OK, I have watched for a few days and I had to chime in here.<br><br>I'm going to be blunt and somewhat rude. No one take it personally. I'm not attacking anyone. I'm lending my expertise here. All I do all day is find solutions to problems like this. But I am seeing ideas being floated that we should not be wasting our time with. I am a very staunch supporter of the MythTV concept and I would like us to stay focused and solve this issue effectively.
<br><br>Recent suggestions that we begin a modern day version of a 'letter writing campaign" to all of the TV stations in the world to get listings posted for free is just patently silly. I was frankly stunned anyone took it seriously. Any time you start trying to solve a problem and you say to yourself "First I'm going to get everyone in the world to change their attitude about X", you're doomed. Hence why no one buys those hideous electric cars that look like Darth Vader and the Easter bunny mated. Why? Because no one wants to be seen in them. They are nerdy. And no amount of eco-friendliness or "SUV guilt" is going to overcome that.
<br><br>Now there is a guy out there making ones that look like (and perform like) Ferrari's. They are very expensive, they cost more to power with electric than you would with gas. He can't sell them fast enough. Kapitch?
<br><br>This idea of getting all TV stations to post their listings is deeply flawed because it places the burden or all the work on the TV stations and gives them absolutely nothing in return. They have ZERO motivation to help us and in fact the most powerful of all motivations not to - laziness. An effort such as this would require HUGE amounts of energy from us and would produce next to zero results because the stations get nothing out of it.
<br><br>Now, the folks who are discussing ways to get large vendors such as Yahoo, Google, Amazon etc involved with the enticement of a commercial opportunity are on the right track.<br><br>The psychological fact is - every entity, whether an individual or corporation is 100% selfishly motivated. Even people who give their lives to performing charitable works (yes, even GPL stuff) fall in this category because what they do makes them feel spiritually or psychologically fulfilled. They are still getting a payoff.
<br><br>If we want a long term, robust solution that gets better every year - find a way for someone to make money, or get a similarly satisfying reward doing it. Since corporations produce and control this data, and they care not for spiritual needs, appeal to their primary motivator - profit.
<br><br>This is the most effective, and yes _moral_ way of solving this. There is nothing more moral than rewarding someone for providing something to you that you value, except perhaps being the provider.<br><br><br>