Some big news in Kodi world, as a series of events has caused Lambda to retire. Click here for a full summary of how things went down.

Some fairly major news: Lambda has retired today after a fellow developer noticed some malicious code in the Exodus add-on and called lambda out. We will try to summarize everything that happened in the most impartial way for those curious. If anyone has any details they would like to clarify, get in touch with us on Twitter or Facebook.

It all started when Schism, developer of the Zen add-on (which is a fork of Exodus and uses a lot of its code), noticed and called lambda out for some code in Exodus that appears to send multiple requests to StreamHub’s server (StreamHub is another fork of code which uses most of its code). Lambda was using Exodus users to automatically put strain on StreamHub’s github and server every time they used Exodus to search and didn’t let them know. (source)

People using Exodus code as a basis for their add-ons is nothing new, but it appeared that lambda is fed up with users who change little or no code, call the add-on something new, and release it under a new name.

On the TVADDONS forums, lambda defended his actions with a series of messages:

I am in the bridge of retiring or doing this. Like I said they try to find my identity and give me legal trouble. I have no choice to protect myself. If this won’t help me to defend myself I will retire from these and focus on my legal add-ons.

I don’t say it’s a good thing lol, but they wouldn’t have less trouble from primewire lol What we miss as addon devs is that we in reality ddos attacking the sites we scrape, it depends on the number of users an addon has, an addon with many users is in reality doing this. And I wouldn’t if they didn’t try to expose my real identity and give me legal trouble.

The reason for not adding this on the changelog is that this would give them what they want, attention. I am developing addons for.7 years, I have a very valid reason for doing this that have to do with MY REAL LIFE SAFETY. And I am happy this happened, this way I can see clearly who is a friend or a foe for me on this scene 🙂

I am developing this addon for many years, it’s the continuation of Genesis.

All these years this community was a nice place to be a part of. I didn’t wake up one day, after all these years and told myself, let’s try to add some calls to a specific site.

It was a bad desicion I made after all this time and the stessful months I had, and I am sorry about that.

As long you follow the GPL license and don’t remove Exodus credits from it I never had any problem. Unfortunately all these months I’ve seen add-ons taking my code and removing the credits from it, like it’s their playground. I do understand that we are talking about addons that help on copyright infringement, but this is something I couldn’t tolerate anymore.

Also lately I’ve seen some weird private messages from specific people threating me on presonal level.

Most of them are on social media right now talking about how evil I am. I just couldn’t deal with all this stress anymore, I made bad desicions that I shouldn’t take and I am sorry about that.

I think this is the time for me too leave, this whole thing is changing me as a person, so it’s time for me to take care of myself and leave this scene once and for all. I want to thank everybody who stood by me all these years.

It’s time for me to move on and I hope the team to take over my beloved addon.

Take care everybody

Sources 1, 2, 3, 4

However, shortly after, the TVADDONS twitter account posted:

As a result of recent incidents with an abusive box seller, lambda is retiring. His latest version of Exodus is verified to be clean. The development of Exodus and Phoenix will continue at the helm of other members of the TV ADDONS team. It will grow and improve!

Many devs have been reaching out to show their support to lambda for his work, their feelings on him giving up so easily, and everything in between.

What does this mean for Exodus? Well, Exodus is built on a solid base of code that uses URLResolver to pull streaming links. This base was why other developers have tried to take fame away by forking the add-on and changing very little. Exodus doesn’t need to be updated much in order to function, as URLResolver is the real backbone of the add-on and is maintained by multiple developers in the community.

What do you think, was lambda right to use the Exodus community to attack a developer who forked Exodus and he claims was attacking him personally?

If we get any more information, we will pass it along.