[mythtv-users] Zap2It fiasco - what can we as users do?
David Lonie
loniedavid at gmail.com
Fri Jun 22 14:46:54 UTC 2007
I think the best advice given so far is to not panic. The devs will likely
strike up some deal. Whether they do or not, we should find an alternative to
Tribune Media to prevent this from happening again. I agree with the idea
that this is an opportunity rather than a crisis. I'd like to see this thread
used for discussion of what we users are able and willing to do to set up a
free (both beer and speech) database of tv listings.
Some of my ideas of what we can do now:
1. Discuss, propose, and approve a form letter that we users can send to our
local stations requesting that they post their listings on their website,
preferably in an RSS/XML feed (If someone has an idea for a better format,
feel free to comment). Keep up with the architecture thread to know what data
we need to request of them.
2. Write some examples of the format to send to the stations. Maybe even write
up a simple interface for them to enter the data in that will automagically
format and post it.
3. Once that we have decided on these, we the user send out requests to the
stations, which should include reminders that we are proposing a free
alternative to Tribune, etc (someone mentioned that they actually charge the
stations to list them?). Also we will provide the listings free to anyone via
a easy to use website (maybe give an analogy to wikipedia).
4. I think it violates the spirit of OSS to charge users. A
wikipedia/freenode/bittorrent style donation system is a neccessity for a
project this size. The idea of advertisements should be discussed, though I
am not particularly in favor of it. Although it wouldn't be too big a deal to
put a banner or some google ads on the webpage.
5. Discuss the implementation of a bittorrent tracker for the listings for EPG
users. This is the exact kind of thing bt was made for, and it would be a
rare treat to see the technology used in a widespread legal manner :).
6. Discuss a format and perhaps come up with a prototype for the website.
Perhaps the user base/devs can come up with a crossplatform reader for users
who want the EPG but aren't able to actually build a full mythbox. Shouldn't
be too hard to rip out the existing mythEPG and release it as a separate
program. Another opportunity for ad revenue, but only if push comes to shove.
Let's get to it! Any other ideas? Right now a lot of us are obviously
stressing out about this. Lets do something productive with that energy
instead of sitting around whining :)
David
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