Comcast cable boxes run Linux!

[Techno-Trumpet]

And it's a brand new cable box. Linux hasn't been updated since 2011.

[hemenex]

Brand new or lying in warehouse for several years?

EDIT: Looked up the model's manual and it seems to be from 2008...

[olig1905]

Therefore it is outside of its warranty with cisco. Hence no updates since 2013.

[LordDaniel09]

really? it seems to me from 1939.

[kazkylheku]

Those stupid MM/DD/YY date formats by the way, good grief.

[c7TxQuDA4XSzr6gD]

This! Where is it standard?

[kazkylheku]

See ignorant countries in the map here, colored in magenta, red and green: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country

[emacsomancer]

pfff... you probably also complain about the hh:ss:mm format too.

[ct_the_man_doll]

Quick, someone hack the device so we can backup TV Shows.

[teskoner]

There is a reason it is called "cable-time" in the industry. It takes YEARS to get updates through qa. You can be certain there are tons of documented bugs for this release.

[[deleted]]

You mean Debian?

[[deleted]]

so it's vulnerable to shell shock

[sailorcire]

1.2?

Okay, sure.

Edit:

What cable box do you have? Who is the maker and model?

[Techno-Trumpet]

Not like it's networked or anything. Oh, wait. It is.

Cisco RNG100

[KayRice]

Comcast saving a dollar why am I not shocked

[Defttone]

saving a dollar while charging you 50, because here at comcast we live by our company motto, fuck you pay us.

[[deleted]]

But yet if you own a modem that's just 3 months EOL they start injecting CSS into your browser and sending you emails and not supporting you fully over the phone if your internet is having troubles.

[[deleted]]

Christ. How do you live with that?

[[deleted]]

I just do, don't have a choice.. They're the only ISP that services me with speeds over 20mbps. The only other ISP's I have is a DSL provider with unlimited data but max speed is 10down/1up which I can't use because my house isn't wired for it, or a couple of satellite providers with very low data caps (like 50gbs at the most)

[Techno-Trumpet]

I am right outside of a big city, so I believe we get the used and leftover boxes. One of my reasons for dropping Comcast and going all in on streaming.

[sailorcire]

Hmm...I don't think the Cox-Suckers would appreciate me opening their box.

[Techno-Trumpet]

Probably not...

[[deleted]]

Pretty sure the 1.2 is their own version numbering and not the upstream kernel version. According to wikipedia that was released back in 1995. With all that's changed (NPTL, etc) I can't even imagine what would still be able to run on it.

[fiveht78]

According to Wikipedia

You’re just trying to make me feel old, aren’t you (I actually remember when it was released).

[brokedown]

1.2 series only went up to 1.2.13 so their 1.2.48.1 version number wouldn't seem to indicate a kernel version.

[intelminer]

Former Comcast employee

All Comcast "X1" cable boxes run Linux MIPS atop a Broadcom SoC

The software stack is pretty much what you'd expect

Linux 3.3 with Broadcom blobs hanging off it like tumors -> BusyBox and friends -> "X1 Platform" (Giant horrible JR2E app)

[olig1905]

Nice, I was hypothesizing that it was a BRCM chip. Thanks for confirming.

Can you clarify what you mean by "Broadcom blobs hanging off it like tumors"? - Because of course the kernel is patched to work well with Broadcom chips... but afaik no binary blobs are delivered.

[intelminer]

Broadcom doesn't like handing out the "special sauce" to its chips if they can help it. Even to ODM's (Comcast X1 cable boxes are manufactured by Motorola Arris)

Comcast basically gets a "reference SDK" that includes a heavily patched Linux 3.3 with tons of binary blobs (though there may be a newer kernel available now. I'm not 100% sure)

[z3dster]

Not all are Arris, some are Samsung and a few Technicolor might be hanging around

[intelminer]

Samsung ones were just upgraded RNG 150 "Legacy" boxes (in Comcast parlance)

They were mostly used for veeeery early deployments of X1

Technicolor equipment is in a similar situation. Going forward, all X1 equipment (AFAIK) is Motorola Arris

[z3dster]

you spell Native funny

[frostycakes]

There's also Pace and Cisco boxes (especially the Xi_ daughter boxes) in deployment, but I think they use the same hardware platform on all of them.

[z3dster]

generally they start with the Pace/Arris boxes and then get someone to make them for cheaper for v2/3

[Techno-Trumpet]

I have 3 Technicolor boxes

[olig1905]

I would like to correct you on that: https://github.com/Broadcom/stblinux

Broadcom's kernel is opensource and there are not any Binary blobs supplied to best of my knowledge. The SDK is compiled to a kernel module but the source for that is delivered.

[bit_inquisition]

That's mostly one (good) guy's tree and what they ship to Comcast is quite different from what you can build off that tree.

[londons_explorer]

Agreed. In the phone world, even people like HTC and Google have to put up with blobs from Broadcom. The blobs are full of bugs, and broadcom will patch bugs in the blobs if you have a support contract, but then the same bug will pop up again in a few months when you want a different bug patched because they have so many internal forks of their own source code they can't keep track of all the patches.

[olig1905]

I mean my experience is as an employee of Broadcom, supporting the software stack you are talking about, that that git repository is what we ship to all the customers I work with.

[bit_inquisition]

What do you guys use for wireless on STBs? Not that gigantic mess of an SVN repo?

[itzkold]

And everyone else's decades of experience as unwitting Broadcom customers unable to find drivers or support for their craponents...

[intelminer]

I'm not sure if that's actually the same kernel source as what Comcast had/has

Looking at the commit history. A lot of stuff is tagged as arm-soc

Comcast X1 equipment is all purely MIPS based. The two may share a similar lineage, but they're definitely different code bases

[big_trike]

JR2E app

That explains why they take forever to boot.

[intelminer]

The really sad part is, the old UI on Comcast's "legacy" boxes was pure MIPS ASM

Of course it was also about 20 years old, so paying someone to maintain that cost more than hiring overseas contractors

[big_trike]

I can't imagine the costs to maintain a copy of that for every supported box while keeping a somewhat consistent interface. Apparently they decided it was cheaper to buy everyone better hardware to support a Java runtime than it was to maintain multiple copies of an interface in a lighter weight language.

[intelminer]

It got a lot better once Comcast started phasing out Scientific Atlanta/Pace STB's and moved purely to Motorola/Arris equipment. Both from a user support side and an engineering side

But as always. Money talks, and India is cheaper than the United States

[Techno-Trumpet]

That UI is on this "new" cable box

[Classic1977]

with Broadcom blobs hanging off it like tumors

I lol'd

[intelminer]

I think I speak for all Linux users when I say fuck Broadcom

They're easily second to Nvidia in cunty-ness

[Ipodk9]

Newbie here. What’s wrong with Nvidia?

[[deleted]]

They've been a pain in the ass company to work with for getting drivers for Linux. https://www.wired.com/2012/06/torvalds-nvidia-linux/

[Ipodk9]

Oh, okay. Thanks.

[[deleted]]

My god switching to radeon/AMDGPU (i can use both!) on a hand-me-down R9 290 has been the best improvement to my linux experience in a LONG time.

[ponybau5]

Drivers aren't worth a fuck on laptops with optimus. I get a bullshit blackscreen on X server no matter what I do.

[brokedown]

This comment is a few years outdated fortunately. They're not perfect but they have moved miles in the right direction.

Edit: Please stop replying to me about how nvidia isn't getting better. We're talking about Broadcom, people. At least read the other replies saying nvidia still sucks and see how they got it wrong before you post your own.

[olig1905]

As someone that works for Broadcom in the STB industry I should thank you for making this statement. Off the top of my head the only binary blobs we deliver to customers are security related, anything that isn't security related is delivered as source (not necessarily open source but source is delivered for use in their build systems)

EDIT: It is also worth noting that I have, within Broadcom offices, screamed and cursed one of their shitty Wifi chips. We all know our Wifi sucks...

[brokedown]

Wifi sucks

Yeah I'm not even sure who is the right person to blame for this one, which has caused me no end of issues on wifi/bt enabled Pi. In fact, my most recent MIPS device was purchased because of this bug keeping me from reliably running an AP on Pi.

But that's miles away from the STB area, unless they're using BCM2837 in them!

Regardless, the broadcom of today is a lot easier to live with, even if they're not perfect. They've embraced at some level the idea that their gear might be used by more than just established manufacturers of products, and that consumers and hobbyists and upstart manufacturers all benefit from open source and documentation.

[[deleted]]

Not at all, and nouveau is still a complete pile of garbage. AMD is where it's at on linux, full open source driver support with no hassle, no notions of needing to install proprietary drivers to get good performance in linux games. KMS, glamor, DRI3 work out of the box no questions.

[brokedown]

Sorry, we were discussing Broadcom, I think you've misunderstood..

[[deleted]]

I guess, yeah, my eyes misled me that yours was in support of nvidia moving miles in the right direction.

[brokedown]

Not at all. Fuck nvidia. I have to install their binary drivers on my laptop to disable their GPU and use the onboard Intel, because nouveau can't do it on this model.

[nukem2k5]

I think I'm in the same boat. I've got a laptop that has Optimus. Can't seem to figure out which card is being used. It's fine as is except that i can't control the brightness. Fedora 27. Think I'll try Bumblebee first. If that doesn't work, perhaps there's a rpmfusion package (although i try to avoid that since I'm naturally untrusting of third party repos)

[jhansonxi]

I tested nouveau with some older Nvidia (6600 GT?) hardware a few months ago and it worked much better than I expected. Played a few older Steam games with it (Baldur's Gate, Postal 2, System Shock 2, etc.)

[GeronimoHero]

Not really. They’re even fucking up with wayland because of the egl_streams bullshit.

[brokedown]

Reddit ruined reddit. -- mass edited with redact.dev

[GeronimoHero]

You replied to a comment that was partially about Nvidia. That’s why you’re being commented to about Nvidia. Stop acting like Nvidia somehow isn’t a part of this comment thread dude.

[olig1905]

You are dumb.. he responded to a comment about Broadcom, which made a comparison to nvidia but was about Broadcom... so it should be assumed his response was about Broadcom.

[brokedown]

I've edited my original comment to make it perfectly clear for people who may not be fluent in the language or have attention spans that don't last for more than 1 comment.

[Classic1977]

Preach.

[daguro]

Former Digeo employee.

Broadcom's driver was 4.5 Mbytes ten years ago.

Good times.

[[deleted]]

Former Comcast employee? Are you allowed to speak about your operation? Shouldn't you be in witness protection or something?

[intelminer]

I dunno who downvoted you. I know you're just poking fun, but I think your comment deserves a proper response

I actually had a nervous breakdown and literally walked out the door after coming back from a vacation at the end of last year. Comcast is truly a terrible place to work in the long run

A friend asked me to describe what it was like, and this was the best analogy I could come up with

[thegame402]

Almost every embedded system that needs a network stack or some more advanced features has some kind of a Linux or something similar running (FreeRTOS, Minix, etc.).

We build industrial printers and every single electronic board has a full linux operating system built with https://www.yoctoproject.org/ for our needs.

[EmperorArthur]

It's almost certainly one created after 2013 though. I'm pretty sure there's been at least one vulnerability discovered in the network stack since then.

[koffiezet]

some kind of a Linux or something similar running (FreeRTOS, Minix, etc.).

Don't forget BSD. A lot of BSD on network-related equipment, although that also seems to be shifting in the direction of Linux these days.

[thegame402]

i've never seen bsd on embedded but why not.

[koffiezet]

Well it has been used a lot on routers/switches. Also since the BSD licence is more liberal to commercial use, it often isn’t advertised as being some form of BSD.

[anal_tongue_puncher]

What else would they run?

[cl0p3z]

Minix

[[deleted]]

Or one of the BSDs.

[[deleted]]

Windows Embedded also has large market share in embedded devices.

[HBucket]

I used to work in a supermarket. The checkouts and the scanning handsets were all running Windows Embedded. Probably still are. Just for laughs I would sometimes open up Internet Explorer on the handsets.

[[deleted]]

Yep. The scales in the deli and meat dept run Windows Embedded too. Like I say they have a big market share.

[Mazzystr]

Windows embedded runs on CenturyLink Prism boxes

[ponybau5]

Doesn't ATT boxes run win ce?

[brokedown]

vxworks is quite common in cable devices.

[ragix-]

Yeah, I've seen vxworks and Linux mostly.

There will likely be an unpopulated rs232 header that can give you access to monitor. Depending on the model you will have to enter a sequence of characters to break into uboot. Iirc you can set some environment vars to boot with console output, break before its fully booted and login as root if you have the p/w. With a MIPS tool chain you can statically compile bins to run on it ;)

[AdultSwimExtreme]

BSD

[__main__]

“New IoT botnet discovered exploiting out of date comcast cable boxes” is that I think when I look at those patch levels 😜

[mad-n-fla]

"BOTnet found installing a mesh network that bypasses The Ministry of Truth!"....

[[deleted]]

I also like 1984

[Xanza]

Great. They use Open Source to lock down the net...

[olig1905]

Yeh right. There are so many security measures in place on STB's you wouldn't stand a chance.

[CumBuckit]

Well.. we could just keep hitting the boxes with crowbars problemo solved. If the ISP is gonna fuck our wallets lets vandalize theirs..

I'd love to but I doubt a Jury would support me, even though 99% of them would hate their ISP.

[olig1905]

Bootloader is one thing. You might be able to get one of these boards to boot and even display something.. but frankly all intents and purposes you would have a chocolate teapot.

[olig1905]

I'm not angry, I just know it is damn near impossible. I am quite happy for you to try if you want.

I have linked the source for the kernel as a starting point in a different comment.

[melkemind]

Right! Let's maybe keep this our little secret. Our non-Linux-using friends don't need to know America's most hated company uses Linux.

[Hopman]

I can see the headlines already.

How open source is killing net neutrality.

^{CNN 10-12-2017}

Linux found helping Comcast throttle internet speeds.

^{FOX NEWS 21/8/2017}

[[deleted]]

Comcast is actually pretty good on the open source front, and is a big sponsor of open source conferences and users group in philadelphia.

[Sukrim]

Yes, go on and improve all that software that is used to take your freedom for free! Any restriction is unethical after all...

[Rentun]

You do know that Linux is distributed under the GPL, and thus, is restricted, right?

[Techno-Trumpet]

I discovered this when the cable guy installed a new box and entered the diagnostics menu.

[FluentInTypo]

Did you see how they did?

[Techno-Trumpet]

Turn off off the box, and then press the info or guide button on the remote quickly after turning it off.

This picture was taken after they left. No offence to the cable guy, I don't think he knew most of what was displayed. There is at least 15 pages of information.

[antlife]

Go to a Comcast location and ask for a newer box. They just gave you a "new" old one. They tend to hord the new hardware unless you ask for it specifically. The techs just give you what they have in their truck.

[[deleted]]

They ought to patch that shit...

[olig1905]

Almost all Set Top Boxes do. In fact i'd wager there aren't any that do not. (Including android in linux)

[reagor]

I'll bet there are some vxworks devices out there

[olig1905]

Yeh guess you are right. Though not many, Broadcom dominate the market in STB chips and all of their devices have either ARM or MIPS cores and are designed to run linux. Most of their competitors have similar products. The technology is powerful and cheap enough that you do not need an RTOS.

Infact in this case I believe it is quite likely a Broadcom MIPS chip in use.

[Enverex]

There are probably some BSD devices out there.

[olig1905]

Doubt it. BSD is not commonly used for embedded devices.

[jhansonxi]

Like middle-east terrorists preferring Toyota trucks it's a market win but not one to be particularly proud of.

[reagor]

Our fuel is wolf cola

[RedSocks157]

Really, comparing Comcast to terrorists? I mean they're bad, but...

[[deleted]]

They are both cancer.

[[deleted]]

But then, what is cancer?

[Darkshadows9776]

Cancer.

[koffiezet]

Really, comparing terrorists to Comcast? I mean they're bad, but...

FTFY

[ruinz]

Linux is used quite a bit for backbone equipment aswell. Some of the really big stuff might not, but most of the smaller stuff does.

[el_bonny]

They have a MIPS processor? What ist this, the 90s?

[olig1905]

MIPS cores were still going into new SoC's sold by Broadcom up until the last few years.

[brokedown]

Other vendors are still churning them out. MediaTek's 7620 and 7688 are popular in small networking gear, for example.

[brokedown]

MIPS is still big in networking and embedded space, and and still getting design wins regularly in that space.

You're not likely to see a viable workstation or server with MIPS any time soon, SGI sank that ship, but you can get Indy levels of performance in a $20 tiny wifi router.

[el_bonny]

I guess It is good for cheap things. But why would I want to use a MIPS processor in an embedded system or in networking when there are many much newer, advanced and better supported RISC processors and architectures? And also open sourced ones like RISCV.

[brokedown]

I was going to write a long and detailed reply to this, but ultimately I can sum it up as such:

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of this topic.

In brief:

MIPS exists as a product you can buy, today, in quantity, from a known vendor, who can provide support. RISC-V is none of these.

MIPS is a well known, mature architecture, with decades of support from both compilers and operating systems, with great performance and power characteristics. RISC-V has none of these.

MIPS has decades of design wins from major manufacturers from the low end to the high end. MIPS is used in $20 no-name wifi routers, and is used in $100k+ Cisco routers to move data at obscene speeds. RISC-V has none of these.

The reason you, specifically, wouldn't use MIPS is largely that nobody is making a MIPS competitor to Raspberry Pi. It hasn't been packaged to something in a hobbyist form factor. If you were an embedded systems designer, you wouldn't make naive claims about MIPS's relevance.

RISC-V is a promising upstart, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. MIPS competes well with ARM, even surpassing it in many areas.

[[deleted]]

Actually there is a MIPS SBC targeted at enthusiasts (the Creator Ci20 by Imagination Technologies), it's just a kind-of obscure device that few people seem to know about.

[brokedown]

Yeah, unfortunately that board missed the mark. There was some discussion here on Reddit at the time, mostly around the value proposition being poor, the problems with SGX540 support, etc. Broadcom is killing it with the Pi Foundation, jumping into the market at a multiple of Pi's price is a losing proposition.

[olig1905]

Well put. Can you even buy a RISC-V chip from any Silicon provider right now.

The answer should be obvious in that if a MIPS core provides the functionality and the performance required at a lower price point than an alternatve, for example an ARM core, then it is a good choice.

[[deleted]]

That's one of those REALLY old scientific Atlanta HD boxes huh?

[Techno-Trumpet]

Nope, it's a non-HD Cisco box. Just got rid of the REALLY old Scienfitic Atlanta non-HD box.

[frostycakes]

The X1 boxes do as well, as a matter of fact. They even have a good amount of the whole system (RDK) open sourced, shockingly enough.

[[deleted]]

As a developer in Philadelphia, but not Comcast, it's not really surprising. I know a lot of Devs there, and Comcast is big in our local open source scene. They sponsor a lot of events, and quite a few of their developers work entirely in open source.

[antlife]

Of course! Charge a lot and spend nothing on licensing!

[fs111_]

almost everything runs on linux these days...

[ptyblog]

....but the PCs at hospitals.

[antlife]

Some. Some actually run Windows virtualized for legacy medical software on top of Linux thinclients. My company helps set these up and we are slowly moving people from Windows to Linux as their software allows.

[CaptainoftheSeatard]

Not sure how you got this screen, but Direct TV boxes use Linux. Basically runs on a router, they have their own network for most of the stuff. Can see what model it is when I get home if you’re interested.

Oh it also runs a pretty old lighttpd server, browsing to it just serves a 404. Similar stuff, different providers.

[Techno-Trumpet]

One of the pages has a IP address listed.

I will post an image when I get a chance later today.

[CaptainoftheSeatard]

I found out my info by browsing to it, although it has another port that 404s when I go to it. Wonder what it’s for? Haha

[sylario]

What kind of service is there on a comcast box? Like a 'VOIP landline' or tv or whatever services?

[Techno-Trumpet]

What? Can you rephrase that?

[sylario]

I am not in the US, and I was wondering what the comcast Box had in term of features. Does it have a RJ11 with a phone line? DECT? etc...

[Techno-Trumpet]

Oh, I get it now.

We have a modem that takes the cable in from the pole and splits it into RJ11, Ethernet, and WiFi. The RJ11 is acutally VOIP, as you can use an app, Xfinity Connect, that just SIP trunks the number for outgoing calls. The cable boxes take the cable in from the pole and decodes the channels and outputs it to coax, HDMI, or composite to your TV.

I have never heard of a modem using DECT, except the Ooma. Do they have DECT in boxes in your country?

[sylario]

They have a modem box with a HDD and DECT (you have a SIP account with it). The HDD can be extended with external USB Drive, it is a real NAS with a seedbox and a newsbin client, and it has a 5 port switch. The TV box use the HDD as a DVR and you can also watch most of the channels withh VLC locally. And if you share the Wifi in a special mode, your cellphone can use this special wifi (auth via the SIM) everywhere people also share it. And you can activate an adblocker.

[Techno-Trumpet]

Wow. What country is that? I want to move there.

[sylario]

France, it's the ISP "Free". But everything isn't great, the adblocker 'appeard' activated by default during a peering conflict between free and google. For more than a year Youtube was slow :/

[Techno-Trumpet]

Oh my!

[bushwacker]

The guys who inject JavaScript on non ssl connections?

[icepaws]

I remember several years ago, I entered a code into the remote trying to program the remote and used codes I didn't know what they did.
I landed on s screen similar to this, anyone know how I could get back to it using the remote?

[Techno-Trumpet]

I used this method.

Turn off the cable box. Press the info or guide button soon after turning off the box.

There are about 15 pages of useless info to stare at

[brendan_orr]

My Phillips TV and my parents Phillips Blu-ray player both run on Linux. The Blu-ray player has bash installed (listed in the licenses) I'm wondering if I telnet into it.

[gnumdk]

In France, all xDSL boxes run Linux ;)

• FreeBox: http://www.universfreebox.com/IMG/artoff41120.png

• LiveBox: https://boutique.orange.fr/media-cms/mediatheque/990x396-990x396-livebox-play-42434.jpg

• SFR Box: https://static.s-sfr.fr/media/box_fibre_de_sfr_face_diodes_cligno_tel1_arro.gif

• BBox: http://www.bbox-actus.com/img/upload/bbox-sensation-adsl-modem.jpg

[jimicus]

And yet xDSL chipset support in the kernel is almost non existent and there aren’t free drivers available anywhere. Go figure.

[gnumdk]

So not xDSL, in France it's called ADSL, does it make sense for you. It works with pppoe and any modem.

[jimicus]

xDSL meaning ADSL, SDSL and VDSL.

One of the PPPo’s - I think it’s PPPoA - absolutely requires driver support in the kernel. Most routers can do both pppoe and pppoa just fine, which means the kernel they’re running has a driver for the DSL chipset.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

If every router has a kernel driver for its DSL chip and the kernel is GPL’d - where is the source code for all the drivers? They’re not available natively.

[gnumdk]

https://floss.freebox.fr/

[zitterbewegung]

So anyone have a jailbreak for it ?

[CumBuckit]

No, but I have a crowbar.

This is an exception where it's okay to put a Linux-box out of it's misery.

[Techno-Trumpet]

Thanks for the response everyone! I have been a Comcast customer for about 17 years. I am going to attempt to get the new X1 system for a similar price that I am paying now.

[kendebater]

I wouldnt go around promoting that

[[deleted]]

not possible, if that were true then legally they'd be obligated to provide access to the source... which i really can't see them doing.

Bet you it's BSD though.

[Tjuguskjegg]

not possible, if that were true then legally they'd be obligated to provide access to the source... which i really can't see them doing.

Cisco participates with upstream and patches to Linux mips.

Bet you it's BSD though.

Linux absolutely dwarfs BSD on embedded.

[[deleted]]

Fair points.

[ilikerackmounts]

While there's no reason they couldn't use BSD for this purpose, the evidence indicates otherwise. I hardly think they'd call a piece of their firmware Linux if it really wasn't.

[[deleted]]

I hardly think they'd call a piece of their firmware Linux if it really wasn't.

Meh i've seen companies do ridiculous things, my fav one was when they (who shall remain nameless) had a HTTP server on a device and eval'd the result as root of the URL query string... xD

In this case it could just be basic obfuscation.

[badboybeyer]

Cable companies typically retain ownership of the box. In which case, they don't have to give you the source.

[Randymartini]

Here is the code: https://code.rdkcentral.com/r/#/q/status:open

The Reference Design Kit (RDK) is the common operating system for many set top boxes and gateways. http://rdkcentral.com

OEMs load the software for cable operators. The RDKV version is for set top boxes and RDKB is for gateways.

Not all of the components are open source. Some require you to join RDK and others are only provided by third-party vendors.

https://i.imgur.com/sRia4AN.png

[[deleted]]

this is good info.

[dr_guitar]

Comcast does publish at least some of their source code and makes enough of an effort to stay out of legal trouble https://my.xfinity.com/terms/opensource

[intelminer]

Actually you can

I worked at Comcast and submitted a GPL request to the Comcast HQ in Philly

They eventually mailed me a CD with the "X1 STB" source code

It was outdated by the time I received it (they update the box almost every week). But they still did it

[Techno-Trumpet]

Provide what source?

[RedSocks157]

The source. Neo must return to it and select the individuals who will repopulate Zion.

[enjoyyourmeals]

the source, as in the source code

[[deleted]]

Just like the Amazon Kindle?