[mythtv-users] Legality of selling MythTV and its Components?

[Steven Ihde]

On Wednesday 03 May 2006 12:59, Andrew Cope wrote:
> Jesse Guardiani wrote:
[...]
> > Either way, my business model will be retail hardware sales ONLY. I
> > don't expect to get
> > rich off it. I know it's a relatively poor model. It's just an extension
> > of my hobby and it
> > would be nice to support my mythtv hardware addiction by actually making
> > a small profit
> > and getting some business experience in the process. I certainly do NOT
> > want to get sued
> > though. That would totally defeat the purpose of the venture.
[...]
> I think you'll do well selling the following:
>
> - a disk-less and fan-less frontend that will look good under the TV.
> Connect to a backend for booting, or boot from flash.
> With a DVD/CD slot for playing movies/music (optional).
>
> - a big beastie backend with 2 or 3 (or more!) tuner cards, LVM/RAID
> disk storage.
>
> Most people already have the hardware for a general purpose backend, but
> to get myth into the front room it has to look good enough to get past
> the wife/girlfriend.
> I won my wife over with a frontend in the living room *and* in the bedroom.

I agree there is potential here.  Not from me, I've already invested a couple 
hundred bucks and at least ten trips to Fry's Electronics so I can't stop 
now!  But finding the right combination of fanless or very quiet devices that 
will all work together and fit into a good-looking small case turned out to 
be quite a bit more work than I thought, and I still don't think my wife 
likes it, she just doesn't hate it enough to veto it.

If I find myself looking for a second front-end, I would seriously consider 
buying from a fellow enthusiast who provided a website with lots of pictures; 
detailed, complete specs for the hardware; and precise measurements of the 
case (so I could see if it would fit where I wanted it).  I guess two main 
problems would be (1) people finding the website might just avail themselves 
of your "free research" and buy the same hardware themselves and assemble it, 
and (2) getting the word out -- I didn't think to look for something like 
this, I just went and did it myself.

-Steve