shut down we were stuck with Acorn/Pace set-top boxes, which, although we had them running quite well, would have been no match for the PPC/Nuon combination in the Streamaster. Years ahead of its time.
These guys are doing some interesting open source IPTV code for Linux. They are using the PowerPC-based boxes from Hauppage ( Media MVP ), which make a nice cheap platform for experimentation.
If somebody distributes a Linux-based product, they are supposed to release the exact source code of the GPL part of the product. Linux kernel is covered by GPL.
I don't see a way to download the GPLed part of the software used. Do others see where it is hidden? Does Kreatel release the GPLed part of the software with the Kreatel products?