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14 June 2011, 09:32

Boxee vows to bring open source version back into sync

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Boxee Logo The Boxee development team has announced that it will be bringing the open source version of the Boxee media centre back in line with the version of the software that it has been developing for the Boxee Box by D-Link. For the past eight months, the "downloadable" version of the software – which can run on Linux, Mac OS X, Windows and Apple TV – has languished at version 0.92 with no updates, while the developers concentrated on the Boxee Box development where the firmware version has seen new features added and bugs fixed.

In May, the company delivered version 1.1 of the firmware version of Boxee, and now, in a post on the Boxee blog, CEO & Co-founder Avner Ronen says that the team hope to have new builds of the open source software available "this fall". These new builds will include the features that current Boxee Box owners already have, including an updated browser, improved audio and video playback and support for even more content providers.

"We also hope to make the open source version of the downloadable version easier to use for people who want to build out their own versions of Boxee," added Ronen. However, he warns that "updates for the downloadable version will most likely lag behind the versions of Boxee for devices."

Boxee is a fork of the XBMC Media Center which includes several customisations and additions, including Web 2.0 services integration with Twitter, Tumblr and Digg, as well as major audio, video and photo portal integration (YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, CBS, Comedy Central, Last.fm, Shoutcast, Flickr and Picasa). Boxee also includes a built-in BitTorrent client so users can easily download media over the web from within the application. Users can add extra functionality through App Box, an add-on App Store that lets users select and install a variety of new applications and plug-ins.

Users can make their own Boxee device by downloading and installing the free Boxee software. Parts of Boxee are released under the GNU General Public Licence (GPLv2) and other parts, including the libboxee networking layer library, are closed source. Source code (log-in required) is available to download from the project's web site.

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(crve)

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