[mythtv-users] Patching .21-fixes for HDPVR

[Michael Tiller]

On Thu, Dec 25, 2008 at 10:22 AM, Robert McNamara <robert.mcnamara at gmail.com
> wrote:
<discussion on patches removed>

>
> Please *do not* write any more documentation on taking this path.  If
> people want to do this, there's nothing we can do to stop them, but
> codifying it only perpetuates broken DBs.  It is a *good* thing that
> getting .21 working with the HD-PVR is hard/not well documented-- we
> want to *prevent this*.
>
> So please, please, *please*.  Don't do this, don't advise people to do
> this, and especially don't put anything like this on the wiki where it
> could be misconstrued as an endorsed plan of action.  We have had a
> near-identical problem when people enabled UTF8 in mythtv before
> trunk/.22.  There was documentation in the wiki about it, and it led
> to corrupt data because people followed it.  Mike Dean has spent the
> better part of the last two weeks working on fixes for this and
> similar issues.  That is a literal parable about the kinds of things
> that will happen if people start doing this.  It causes other people
> (who could be adding features) to waste valuable time trying to fix
> it, and speaking only for myself, causes massive frustration.
>
> As the author and "maintainer" of the HD-PVR wiki page, I will revert
> any change made that that page that includes instruction on this
> topic.
>

>
> For clarity, not jumping down *your* throat per se, but I feel the
> need to address this before it gets any more out of hand than it
> already is.


Don't worry, I understand that you are trying to reign in the chaos that
such a situation could create and to prevent it from being a distraction for
others.  I certainly didn't take this as a personal thing.

I really have just two comments.

First, I'm confused because as the maintainer of the HD-PVR page, there is a
whole section titled "Steps to Add the HD-PVR as a Capture Device in MythTV"
that discusses applying patches.  It isn't clear to me why that section is
superior to the patch set I referenced (they may even be the same).  Do
those patches not trigger DB issues?  Should they be considered a preferred
alternative to the route I was looking at?

Second, this is a very interesting situation and I wonder what we could
learn from it.  On the one hand you have the trunk which has all this nice
functionality but there are "danger" signs posted everywhere about using
it.  There is also a very strongly vibe from the developers (and
*understandably so*) about non-developers venturing into the trunk.  I can
appreciate the trouble that causes and so I agree nobody should take that
route lightly.

On the other hand, you have a strong sentiment to not provide a back-port of
these features to 0.21.  Philosophically, I can understand this approach as
well (not wanting to move backward but rather forwards).  But this closes
off another potential avenue to users.

Finally, you have the people who (for example, with these patches) are
trying to "make due" until a new release by coming up with a kludge applies
"on the side".  This approach is also frowned upon (for reasons you pointed
out).

The result of this situation is that it seems to create tension between the
developers who, naturally, want to focus on moving things forward rather
than hand holding and users who, naturally, want to get the most of out
their system.  The downside of this situation is that you have users with
lots of enthusiasm for the overall project and a willingness to spend not
insignificant amounts of money on putting together systems met with what
probably feels to many like a sentiment of "sit down, be quiet and wait for
the next official release".  I want to be clear that I don't see anybody at
fault here but it just seems like a shame to be in such a situation.

So the question is...is there any strategy we could follow that would avoid
this situation and make things easier for both parties.  I'm not sure there
is but I figured it was worth considering.

I'm still not sure where this leaves me... :-(

Robert


--
Mike
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