Democracy Player Receives $100K Grant From Mozilla

puntloos writes "The Open Source Internet TV Platform 'Democracy' has just received a $100,000 Grant from the Mozilla Foundation. Democracy is a combination of ways to view and download media to your desktop in an intuitive way, built on top of the ever-popular VLC video player. Seth's blog has details: 'The Mozilla Board agreed to support them for the following reasons: 1. Their mission to ensure the continued rise of open source & open standards aligns with the Mozilla mission to encourage choice & innovation on the web. 2. They're building something that can have influence on the way users browse web content, rich media, and desktop UI -- and it's based on Mozilla technology. 3. PCF is another example of that leverage we are looking for...they don't have any venture backing, they're running on a very lean budget, and they continue to seek creative resources to make a big difference in the way their users access content on the Web.'"

Comments

well damn

[Anonymous Coward]

That tops my donation of $5.

Great package needs more content

[monopole]

A really great package, but it needs more channels and better search capabilities. And a transcode module for transferring content to iPods, PSPs and Palms.

Re:Great package needs more content

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure posting feature requests on Slashdot is very helpful & effective.

Re:Great package needs more content

[bshensky]

uh, yeah, and how about some Democracy _daemons_ and standalone _front_ends_ for MythTV and XBMC? That'd be killer!

Oh wait - I once tried to start a thread on the Democracy boards about doing just this and was summarily shot down because the powers in charge feared its Bittorrent foundations would set up Democracy as an RIAA/MPAA DMCA takedown target.

It sure seems really silly that I have to run Democracy in a VNC server session on my MythTV box, media folder shared among Democracy and the Myth frontend, so that I have 10-foot access to my favorite Rev3, DLTV, Make and other video feeds. Sheesh.

I REALLY REALLY want to like Democracy Player very badly. But until they let go of their PC-client mentality, they're really holding themselves back.

Sounds great!

[jshriverWVU]

I'm anxious to see how this develops. My only concern with the "coming Internet-TV age" is the whole bandwidth throttling. What's to start some start-up from getting TV feeds like any cable company does and creating an internet-TV station.

That with devices like Myth Boxes, and the media center boxes. I can imagine people giving up TV completely and just keeping their broadband connection. I know I would.

Re:Sounds great!

[misleb]

That with devices like Myth Boxes, and the media center boxes. I can imagine people giving up TV completely and just keeping their broadband connection. I know I would.

Already there. No cable. No antenna. Just a Myth box running torrentflux (web front end for Bittorrent).

-matthew

Re:Sounds great!

[Daengbo]

same setup for me. I'm living in S. Korea now, so there's very little on cable that I want to watch. We have a file server with TorrentFlux and MythTV on it. A great system, and surprisingly easy to set up this time. On Ubuntu 7.04, just install the special packages for frontend and backend and everything else is automatic. NVidia TVout completes the picture. Snazzy. I'm not going to use Democracy Plaer because I already have the set up, but I looked it over and sent a link to the webite to a couple of friends who aren't quite as geeky.

Re:Sounds great!

[aichpvee]

I hope you wrote Belgacom and demanded the source code for all the software.

Re:Sounds great!

[misleb]

I didn't really "get" Democracy player. I browsed some of the channels and stuff and it seemed like mostly worthless content. I guess it is meant more for managing your own content? i dunno. i wouldn't know where to get it.

-matthew

My suggestions for Democracy Player:

[Stormx2]

I've been using this player for a long while now. However, it could do with some improvement:

a) It is awfully slow, especially on startup. I'm not on a slow system, and other apps will be up within a matter of seconds.
b) It isn't programmable from the command line ( --help will launch the player..)
c) No lirc support
d) No support for moving files once they've downloaded.

This all relates to my current version, which I can't check at the moment. If any of this has been improved, please excuse this post (:

Re:My suggestions for Democracy Player:

[vunzzz]

You might have a look at ToxTox. This is a Media Browser for your TV (full screen). You can fully control it with a remote and Lirc. Like Democracy it's completly open and free and multi platform. Although the development started only recently it's worth a try. It's just a better experience than using a desktop app for watching your favorite shows. See the ToxTox weblog

Here comes the fun

[DynaSoar]

Content owners/providers have been inching towards pay-per-view everything for some time now. Anything that gets in their way will get stepped on. My money says Mozilla just assured that Democracy will be among the first to get sued. Doesn't matter what for, as long as it makes them have to burn up more than $100K.

Re:Here comes the fun

[sumdumass]

You know, I hope your not right. But if they do get sued, it could be a rallying cry for more funding.

I'm not sure I like it when non profits or companies who ask for donations donate to other non profit organizations or companies. It seems like mozilla has too much money now and we don't need to give them any more. I don't think that is the case in actuality but that turns out to be the general gist some will have. I know people who have donated to the red cross and the breast caner place who stopped giving money after those companies started donating to other charities. they will have the same impressions on something like this too.

Re:First things first

[xENoLocO]

They keep forgetting.

I used it

[twice1109850]

doesn't prominently give credit where due - vlc
sits uploading torrents without asking, saves bloat files everywhere, did I mention bloat?
and RRL [type "boingboing.net"] gave it props so it must suck.

first twice1109850 comment.. I can see this account going downhill

Re:That just goes to show

[Shawn is an Asshole]

Correct. It costs $1.05.