[mythtv] DirecTV recording, 169time, etc.

[Kyle Rose]

For the past few months, I have been seriously considering getting
ahold of one of those 169time.com-modified DirecTV HD receivers (they
add a firewire port) and adding support for it to MythTV to allow
recording of high-definition programming from DirecTV.  I do not claim
to understand any of the legal issues surrounding this: all I know is
that they've been in business for several years and evidently have
lots of satisfied customers over at avsforum, which is a positive
sign.

Well, I finally got around to calling them to ask several questions
about what I'd need to do.  Some of my questions weren't related to
MythTV directly, but one in particular was, and the gentleman's answer
directly motivates this message.  The question was, is the source code
to read the data from the firewire port open?

The answer was "no."  His justification, similar to that of most
hardware vendors, is that revealing the source code would enable
others to replicate his work and offer a similar service, underselling
his business.

I'm not going to get deep into the already tired argument (neigh-gh! 
NEIGH-GH-GH!!!) that this is a doomed strategy (i.e., if someone was
able to figure it out once, then others would easily be able to
reverse-engineer it or replicate the work were there a bigger market
for these modifications).  I simply find it ironic that a company
whose product's primary reason for existing is greater openness feels
the need to protect their intellectual property.  I'm sure Hughes
would rather sell more DirecTiVo's than allow people to have control
over the content they're paying for.

That said, they say they have a Linux driver in development (for 2.4
only at this point) and will probably distribute a binary version of
said driver once it is available, enabling support for projects like
MythTV.  I guess the bottom line for me is: if they are willing to
give me a modified STB for free, and provide me with a stable driver
*or* the source code to an unstable driver, then I will help them
integrate their solution into MythTV, despite it being closed-source,
because I really want to be able to record high-def DirecTV content.
But if they're unwilling to meet me halfway (and to be clear I haven't
proposed this to them yet), they're out of luck and can continue to
work on it without outside help.

Am I being unreasonable?  I don't think so, but I thought I'd bounce
this off other people before I propose it to them.

Cheers,
Kyle