[mythtv] Licensing issues

[Joseph A. Caputo]

On Thursday 17 November 2005 23:42, Paul Huff wrote:
> Actually, you sold it for $100M, but thats besides the point, lol. My 
> plan 
> is to get this as intuitive and basic as possible (as inspired by my
> father-in-law who's frustrated with his current expensive and 
> complicated 
> setup) so that anyone, techie or not, can use it without ever needing 
> a 
> manual or being coached. I live in a rather wealthy area where people 
> drop 
> thousands of dollars on difficult and complicated "high-tech" high 
> confusion 
> setups. If I can give them something easy, consolidated, intuitive as 
> well 
> as "high-tech" and new...they'd eat it up. And I'd have fun in the 
> meantime. 
> I have no plans on going big with this...just some joe schmo setting 
> up 
> systems in his local metropolitan area. $900-1500 for the parts and 
> whatever 
> I wanna charge for the setup and markup equals a nice weekend profit. 
> So ya 
> I guess I can use the system with the software (modified as it may be) 
> and 
> if someone wants the source they're more than welcome to have it. No 
> one who 
> knows what to do with it would be paying me for this anyway, lol.
> 

I'm in a similar situation -- I don't have the time or resources to 
undertake a full-fledged business customizing, extending, installing & 
supporting Myth, but I do live in a relatively affluent area where 
there could be a market for an "easy, consolidate [and] intuitive" 
Myth-type product... basically, I'd like to make some side-money from 
my expertise in this area, but I can't afford to strike out on my own 
full-time.  So, I'm looking into the possibility of becoming a dealer 
for Pluto Home (www.plutohome.com).  They've integrated Myth with some 
other stuff (home automation & security, mostly) and developed it into 
a product.  It's completely open source, but they license it 
commercially as an integrated platform.  As a dealer you can sell their 
preconfigured systems, or build your own from off-the-shelf components.

-JAC