[mythtv-users] MythTV vs. Windows Media Center

[Eric Sharkey]

On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 11:32 AM, Scott & Nicole Harris
<snharris99 at live.com> wrote:
>>Brian, you seem to be underestimating the cultural differences between
>>the Windows world and the FOSS world.
>
> Could you explain the difference, then?  Because if I were to sum it up from
> what I'm reading here, pertaining to the whole bottom posting thing, it
> would go something like this.

You're missing the point.

First of all, the policy for this list isn't "bottom posting".  The
goal is not to reply to some message, quote it in its entirety, and
stick the new text at the bottom.  That's only marginally better than
top posting.  A properly formed message trims the text being quoted so
that it contains only the text to which the response is relevant.

It's list policy that it's done that way, so doing it that way is just
being polite.  You know the saying, when in Rome...

Secondly, the whole email formatting thing is not the real issue here.
 FOSS and closed source software have some significant differences in
style and expectation.  Each has strengths and weaknesses.  What I've
seen in the past is that people who seem to like the closed source
world become very frustrated with open source weaknesses.  They expect
a "product" and they get a "project" instead.  They cut themselves on
the project's rough edges and get frustrated.

On the other hand, people used to open source can get very frustrated
with closed source when things don't go right there, such as when a
license key fails to validate because the ethernet hardware address
has changed or if the software craps out because of insufficient
client access licenses or whatever.  Open source code just doesn't do
stuff like that.  There's no MythTV Lite, MythTV Home, MythTV
Professional, MythTV Ultimate, MythTV Extreme Ultimate, MythTV Extreme
Ultimate Plus, ...  It's just MythTV.  You get the whole thing,
without anything held back.

Maybe I'm not explaining it well.  It's hard to explain this sort of
thing if you aren't immersed in the culture.  Brian referred to the
MyDefrag utility and referred to it as free, but it's freeware
(gratis) and not Free (libre).  People in this community look at
something like MyDefrag as a clockwork orange, but people like Brian
are quite comfortable with that sort of thing.

What I'm trying to say is that if you were to compare MythTV and Win
MCE and make pro/con lists for each, different people might look at a
con and one might say "that's a big deal" while other might barely
notice it.  MythTV has been designed and built by people who consider
the cons of closed source to be a big deal and have worked hard to
address that, while other aspects might be a little lacking.  If
you're the type of person who doesn't value that freedom, MythTV will
appear to be the weaker choice.  On the other hand, if freedom is
important, Win MCE is the weaker choice.  It's all in the eye of the
beholder.

Eric