The developers behind XBMC, the entertainment and media center software, have announced a change in name for the platform. XBMC has started the process to be renamed Kodi as part of the upcoming release of version 14. This is not the first time the group has changed the name, the last time being in 2008. However, all of the previous name changes have been variants of the original “Xbox Media Player” which was coined in 2002. Two years after that it was renamed “Xbox Media Center” and then four years later it was shortened to the current XBMC. The change to Kodi is a radical change taking things in a whole new direction.
The development team indicates one of the factors in deciding to pursue the name change was potential legal concerns due to the inclusion of a trademarked name from another company. This not only left open the potential for action to be taken against anyone using that name, it was creating some confusion as to what sites and services were related to the XBMC platform and which ones were connected to something else.
The developers also felt the current name, and its history, was no longer reflective of the platform. As they note, the ability to run XBMC on an actual Xbox was very limited and only with the older Xbox, not the Xbox 360 or Xbox One, thus the “XB” portion of the name does not really fit. Likewise, the platform is capable of much more than displaying media as it can stream content, load games, and run addons among others, making it an entertainment center, rendering the “MC” portion no longer accurate.
As these problems and the issues they generated became more common, the XBMC team decided to seek out assistance from the Software Freedom Law Center. It was ultimately determined a change in name made the most sense. The team has determined it will continue to license the software under GPL 2.0. As far as use of the name and logo, the team plans to adopt policies modeled after the Mozilla Foundation with respect to trademark licensing. Although programmers and developers have some work to do to strip out the old name and add in the new Kodi name, for end users the change should be minimal.
The new Kodi team indicates they are still finalizing the logo, so what you see above is likely going to change. Since it is not quite ready yet, a final sale of “official” XBMC t-shirts is being offered. If you want one to hold onto so you can break it out twenty years from now to show the world what you were doing, hit the source link for more information.
Finally, the team is also making their alpha2 version of the new Kodi 14, codenamed “Helix” available for download for anyone that wants to get an early look. Again, just hit the source link for more info on how to grab it.
source: XBMC
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