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Kickstarted Firefox OS HDMI Dongle Delayed, DRM Support Being Added
An anonymous reader writes: You may recall last September when Mozilla and a new company named Matchstick announced a Kickstarter project for a new device that would compete with Google's Chromecast. It was an HDMI dongle for streaming media that runs on Firefox OS. They easily quadrupled their $100,000 funding goal, and estimated a ship date of February, 2015. Well, they emailed backers today to say that the Matchstick's release is being pushed back to August. They list a few reasons for the delay. For one, they want to upgrade some of the hardware: they're swapping the dual-core CPU for a quad-core model, and they're working on the Wi-Fi antenna to boost reception. But on the software side, the biggest change they mention is that they're adding support for DRM. This is a bit of a surprise, since all they said on the Kickstarter about DRM was that they hoped it would be handled "either via the playback app itself or the OS." Apparently this wasn't possible, so they're implementing Microsoft PlayReady tech on the Matchstick.
I am so disappointed in the open source community. It's like they don't care about the very foundation this community was built on. They don't care about users freedom what-so-ever. All they care about is market share. If I wanted to use Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X or Google Chrome I'd have just bought that instead. I've got a system already running DRM-free, but unfortunately with adobe flash. I'm trying to move AWAY from that crap not towards it.
They never heard of the RCA engineering principle - once it works, start taking out parts until it stops working.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Plug it into my TV, then let me stream music/video from my laptop. My laptop is harder to lose than a small remote (hello Roku, lost your @!#$$ remote over the holidays), usually within arms reach, can access my 3 TB NAS, and is easy to get content onto. My TV is plugged into my stereo, and the stereo remote is not only nice and big, but gets used several times a day. Currently the only way to play my music on my stereo is to burn a CD.
// I seem to have issues with small, seldom used remotes
/ not picking on you Roku
Sounds like an awful way to design. You get design by minimalism, and of course where software "stops working" is divined by some high priests or whatever. That's how you get shit like, one button mouse, inability to block ads, no close button on your window, inability to customize UI, loss of familiar UI elements. All it takes is redefining "works" to exclude some set of users or potential users. "Our users shouldn't be X" -> GNOME happens. That sort of thing.
People have figured out that they knew long before they announced the change that they were not going to ship in time but kept lying about it right up until the end.
Also, since they're now including DRM. that's become another flash point. The commenters lay it all out pretty well. The Matchstick sounds like it's being run by the Matchstick Men. Accusations of fraud, bait-and-switch, lots of demands for refunds, being in bed with content providers ...
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Very disappointed by this. Wanted this because it was an open hardware / open software solution. If I'd wanted some Netflix/DRM ready stick I'd have just bought a Chromecast. Very unhappy with Matchstick.
Looks like they were using the kick starter dollars to try and fund a competitive USB stick computer. Half way through they realised they were about to get 1-up'd spec wise basically making the stick uncompetitive and DOA at their targeted retail price. This happens a lot of with kick-starters. When it does you are expected to follow through, get the backers the item, and then close down, never getting a good product to a wide market. However in this case they taken the money and used it to invest in a completely different product.... There last update is basically telling backers that they have taken all the money, won't be shipping the stick, and will be using it to work on a new product. The backers are all rightly furious. I wonder what the T&C's are....
The open source movement was started to never raise a user's software freedom as an issue. Read the FSF's essays (older essay, newer essay) on how open source differs from free software and you'll get a very clear explanation of how open source's goal to speak to business means accepting proprietary software and whatever other anti-user stuff businesses want to implement with proprietary software (DRM, spyware, back doors, patent traps, etc.). Mozilla's partnering with Adobe, the Linux kernel accepting and distributing proprietary software as part of the project (code which GNU Linux-libre removes), and Mono developers celebrating Microsoft's releasing .NET software under the MIT X11 license without acknowledging the danger of Microsoft's patent promise are just a few examples of how the philosophical differences between the older ethically-minded free software movement and the younger developmental methodology-focused open source movement play out on the ground.
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