[ppoint]

Probably licensing. You can do whatever you want with BSD-licensed code, not so much with GPL.

[icebraining]

For internal purposes like these, they're pretty much indistinguishable. Remember that the GPL only compels you to distribute the source to whoever you gave the binaries, not to everyone else. And distribution inside your own organization doesn't count.

[justincormack]

These Netflix boxes get distributed to ISPs, so they may regard this as distribution (legally perhaps unclear).