[mythtv-users] Zap2it Labs Shutting Down?

Chris Petersen lists at forevermore.net
Wed Jun 20 18:58:09 UTC 2007


Ok, to clarify some information and hopefully calm down some of the
frantic chatter, here's an overview of what is going on:

The MythTV developers are currently working with TMS to see if there is
a way we can purchase/resell listings data to MythTV users.  We are
awaiting numbers both for cost and for the number of people actively
using DD data (to give us an estimate of what the per-user cost might
end up being).  It's still completely undecided whether this would
happen as a function of MythTV or if a new org would be created to deal
with it.  Don't ask, we don't know yet.  If something comes of this, I'm
sure that there will be an announcement.

We are also looking at other providers, as well as the option of working
with other projects (both open and closed source) to band together on a
similar service.

As Daniel said, we are also considering the idea of contacting
individual stations directly and working out deals to build our own
service, like the group in Sweden did.  I assume that if we did this,
we'd end up working with the xmltv folks, too.

---

Now...  there are also some problems with many of the ideas that have
come up.  Here are a few:

Charging for data will leave a bad taste in the mouths of a lot of
MythTV users, which means we could lose a sizeable chunk of the user base.

Not charging for data, but hosting it ourselves, means that we'd run
into the same problem as zap2it with commercial groups abusing the
system.  Using hashing algorithms/etc to track "legit" MythTV
installations is impossible due to the whole "open source" thing.

Ad-supported models are great except for the fact that MythTV is an open
source project.  It would be *very* easy for someone to maintain an
"ad-free" patch set, and people could get the listings without seeing
any ads.

Someone owns the rights to program titles/etc.  xmltv can give users
access to this info because the user downloads the info directly.  If we
want to host this in a central repository somewhere, we will likely need
permission to do so.

---

Once we figure something out, I'm sure there will be an official working
group put together, but I would strongly encourage individuals not
directly related to development to avoid contacting anyone on behalf of
the MythTV community.  It creates confusion and will only slow down the
progress by people officially involved.

-Chris

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