[mythtv-users] Mything thomething

[Joe Henley]

I gotta agree with "fluffkinuk at yahoo."

I have 0.23-1 running on a backend server with two front ends running 
MiniMyth.  I'm by no means a Linux expert, nor do I consider myself a 
newbie.

I'm running 0.23-1 and not 0.24 because it's too much hassle to update. 
When there is some compelling reason, I will update; but it seems like I 
find it useful only about every third or fourth version.

I'm retired so I have the time to work on updates.  It usually takes me 
several weeks (several hours a day on average, I'd guess) working on it 
to get a new version working well (enough to to keep the WAF high).

What takes so long?  Little to no documentation (sorry, what was written 
for a version three rounds ago and is mostly complete is NOT 
sufficient).  Documentation written by someone who thinks they are 
writing it for someone who already knows how to do it.  Documentation 
which some say is inferior to reading the code (really, are you 
serious?).  I'm old enough to remember the old IBM mainframe and 
mf/language documentation.  Completely unintelligible, unless you 
already knew what to do -- then it served fairly well as a cross 
reference.  Some of what I read today is worse.  And there seem to be 
some folks who openly applaud that type of documentation with a wave of 
the hand and a "if you don't write code to enhance the product, don't 
complain about the product."

I "get it" about open source.  I like it and I respect those who create 
  it.  And I watch freakin' elegant code get blasted to smithereens by 
the crap from MS.  My take on why open source gets creamed by MS is that 
MS code is easy to use -- and open source is not.  And most of that is 
because of the documentation.  ... and those who make excuses for it's 
poor quality.

My expectation is that Linux and other open source code will always 
survive.  There will always be enough geeks who also have lives that 
they will create demand for stuff like MythTV, and games, and letters to 
Mom (sideways reference to OpenOffice), and etc., etc.  But I doubt it 
will ever be a "success" -- big market share, lots of attention, 
groupies, etc.  And so there will always be letters from potential users 
who are giving up because it's too damned hard to get it to work.  Since 
for them the reward is a working product; the reward is not overcoming 
the challenge of getting there.

I would prefer to see open source "succeed."  The ideas, the elegance of 
clear solutions, the energy to push beyond the minimal requirements, all 
of this and more.  I'd like to see it....

In all fairness, I do see it sometimes.  Not often.  And not widely. 
But it's there.  Even within this rant I mention one clear example of it 
(you know who you are, P).

Joe Henley