Matt

So, a slightly different topic for a change. We talk a lot about the Kodi software, its development and releases, and that's fine, as that's what we're all about and that's what everyone ultimately sees. However, we thought we'd change the subject a little and explore what goes on behind the scenes: how "Team Kodi" is structured, and what else is going on in the background in support of that glorious code. The Kodi Foundation and the Board of Directors Kodi has a legal personality. We're incorporated in the US as the Kodi Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit - or a type of NGO, in common European parlance. This is the "company", it's the entity that receives donations, signs hosting agreements, protects our trademarks, and owns any assets and intellectual property. However, we don't have any of the trappings of a regular company: we have no employees, minimal assets, and no property. We're wholly run by volunteers and a few carefully-chosen outside agents for e.g. legal work. The Kodi Foundation is then made up of members of Team Kodi. It's not mandatory to join - you can be a Team member and not join - but it's the Foundation members who get a vote on major decisions. Probably the most regular of those decisions is the appointment of our Board of Directors - again, Team members, all volunteers, each of whom serves a two-year term as part of a Board of five members. The Board then manages Kodi: funds, publicity, taxes, lawyers, copyright bodies, banks, sponsors, non-profit oversight, and so on. There's also a whole raft of internal administrivia - member lists, permissions, access rights, what's filed where, who's responding to what, why are we getting these emails, no we don't want your adverts. As both a Team and as a Board, we hold regular Zoom meetings to discuss progress, schedules, and any related issues that may crop up from time to time. As you can imagine, this can be quite a challenge given the timezones we cover, so everything is available afterwards for Team members to catch up on. The Greater Team Kodi It's not just paperwork, though. It's easy to think of Kodi as a bunch of lines of code, hammered out in the small hours by pizza-fuelled developers, and that's not necessarily too far wide of the mark in some ways. But there's also so much more: even to maintain that code needs discipline, a release manager, code reviews, Github admin. We have people who look after build servers and DNS records, who administer our email and collaboration tools, who feed and water everything from backup servers to the server that hosts the forums: software upgrades, patches, hardware replacement, migrations. And we have people to write posts like this, to design our graphics for each release, to modify skins, to compile and build new releases. Funding it All As mentioned above, this is all voluntary: nobody at Kodi gets paid anything for what they do. We all do this as a hobby, because we enjoy it in some way. And what makes that possible is primarily you, our users. We generate a few tens of thousands of dollars a year. Most of that comes directly from donations - that little orange button in the top right; some comes from merchandise sales such as T-shirts or royalties on branded Flirc goods; and the rest comes from corporate sponsorship, which is an ephemeral beast at best. You'll perhaps notice that we've always steered clear of advertising, so there are no popups on this site, no banner ads, and nothing within the application itself: that's very deliberate, and we work hard to keep it like that. On that note, we'd like to give a huge shout out to Flirc right now, as they've just started selling a Raspberry Pi 5 branded Kodi case. This is the only company authorised to use our brand on a product, and the only company who gives us royalties: we get a small amount for every case sold. They've been consistently helping us out financially for the last few years and, without them, we would be attending many fewer conferences. And where does the money go? We have hosting costs, professional service fees (lawyers, copyright specialists, accountants), banking fees. While we sometimes get sponsored hardware, we have to pay for servers, storage, bandwidth. If someone is working on a feature and they need a particular piece of hardware that we can't get donated, we'll buy them something (e.g. to assist with porting Kodi to a new platform). Perhaps our biggest costs are conferences: the Open Source world thrives on community, so we have tried to get people representing us at FOSDEM, Embedded Linux Conference, OSS Summit, SCALE, and the Open Source Leadership Summit - although the majority of funds goes to getting as many members as possible to attend our annual developer conference, Kodi Devcon. We think we do pretty well on limited funds, and we've had some big donations in the past, but unfortunately those are drying up, so we're starting to have to make hard decisions on not covering our volunteers costs to represent us at some of the conferences. Once 2024 ends, we will publish a detailed financial blog post, outlining our expenses this past year, but we'd love help from readers and users like you! What's Needed More hosting is always appreciated. We get by nearly entirely from free hosting and can't thank our sponsors such as OSUOSL and Leaseweb enough, but can always use more diversity. We always need volunteers to work on stuff! Social Media and someone to manage our store are two that come to mind, but platform-specific development experience (e.g. Android) is always good. Sponsorship! if you think you have a good fit for a sponsor who aligns with our interests, please, reach out! If you have any corporate matching, Kodi is registered as a corporate nonprofit beneficiary with the Benevity platform. And lastly, monetary donations go a long way too. As stated, we are a 501(c)(3), so these donations are tax deductible in the US. If you have a few dollars, pounds, euros or equivalent going spare, you can really help us out. Thank you! We always want to keep some money in the bank, and we have a rule: we need to be able to cover the next Devcon before we hold this one and, unfortunately, 2025 may be the last year for a couple years at the current rate of donations. We spend less than US$30k for the entire event, including flying our team from around the world to attend plus all hotel/food/conference room costs, but our current finances just won't support this after next year's conference unless something changes, such as a new sponsor (or the RPi5 case becomes exceedingly popular and sells out!). Thank you very much in advance for anything you can do to help. -- Team Kodi View the full article

Holiday movies often becoming traditions that bring us together with family and friends. Some movies remind us of childhood memories, while others capture the magic and chaos of the holiday season in ways that feel deeply personal. Is there a holiday movie you think is underrated or deserves more attention? What makes a movie feel like a 'holiday movie' to you—does it need to be set during the holidays, or just have the right vibe? In other words, is Die Hard a holiday movie? Do you prefer classic holiday movies or modern ones?

White Christmas Enjoy the Movie Bumper 4k Christmas bumper with surround sound File Information Submitter Matt Submitted 12/10/2024 Category Holiday Bumpers View File

Hard Rock 4k Bumper Set Hard Rock 4k bumper set with surround sound. Videos include: Courtesy Feature Intro Feature Outro Intermission Theater Intro Theater Outro Trailers Intro Trailers Outro Trivia Intro Trivia Outro Sponsors PreShow Experience File Information Submitter Matt Submitted 12/06/2024 Category Supporter Early Access View File

I will be working on some site updated over the holidays. It may be a little bumpy during the process.

Team Flirc and Team Kodi are thrilled to introduce the newly designed Flirc Raspberry Pi 5 Case, Kodi Edition. Available now! Our journey began with a host of ideas that we transformed into a crowdsourcing poll on the Kodi forums. The community chose from six designs, and we loved seeing your preferences and hearing your feedback. We’re excited to continue this collaborative approach because, just as Kodi is community-driven, so should its official case be. With only about 2,000 cases available, this is a truly limited edition. Once sold out, we won’t produce more. Instead, every quarter, we’ll engage with the community again, allowing you to submit and vote on new ideas for another limited run. With each purchase, you’re helping fund the Kodi team’s ongoing development and innovation. On top of our Black Friday - Cyber Monday deals, enjoy an extra 10-15% off when you purchase a Kodi Edition Raspberry Pi 5 case, which can be used on our Flirc USB or Skip 1s Universal Remote. If you want to see more, check out the YouTube video below, or just skip the line and head straight over to the Flirc store to grab one! A heartfelt thanks to the Kodi Team, our loyal customers, community members, and everyone who contributed to the design. Happy Thanksgiving! View the full article

View File Thanksgiving - Enjoy the Movie 4K Thanksgiving bumper with 5.1 surround. Submitter Matt Submitted 11/27/2024 Category Holiday Bumpers  

Here is a bumper set:

Autumn Leaves (Thanksgiving) PreShow Experience Bumper Set View File This is the 4k Autumn Leaves 2023 PreShow Experience Bumper Set with 5.1 audio. Videos include: Courtesy Feature Intro Feature Outro Intermission PreShow Sponsors Theater Intro Trailers Intro Trailers Outro Trivia Intro Trivia Outro Submitter Matt Submitted 11/27/2024 Category PreShow Bumper Sets  

Please let me know if you'd like to get a full video bumper set for Thanksgiving.

View File Happy Thanksgiving 2024 Enjoy this Happy Thanksgiving bumper in 4k with 5.1 surround. Submitter Matt Submitted 11/25/2024 Category Holiday Bumpers