
Matchstick Brings Firefox OS to Your HDTV - bpierre
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/09/matchstick-brings-firefox-os-to-your-hdtv-be-the-first-to-get-a-developer-stick/
======
daveloyall
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...](http://www.matchstick.tv/developers/hardware-apply-check.html)
An EULA?

~~~
daveloyall
"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.

~~~
maxerickson
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)

~~~
daveloyall
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.

~~~
maxerickson
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).

~~~
daveloyall
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.]

~~~
maxerickson
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...).

~~~
daveloyall
Thanks. Fixed.

------
dublinben
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.

~~~
pbreit
You don't have to use chrome.

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

------
ruexp67
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?

------
StanAngeloff
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?

~~~
nnethercote
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.)

~~~
StanAngeloff
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](https://twitter.com/asadotzler/status/506516018961719296)

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

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2040419302/matchstick-t...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2040419302/matchstick-
the-streaming-stick-built-on-firefox-os)

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

------
listic
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](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?

~~~
fabrice_d
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.

~~~
listic
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?

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

~~~
Kudos
November for a limited run of dev kits.

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

~~~
kumar303
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.

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

------
ireflect
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.

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

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

~~~
callahad
(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://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/05/reconciling-mozillas-mission-
and-w3c-eme/)

[https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/05/14/drm-and-the-
challen...](https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/05/14/drm-and-the-challenge-of-
serving-users/)

[http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/eme/basics/](http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/eme/basics/)

------
lvillani
Does anybody know what video codecs are supported?

~~~
thallian
have a look here: [http://www.matchstick.tv/developers/documents/supported-
medi...](http://www.matchstick.tv/developers/documents/supported-media.html)

~~~
cyborgx7
No Theora, FLAC, or Opus?

Wierd.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
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.

