[mythtv-users] Myth Developers ban all use of MythTV as a PVR due to IP infringement?

[Michael T. Dean]

On 09/07/2007 04:50 PM, kijuhty kijuhty wrote:
> The point is not whether it's $1 or $1,000.  There's a black & white,
> crystal clear line between free and non-free.  You're "non-free" if you
> charge anything, even 1 cent for the next 100 years.

B (followed by another letter)

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

>   I didn't use Myth
> because I couldn't afford $13/month for the cable box.  I used myth because
> I believed in the free software movement and wanted to support a free
> solution.  I actually would rather pay $13/month to Comcast and record the
> Sopranos in high-def than $5/month to SD so I can only record a handful of
> un-encrypted QAM/ATSC channels, all of which are crammed with commercials.
> Like most myth users, we made lots of sacrifices (stability,

Then you're doing something wrong.

>  usability,
>   

????  Not in my world.  As a matter of fact, my Myth box was usable from
Hong Kong--about 8850 miles away (according to
http://www.indo.com/distance/ ) from the box itself.

> number of channels, etc.)

Perhaps.  Not in my case as I only want locals and am unwilling to pay
for a cable TV subscription (so I'm using an antenna to get OTA only).

>  because we wanted to support a free solution.
>   

And I have a wonderful free solution even with my $15/3mo SD charge.

I'm also buying an OpenMoko free cell phone for $450.  I love the phone
because it's free and much better than the no-charge phone I got from my
cell-service provider (and nicer than the $299 phones I could have
bought but have never done so because I was unwilling to pay money for a
non-free phone, so I got a no-charge non-free phone instead).

> So it's hard for us all to accept that Myth isn't free anymore and we're
> still supposed to show the same support.

Wait.  Aren't you the one saying that people who said, "SD saved my Myth
box," are mindless sheep who don't understand that listings data is
completely different from Myth.  Now you're saying that with SD charging
for listings, Myth is no longer free?

>   As long as I'm using a non-free
> solution, I might as well get the Comcast box and watch the channels I
> really want to watch.
>
> When you watch Tribune/DD/Zap2It's actions, it's really clear that for them
> giving free access to zap2it was better/cheaper/etc. than trying to thwart
> screen scrapers.  If they were really going to do stuff to circumvent
> scraping (like using images instead) then they would have done it years ago
> instead of giving away dd for free.  They're a business.  Their goal is to
> make money.  period.  They weren't giving us zap2it/dd for free to be "nice"
> and "charitable".  They did it because it was cheaper than dealing with
> screen scrapers.
>
> So despite all the talk, I'm really convinced that if the Myth community
> stood up and said "no, myth is and always be a free solution, and if you
> kill zap2it we'll go back to screen scraping", then Tribune would back down
> and continue to give dd for free, since, after all if thwarting screen
> scrapers was really their plan, they would have done it years ago instead of
> offering DD for free.  Tribune "tested the waters" to see if the myth
> community would cross the line and go from free to non-free, and the myth
> community said 'yes, we'll go non-free', that's why SD exists.

I think they'd just use images or Flash or some other non-scrapable
content type for the schedule.  I wouldn't be surprised if in today's
"pretty" web they don't move to Flash, anyway, just because they're
trying to improve the user experience.

Mike