How does your foot taste Phil, Greg, Jay, William et al?<br><br>Did you read that post from aaron at pluto stating that sponsor(s) offered to pay for data direct/zap2it to keep it free? <a href="http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/287094">
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/287094</a><br><br>There you have the proof in black & white from a commercial Tribune licensor, quoting a Tribune employee, showing that there was zero chance that the free zap2it labs would ever have gone away, that it was a bluff, that we never would have had to go back to screen scraping anyway, and that Tribune's goal from the moment they made the announcement they would terminate zap2it was to test the waters to see if they could partner with some of the Myth developers to turn Myth into a for-profit venture, and that had the answer been 'no', we would still have free guide data.
<br><br>I'll try again to lay out the facts. As you can see Tribune had these options with data direct:<br>1) Continue to pay for the servers, IT staff, bandwidth, etc. needed to keep data direct a free service.<br>2) Let sponsor(s) shell out all the cash and resources to keep it free and accept from that sponsor $24k/year or more that was pure profit straight to Tribune's bottom line, with the assurance that nobody would ever have any reason to consider screen scraping.
<br>3) Terminate zap2itlabs and then spend hundreds of thousands to revamp the whole site to thwart screen scrapers, perhaps hundreds of thousands more in extra bandwidth charges to transmit the web-based guide data in flash or an image or some other hard-to-scrape format, and devote significant staff resources to constantly change the site to try stay one step ahead of the screen scraper authors, with no chance of making 1 dime off the FOSS users, and the knowledge that every time someone succeeded in screen scraping it would bog down their servers making it harder for real users to get to the site, and completely throw off their advertising figures, putting their core revenue model at risk.
<br>4) See if the Myth community would accept changing MythTV from being free software into a paid service and try to turn it into a profit center that would make more profit than option #2.<br>5) Make Myth a paid service, like option #4, but instead of pricing it based on what the market would bear, have the goal of making it non-profit, unlike option #2 and #4 which would generate a profit.
<br><br>Months ago Tribune announced that they were going to do option 3. And it seems most of the Myth community just went, "Uh, duh, ok". You guys have obviously never run a business. No businessman would choose option 3. It's suicide. Any corporate President who chose that option would be fired for being a moron. When Tribune first faced screen scrapers, they choose option 1 over option 3 because option 3 was that bad. And like I said, if Tribune really wanted to cancel zap2it and wasn't just bluffing they would have done so with no notice whatsoever so that a good percentage of myth's user base went away since they wouldn't wait for screen scrapers to be developed. It was obvious from day 1 when Tribune made that announcement that they never intended to actually follow through on that threat and were just testing the waters for option #4, with option #2 being a fall back, and worst case, option #5; the non-profit claim which we're led to believe this is. If 4, 2 and 5 all fell through, they'd stick which option #1 like they had for years because option #3 was not even a consideration since they already concluded 5 years ago that worst case option #1 was better than option #3. The fact that the Myth community bought into the "option #3" bluff was disappointing, since this really wasn't hard to see for what it was. But what drove me over the edge to post these flaming comments is that even now after it's done, idiots like Jay insist that option #3 is still a big threat looming overhead and that if we even discuss screen scraping somehow Tribune is going to go back and follow through on that option #3 threat. Ooooh.... We have to walk on our tip toes so as not to upset Tribune/SD because if we do they'll go masochistic and shoot themselves in the foot by choosing option #3. This leads me to believe that Jay is either a total idiot, or he's being compensated somehow to defend the SD business model.
<br><br>Make no mistake... The SD service is *not* non-profit, certainly not for Tribune, and my guess is it's not for the myth devs either. Compare those options 1-5 again. If SD was non-profit (option #5), Tribune would have taken option 2 since it costs them nothing, relieves all the burden, and gives them a royalty payment that is pure profit to the bottom line, and no company turns down the chance to add to their profit, even if it is only $24k, that's better than nothing. They only went for option 4 because that represented *more* profit than option 2, not non-profit. The SD founders insist that they're not making any money on this and that the contrary they're shelling out their own precious time and money to make SD happen. Why would they do that, since a sponsor offered to cover all the costs, do all the work, and keep it free? Why didn't the Myth developers just say to Tribune "thanks, but no thanks, we'd prefer to keep MythTV free" since they knew that by doing that Tribune would have chosen option 1 or 2 and zap2it would have continued to be free, and there was no chance of option 3? Given that post, unless Tribune lied to the Myth devs and told them were going to choose option #3 and the Myth devs actually fell for it, you've got to believe the Myth devs are in on it and are making a profit off SD. Otherwise why didn't anybody tell us sponsors had offered to subsidize data direct?
<br><br>What pisses me off the most is not that the Myth developers decided to turn this into a commercial venture, it's the lies and hypocrisy. Just admit that SD is about generating profit for Tribune and/or the Myth devs and stop the silly charade pretending that if it weren't for SD then Tribune would have chosen option #3 and we'd all be left high and dry fighting with screen scraping. What's so baffling is that the sham is *sooo* obvious but the lemmings in the Myth community are going along with it without stopping to think about it objectively. The fact is that Myth would have continued to be free if the Myth community had said "we see through this laughable threat to terminate zap2it labs and we're not falling for it, we'll call your bluff and if you really want option 3, fine, we'll go back to screen scraping." Then Tribune would have chosen option 1 or 2. So when Jay says that those of us discussing screen scrapers will "ruin it for the rest", no Jay, by not discussing screen scrapers you already did ruin it for the rest of us. If we threaten to do screen scraping and option #4 fails, Tribune *will not* go for option 3, they'll go for 1 or 2. Duh. It's just common sense.
<br><br>Other FOSS projects have turned from being free into for-profit. The difference is they're honest about it. If you go to a Gracenote forum and talk about using alternative, free software that will circumvent the need to pay for their service, they'll admit that they're banning such posts because it threatens their business model. But in Myth's case, it's a facade. They instead pretend to take the moral high ground and insist they're banning the discussion of screen scrapers, not because it's a threat to SD's business, but rather because according to the legal system screen scraping is stealing someone else's IP.
<br><br>Geoff's post was hilarious: "the list owners now recognize that scraping in defiance of user agreements or web-site owners is illegal.... Isaac and others do not ... want to be associated with it in any way. If they did 'it' in the past, they no longer do, and regret having done so." I believe that as much as I believe Ted Haggard's declaration that he's been "cured" of the desire to take it up the ass.
<br><br>If the list owners are truly born again and are now cheerleaders for protecting corporate IP, then what happened when I pointed out that just pausing live tv is also stealing someone's IP since that's patented, and ditto for displaying an EPG grid, and that if their real concern was being totally legal and not stealing IP, then they should ban any and all discussion about "stealing" *anybody* else's IP, and not only ban discussions about stealing IP that would hurt SD's business model? <Crickets chirping> Nobody responded.
R.J.'s comment that the RIAA would shut down Myth because of screen scraping is absurd. First the RIAA has no interest in Myth; they're about music downloads not TV: <a href="http://www.riaa.org/physicalpiracy.php">
http://www.riaa.org/physicalpiracy.php</a>. It's the MPAA that's battling PVR's. Regardless if they or anybody else wanted to use the legal system to get MythTV shut down, it wouldn't be because of screen scraping guide data, which is a gray area since Google and others do it anyway. They would attack Myth for using FFMPEG and not paying the license fee, or for violating the patents of TiVo, Gemstar, Echostar, etc. *Those* are much more clear, black & white legal violations that are easy to enforce, and that have already been proven in the judicial system. Nobody is going to sue Isaac because somebody posted to the myth list about screen scraping since that's such a gray area with no clear boundaries because the data is made public anyway and the user never actually signs a TOS agreement and there is no precedent in the judicial system about the legality of screen scraping. Duh. The ban of discussions about screen scraping is to protect SD's revenue model, not to protect Myth from IP violations.
<br><br>>> Phil: If you don't like the product, DON'T USE IT.<br><br>Myth was promoted from day 1 as being a "free" solution, and many of us actively contributed to support it for that reason. Now some myth devs want to take our contributions and make it a for-profit venture that benefits only a few, ban any discussions that might lead to it again being a "free solution" and saying "If you don't like the product [now that it's not free], DON'T USE IT." You miss the whole point of the FOSS movement. It's about a mutual commitment. We all make a pledge to contribute to keep it free, and so when a few of the developers decide to pull the rug out and make it a non-free solution, that's a violation of that trust, particularly since it's clear they had options for keeping it free.
<br><br>>> William: After all, if you cannot afford $5/month you should not be building PVR systems, you probably should not even own a computer<br><br>It has nothing to do with the amount. It's a black & white issue: is it a free solution or not. I don't care if it's 1 cent or 1 million dollars. I didn't get Myth because I couldn't afford TiVo's subscription. The dollar amount isn't the issue. The issue is that it's not a free solution anymore because the myth developers chose to partner with Tribune to turn it into a commercial venture even though they had alternatives that would have kept it free. William, now you sound like Microsoft. The OEM license for Windows is only $20 or so. So Bill Gates could borrow your words: "After all, if you cannot afford [$20 for Windows] you should not ... even own a computer." It's not the dollar amount. It's free vs. non-free. And it's the fact that the Myth/SD devs won't be honest and admit that it's a for profit venture. I have more respect for Bill Gates because at least he's honest and doesn't try to hide the fact that he's in it to make a profit.
<br><br>>> Greg: The SD crew is not making any money on this. If any one of the other Listings companies that were approached had said yes SD would never have been formed.<br><br>Greg, do you want some of my swampland in Florida? If that were true, then why didn't they go for a sponsored alternative that would have kept SD free and not required any effort on their part? Why weren't any of us told months ago that sponsors were willing to pay to keep DD free? Duh.
<br><br>As far as why I'm posting this, it's not to bash SD or Myth for going commercial. Whether you're for or against commercialization and profiteering is an opinion, liberal vs conservative thinking, that's all subjective opinions. What is clear-cut and black & white is if the community is honest and objective and acknowledges the fact that SD exists for the purpose of generating a profit for Tribune and/or Myth devs, and that if the Myth community said 'no' to SD and threatened to do screen scraping, then the guide data would still be free like it was before, and that attempts to ban discussion of screen scraping is to protect SD's business and not because of a serious threat. I'm not arguing that SD should go away or that we should boycott it or that a free or sponsored solution is better. I'm not arguing for or against SD. I'm only saying that if you choose to support it you should do so because you made an informed decision and not because you were conned and too dumb to realize it, and that open discussion on the list shouldn't be censored to protect SD's business.
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