[ExtractStream] Re: My Dangerous Idea - A technical question, not a legal question

[Carlos Fernandez Sanz]

Eric,


> > But until they change their business model, I believe it's reasonable to
> > think that releasing all that Tridge has done (and the rest of non-releasing
> > guys, for that matter) would harm Tivo.
> 
> Short term harm or long term harm?
> 
Either way harm is harm. 
I certainly don't want to be the cause of Tivo changing their business
model even if I think it couldn't be worse. 

> model, they'll be able to make more money in the long run. If they
> required even just six months of service, that would be enough because

Well, if they required the subscription that means they would force
international hackers to subscribe to a service they don't need, plus of
course they would have to let Tivo dial international. 

Now you may say that the international hacking community is a minority
that shouldn't even count in their business model, which I agree with -
however if you said then your reasoning for opening the guide format
would be pointless.

> I don't do NDA, sorry. I don't want to have anything to do with this little
> gated community of elite hackers. 

Calling Tridge (Andrew Tridgell) an elite hacker (well, he IS certainly
elite, but in the good way) is absurd, just check his track record. 

Now if you want to call ME an elite hacker that's ok, even though I have
two strong reasons for not releasing my stuff: 1) It isn't working yet,
2) I *am* under NDA.

I believe in the principles of free
> software. 

There's good reasons for closed software, too. 
But anyway, all this hacking started with Tridge & friends. What you
guys (and me) are doing are peanuts compared to the tivonet, for
example. 

> distasteful to me. I want "TV my way" and I'm not getting it, not just
> because they aren't providing some service I'd like, but because they're
> actually spending time and wasting resources putting up road blocks
> to make the job of expanding on the Tivo's functionality more difficult.

You are being totally unfair. Have you tried to expand the functionality
of your regular VCR? If not, why? Have you called Panasonic or whatever
to tell them where the **** are their specs? Have you called Yamaha and
asked them to release the source code to their recoders' firmware, so
you can hack around?
> 
> It's far better to get on the right foot, sooner, rather than later.
> 
It's Tivo's decision. If you don't like their decision, tough. Their
units work exactly as advertised and they are great even out of the box.
Plus we are getting a lot of fun playing with them. 
Tivo is getting a lot of undeserved heat just because they kind of try
to protect their business. 

> > Approximately, what do you think it would be the ratio between people who
> > use the feature to feed tivo with international programming and people who
> > would use it to avoid feeds? Try to be realistic...
> 
> What's the chance that Tivo is going to switch business models before this
> information is out there in hands of the public? Try to be realistic
> yourself.

No idea and that's no the point. 

Regards,
Carlos