[mythtv-users] Hauppauge HD-PVR will not initially support Linux

[Brian Phillips]

Brett Kosinski wrote:
>>  Hauppauge also knows that Linux users in general, and perhaps Myth
>> users specifically, are regarded by H'Wood as a "bunch of pirates". I
>> can certainly understand that they might want to separate themselves
>> from the Linux effort.
> 
> Strange, given that Myth users would, I suspect, want such devices so
> they can record content from their own cable subscriptions, which
> seems to be the exact opposite of what a pirate would do.  After all,
> if I was just one of these pirates, wouldn't I just download the
> content?    
> 
> Or are you suggesting that people believe Myth users are part of a
> global cabal to illegally distribute HD-quality broadcasts to the
> public?  
> 

I think there's a stigma.  We, as hackers are wont to do, see shades of grey
when shopping for PC hardware.  Instead of saying "what is it designed to
do?" we follow up with "and what can I make it do that it doesn't currently
do?"  The stigma from hollywood and others is, if you aren't using it for
what it was intended to do, you must be wanting to steal it.  It's sad, but
I would agree that myth users, being relatively unknown, get labeled as
pirates.  The first thing my parents and in-laws did when I showed them the
mythbox I set up was ask "and it's legal?!" in a very incredulous manner.  I
reminded them of the days of VHS recordings of television shows and that
assuaged them.

In the days of hollywood's witchhunt and propaganda machine, people are very
skeptical of anything that doesn't conform to "the side of the box"
thinking.  You know the side, it's the side that says "recommended
hardware/system requirements".

Brian