Open source all you want! It doesn't change the fact that they're spying the contents of your screen no matter what input is being used with Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology
Yeahhhh I had to disconnect mine from the internet due to this (I don’t want a display ad on the menu screen when I turn on my TV like WTF, my TV just enshittified itself randomly with an update that added this a year or two ago). Which would be fine but you can’t change the TV menu tile layout if you are disconnected from the internet… Just incredible layers of design stupidity here.
riedel [3 hidden]5 mins ago
The original idea of open source or rather free software is to bmactually "own" the code in a way that you can modify it to your needs. Guess this is not the case here, then. But I guess also most of android falls in that category that by now. I guess we should be using better,more attributes when describing open source
miki123211 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
There's at least:
source available - whether you can read the code
open source - whether you can run (a modified version of) the code on some piece of hardware you own
open hardware - whether the hardware they sell you lets you run modified versions of their code
open contribution - whether they want your modifications
free software - whether your modifications have to be open source too
If it's at least source available, it can have any combination of these.
nwah1 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
open hardware to me means that you have access to all of the specifications for building the hardware. Things like when the laptop company Framework posts github repos full of CAD models. Or, initiatives like RISC V.
And, alongside that, there's also open firmware.
Unlocked hardware is maybe what I would call hardware that enables swapping out the software. Although, historically, we didn't even need a term for that, because that was the default aside from outliers like Apple.
bogwog [3 hidden]5 mins ago
"Free software" has always been a misleading term, unfortunately. Maybe calling it "Freedom software" instead would be clearer.
But when you conflate free software with open source, you get confused people cheerleading their own abuse. Android is probably the worst offender here. Google Chrome, VSCode are others that come to mind.
functionmouse [3 hidden]5 mins ago
The idea of free software, yes, is to own the code in a way that you can modify it to your needs. The idea of "open source" as a mantra is to confuse and muddle the ideas of free software in order to subvert the ideologists in that camp into supporting and furthering the goals of billionaire corporations. "Open source" as a calling card is intended to kill free software.
ornornor [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Samsung does that too and use it to sell you stuff, show you ads, and retarget you across devices! (Not saying it’s a good thing, but rather pointing out how common this is)
mijoharas [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I'm really sick of the enshittification of smart TV's.
A while after I've had my LG TV, and found every arcane different menu you need to remove all the ads. They started sending me ads via the notification pop-up.
This continued even after finding and removing the consent for advertising (that I'd missed in one of the consent pop-ups.)
I've considered and looked into "dumb" TVs, but I don't think they're for me. I just want one that's not enshittified!
ornornor [3 hidden]5 mins ago
FWIW I’m pretty happy with my Panasonic OLED (2019 model), it has totally optional smart features (ie it has a Netflix app), works well offline, and turns on instantly.
cryo32 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I just don't bother with television full stop.
Geroke [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I can't say I have either since they tried to change the format to cinema from electronic theatre.
surajrmal [3 hidden]5 mins ago
This is not "enshittification". That implies it's gotten worse over time. Smart TVs have been doing this from the beginning.
mijoharas [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I disagree. It's definitely gotten worse, notification ads for my TV for example.
LG also didn't used to have home screen ads, but that's a long time ago now.
antonvs [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Smart TVs are the enshittification of regular TVs. An attempt to extract more money from the customer without providing a useful benefit.
imglorp [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Is this their dongles, TVs, or both?
gricardo99 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
you can disable this feature by going to Settings > Privacy > Smart TV Experience.
nicman23 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
can you ? can you really ?
c0balt [3 hidden]5 mins ago
That looks neat, the code appears be mostly in C, seems reasonable documented and is hosted on GitHub: https://github.com/rokudev/lt-sdk
dsign [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I wonder what would make this better (for some use cases at least) than venerable FreeRTOS? Or Zephyr? Or any of the other many, many RTOSes? In particular, the ESP32 comes with top notch documentation and SDKs that will make beginners at least want to stay with Espressif's modified RTOS for a while.
jon-wood [3 hidden]5 mins ago
That's also what I was wondering. What problems is this custom RTOS solving that all the other ones don't, or is it in fact just that some Roku engineers decided they needed some job security and having an OS nobody else uses would be a good path to that?
UnreachableCode [3 hidden]5 mins ago
On the topic that will likely pervade this news item: does anyone know the best FOSS TV system
hiccuphippo [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Not sure what exactly you are asking for, but check Jellyfin, it might be part of the answer.
UnreachableCode [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Jellyfin is good. I'm currently using the Roku version
phantomathkg [3 hidden]5 mins ago
The good thing is, it is not written in Brightscript.
aturek [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Brightscript could have been worse!
And much, much better, as well
phantomathkg [3 hidden]5 mins ago
How could it be better? Brightscript is a proprietary language that serves nothing but a low power STB.
dubcanada [3 hidden]5 mins ago
On hackers news a technology focused platform where custom weird languages thrive. You're complaining about a company who the original developer made their own language.
Isn't this exactly how all of the other languages where created?
krackers [3 hidden]5 mins ago
>that is already used in our industry-changing Roku remote controls.
Why does a remote control require a RTOS?
topspin [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Roku remotes are sophisticated devices. There are many models, so features vary, but among the possible features are 3.5mm audio output, Bluetooth audio, voice command input, Wi-Fi, infrared, battery charger and other things. Clearly a substantial MCU is present and thus, an RTOS.
NDlurker [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Pretty sure they don't have gyroscopes and accelerometers anymore, but they did early on. It was basically a Wii Mote and I played a ton of Angry Birds on my TV.
phh [3 hidden]5 mins ago
You can do an IR remote without a RTOS, but as soon as you do BLE you realistically need a RTOS. You have timers for keep-alives, connection states, competing interrupts, CPU-"intensive" tasks that can be preempted (for crypto)
SpecialistK [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Voice command handling, I would suspect.
_ZeD_ [3 hidden]5 mins ago
to spy on you
tecleandor [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I don't know if I'm missing something but from what I can see...
They don't seem to have any written documentation online, not even a list of features. They seem to have some doxygen docs on the repo, but they're not built anywhere. The only information ready to check are YouTube videos. The developer forum link they have in the top right doesn't work (I think since January they killed their forums).
It's a chore just to know what does it do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
LoganDark [3 hidden]5 mins ago
I wish they would offer the instruction in text as well rather than only in videos. Videos become stale and can't easily be used as a reference.
LeFantome [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Get an AI to transcribe the videos for you and then ask it to create a manual from the transcription.
LoganDark [3 hidden]5 mins ago
That's actually not the worst idea, thanks.
ddtaylor [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Does this meaningfully allow a person to push a modified version to their own TV without using a screwdriver?
jon-wood [3 hidden]5 mins ago
From the front page of the site at least, no. This isn't for the Roku device itself (which is almost certainly running some flavour of Linux), its for peripherals like the remote control which will have much less powerful processors.
jgalt212 [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Please someone make a Roku remote with a physical keyboard.
zzrrt [3 hidden]5 mins ago
You can probably do it with a keyboard paired to a server/RPi that emits the keystrokes to the Roku ECP API, if having that second device is acceptable.
dd8601fn [3 hidden]5 mins ago
Rokus have a rest api that accept all the navigation and text inputs you'd do with the remote.
relyks [3 hidden]5 mins ago
This might be possible now. I think the better option is having a hardware device that acts a bridge between a bluetooth keyboard and the Roku.
snailmailman [3 hidden]5 mins ago
On my rokus, I am able to use my phone as a remote via the roku app. This includes typing on mobile via my phone's keyboard. Makes logging into things much easier.
criddell [3 hidden]5 mins ago
AppleTV is like that too. It's nice being able to use the password manager on my phone rather than have try to enter some long complicated password a letter at a time.
HN.zip
https://docs.roku.com/published/acrservicepolicy/en/CA
source available - whether you can read the code
open source - whether you can run (a modified version of) the code on some piece of hardware you own
open hardware - whether the hardware they sell you lets you run modified versions of their code
open contribution - whether they want your modifications
free software - whether your modifications have to be open source too
If it's at least source available, it can have any combination of these.
And, alongside that, there's also open firmware.
Unlocked hardware is maybe what I would call hardware that enables swapping out the software. Although, historically, we didn't even need a term for that, because that was the default aside from outliers like Apple.
But when you conflate free software with open source, you get confused people cheerleading their own abuse. Android is probably the worst offender here. Google Chrome, VSCode are others that come to mind.
A while after I've had my LG TV, and found every arcane different menu you need to remove all the ads. They started sending me ads via the notification pop-up.
This continued even after finding and removing the consent for advertising (that I'd missed in one of the consent pop-ups.)
I've considered and looked into "dumb" TVs, but I don't think they're for me. I just want one that's not enshittified!
LG also didn't used to have home screen ads, but that's a long time ago now.
And much, much better, as well
Isn't this exactly how all of the other languages where created?
Why does a remote control require a RTOS?
They don't seem to have any written documentation online, not even a list of features. They seem to have some doxygen docs on the repo, but they're not built anywhere. The only information ready to check are YouTube videos. The developer forum link they have in the top right doesn't work (I think since January they killed their forums).
It's a chore just to know what does it do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯