[mythtv-users] What if...?

[Stefan D]

What if MythTV should be a backend only project?

Yes i know it is maybe a stupid question, but think about it. If you do
something shouldn't it be done better than everybody else? I think that on
the backend side MythTV still is one of the best solutions you could have,
but others is closing in fast and in some areas they have already passed
MythTV.(I tried tvheadend and scanning for channels. I never thought it
could be that easy to setup a backend pvr service, totally amazing. What if
the MythTV backend could be that easy?)

I know all about the comments when you "criticize" open source, all the "if
you want it do it yourself", "we do this on our free time", "we don't get
paid for doing this", and i understand all of those comments. But please
don't answer this if you have any of those comments. Think more of how it
would benefit MythTV if the few developer resources could be more
concentrated on making the backend the best and leave all other far behind?

I have used MythTV for almost 8 years now and it have been fun. I have
always used the master version since i want to try the latest and help to
find bugs if i can. Even though there have been progress in many areas, and
i don't want to put down any ones work, but the frontend software is pretty
far behind many other solutions, maybe even years behind. And finding
developers with the time and skill is always hard. Is it really worth their
precious time to try to make the frontend better? When it probably never
will be the best, only good enough? Wouldn't it be better to make the best
backend? Easy to setup, everything done through a browser, scheduling, epg,
and so on. And then have a killer interface that other clients could use to
controll the backend. Either for streaming or scheduling recordings or
whatever the backend can offer.

I recently got tired of the limited amount of features of the frontend, and
even though there is some really nice looking themes, the frontend feels
old. So i started looking around for other solutions, but since i knew that
MythTV backend does a fantastic job i wanted some other client to integrate
with the backend. I could probably be beaten up by saying this, but i
started to look at XBMC. It is very advanced, good looking, many addons,
skins and services you could install, it feels like what you always wanted
mythfrontend to be. And it seems to be a lot more developers so you have
many more things to choose from and can customize the client exactly how
you want it to be. In recent development version they are adding a PVR
interface, making it possible for developers to make plugins to backend
services, like MythTV.

That was when i thought about my original question. What if MythTV was only
a backend project? It could be the best combination ever, and the
developers time would really be used efficiently. Yes i know, XBMC is not
perfect in every way either, but it is close.

I know people do this because they think it is fun so it is not like a
commercial project where you just rearrange the resources and tell them to
concentrate on something else. But isn't it more fun to be the best, making
the best backend in the Linux world? I know all the hard work that has been
put down in MythTV, but maybe it is time to think a little different?

There is some great developers in this project, putting down a lot of time,
and i really appreciate all the work they do. So don't take this as
criticism against all those people.

If you have anything non constructive to say, please don't. Then just
forget this mail and move on.

/Stefan
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