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geckofiend at gmail

May 5, 2005, 2:41 PM

Post #1 of 42 (5021 views)
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LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community

For the past several months I've been working with a company that's
preparing a commercial offering using MythTV for the high-end
home-theater market. They expressed their interest in seeing Myth
grow beyond it's current hobbyist niche to that of a full consumer
level product. Rather than simply take Myth and run with it they
decided to "do the right thing" and embrace the Myth community and
it's developers and work with us to move things forward.

These guys could have been like any number of companies that have and
have had commercial Myth offerings and just taken the source and shut
us out. They instead approached Isaac, myself and some others about
doing things right. I'm very excited about what the future holds with
Technovera involved.

To that end, today they're taking the wraps off of "LxMSuite" a pilot
project to provide data services and community related services to the
Myth user base. I'll let the website (http://www.lxmsuite.com) speak
for itself and simply add some info that's not available there.

Coming down the pipe in the near term from them are:

* The first of many new themes. James Meyer has been working closely
with some artists/UI designers hired by Technovera to produce the
first of many themes. It's nearly complete and is *really* sharp, I'm
currently running it on my main machine and frankly it makes my own
themes look like a piles of dog crap. Some screenshots are:
http://www.lxmsuite.com/theme_preview/menu1.jpg (there's 6 of those,
just change the number)
http://www.lxmsuite.com/theme_preview/playbackbox_preview.jpg
http://www.lxmsuite.com/theme_preview/playbackbox_nopreview.jpg and
http://www.lxmsuite.com/theme_preview/video_manager.jpg.

* A community web portal offering entertainment news and reviews as
well as info of interested to home theater / HTPC users.

* A recommendation engine for Myth.
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glandix at lloydnet

May 5, 2005, 2:48 PM

Post #2 of 42 (4929 views)
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Re: LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community [In reply to]

> * The first of many new themes. James Meyer has been working closely
> with some artists/UI designers hired by Technovera to produce the
> first of many themes.

wow, that is really slick ... will the be available for free? i really
need to learn how to make my own themes, but don't know how they could
compare to this one :S

-g-
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geckofiend at gmail

May 5, 2005, 2:50 PM

Post #3 of 42 (4938 views)
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Re: LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community [In reply to]

On 5/5/05, gLaNDix (Jesse Kaufman) <glandix [at] lloydnet> wrote:
> > * The first of many new themes. James Meyer has been working closely
> > with some artists/UI designers hired by Technovera to produce the
> > first of many themes.
>
> wow, that is really slick ... will the be available for free? i really
> need to learn how to make my own themes, but don't know how they could
> compare to this one :S

AFAIK their themes are only going to be available to subscribers.
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geoff.scott.mail at gmail

May 5, 2005, 3:31 PM

Post #4 of 42 (4948 views)
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Re: LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community [In reply to]

On 5/5/05, Donavan Stanley <geckofiend [at] gmail> wrote:
> Rather than simply take Myth and run with it they
> decided to "do the right thing" and embrace the Myth community and
> it's developers and work with us to move things forward.
>

<puts on fire proof speedo>

Um, I don't see the part where they are "helping" to move things
forward. If the bounty system encourages devs to work on projects
which are then free for everyone, then yes, I see that. But if I need
to subscribe to get the latest and greatest feature, then how is this
different than LxM buying the devs?

> They instead approached Isaac, myself and some others about
> doing things right.

I'm glad you put this in your email. Over the last year or so I've
come to give a lot of weight to the things Isaac says/does. He seems
to be a good bullsh!t killer. Thus, I would think, if he's involved,
there must be some good to the greater community... hopefully. Not
that he is required to look out for the community per se.

>
> * A recommendation engine for Myth.
>

Did they build this or is this related to the recommendation plugin
that was devloped previously (and IIRC is being used by quite a few
people).

To be honest, $5.00 really doesn't sound like a lot to me... but I
can't help but wonder what kind of machine this will set in motion.
To quote the website, "LxMSuite puts you in the drivers seat: 100% of
the profits from the our pilot project will fund open source
development."... what happens after the pilot program? You can't be
giving 100% of your profits away forever... can you?

I couldn't help but notice this line from the web site FAQ: "LxMSuite
is a non-free subscription service..." Now that just sounds silly.
Call it what it is, a "fee based" service. What kind of double speak
is "non-free based...". Eee gads.

gs
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geckofiend at gmail

May 5, 2005, 4:06 PM

Post #5 of 42 (4948 views)
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Re: LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community [In reply to]

On 5/5/05, Geoff Scott <geoff.scott.mail [at] gmail> wrote:
> On 5/5/05, Donavan Stanley <geckofiend [at] gmail> wrote:
> > Rather than simply take Myth and run with it they
> > decided to "do the right thing" and embrace the Myth community and
> > it's developers and work with us to move things forward.
> >
>
> <puts on fire proof speedo>

No need. ;)

> Um, I don't see the part where they are "helping" to move things
> forward. If the bounty system encourages devs to work on projects
> which are then free for everyone, then yes, I see that. But if I need
> to subscribe to get the latest and greatest feature, then how is this
> different than LxM buying the devs?

The fact that the resulting code is open source is mentioned more than
once on the site. While there are numerous things that they'll be
providing as "members only" stuff, the sponspored development is not
one of them.

> > They instead approached Isaac, myself and some others about
> > doing things right.
>
> I'm glad you put this in your email. Over the last year or so I've
> come to give a lot of weight to the things Isaac says/does. He seems
> to be a good bullsh!t killer. Thus, I would think, if he's involved,
> there must be some good to the greater community... hopefully. Not
> that he is required to look out for the community per se.

Isaac very much so looks out for the community.

> > * A recommendation engine for Myth.
> >
>
> Did they build this or is this related to the recommendation plugin
> that was devloped previously (and IIRC is being used by quite a few
> people).

This is a different product based on a different premise. The initial
recommendations "channel" comes from the critics at Tribune's various
publications. Eventually, the idea is for community members to be
able to offer their own recommendations to other community members.

The plugin and file format for the recommendations engine will be open
source and freely available so anyone else is capable of providing
their own recommendations to Myth users.

> To be honest, $5.00 really doesn't sound like a lot to me... but I
> can't help but wonder what kind of machine this will set in motion.

The price point was designed to be painless to the individual, yet
enough that in numbers could provide enough incentive to get
developers to implement features the users care about.

> To quote the website, "LxMSuite puts you in the drivers seat: 100% of
> the profits from the our pilot project will fund open source
> development."... what happens after the pilot program? You can't be
> giving 100% of your profits away forever... can you?

The sole purpose of the data services project is to fund open source
development that's it. That's the only reason it even exists.

> I couldn't help but notice this line from the web site FAQ: "LxMSuite
> is a non-free subscription service..." Now that just sounds silly.
> Call it what it is, a "fee based" service. What kind of double speak
> is "non-free based...". Eee gads.

I agree "non-free based" sounds silly, good thing that doesn't appear
on their site. ;) However the term "non-free" describes it just as
well "fee based"...
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geoff.scott.mail at gmail

May 5, 2005, 4:17 PM

Post #6 of 42 (4964 views)
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Re: LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community [In reply to]

On 5/5/05, Donavan Stanley <geckofiend [at] gmail> wrote:
>
> I agree "non-free based" sounds silly, good thing that doesn't appear
> on their site. ;) However the term "non-free" describes it just as
> well "fee based"...
>

Thanks for your replies. I appreciate the non-flame-ness of them ;)

and bleh... "non-free subscription" would have been more accurate :)

gs
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lists at forevermore

May 5, 2005, 4:19 PM

Post #7 of 42 (4941 views)
Permalink

Re: LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community [In reply to]

> To be honest, $5.00 really doesn't sound like a lot to me... but I
> can't help but wonder what kind of machine this will set in motion.
> To quote the website, "LxMSuite puts you in the drivers seat: 100% of
> the profits from the our pilot project will fund open source
> development."... what happens after the pilot program? You can't be
> giving 100% of your profits away forever... can you?

As I've been told (by Donavan), it'll eventually be something more
around 50% go back into the bounty program, with the rest covering the
fees for the more detailed feeds, theme designers' fees, etc.

-Chris
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geckofiend at gmail

May 5, 2005, 4:29 PM

Post #8 of 42 (4939 views)
Permalink

Re: LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community [In reply to]

On 5/5/05, Chris Petersen <lists [at] forevermore> wrote:
> > To be honest, $5.00 really doesn't sound like a lot to me... but I
> > can't help but wonder what kind of machine this will set in motion.
> > To quote the website, "LxMSuite puts you in the drivers seat: 100% of
> > the profits from the our pilot project will fund open source
> > development."... what happens after the pilot program? You can't be
> > giving 100% of your profits away forever... can you?
>
> As I've been told (by Donavan), it'll eventually be something more
> around 50% go back into the bounty program, with the rest covering the
> fees for the more detailed feeds, theme designers' fees, etc.

I wasn't very clear on that one myself. 100% of the *profits* will be
fed back to open source development. The data fees to Tribune and the
like impact the profit margin. So the key is in numbers, enough folks
at $5 means everyone pays $5 forever. Too few folks means that folks
outside this pilot project will end up paying more than $5 a month.

The data services for EU countries (if offered) *will* cost more than
$5 simply because the data from Tribune is significantly more
expensive. (I don't know how much more, just that it's a lot more).
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devan.lippman at gmail

May 5, 2005, 5:18 PM

Post #9 of 42 (4939 views)
Permalink

Re: LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community [In reply to]

If I were gonna give anyone 5$ I think it would be all of you who put
the base platform together, not some company who wrote some plugins
for Myth. Once again guys, awesome job! But if you're happy with it
then I'm happy with it and I wish LxM the best.

--
Thanks,
Devan Lippman <devan [at] lippman>

On 5/5/05, Donavan Stanley <geckofiend [at] gmail> wrote:
> For the past several months I've been working with a company that's
> preparing a commercial offering using MythTV for the high-end
> home-theater market. They expressed their interest in seeing Myth
> grow beyond it's current hobbyist niche to that of a full consumer
> level product. Rather than simply take Myth and run with it they
> decided to "do the right thing" and embrace the Myth community and
> it's developers and work with us to move things forward.
>
> These guys could have been like any number of companies that have and
> have had commercial Myth offerings and just taken the source and shut
> us out. They instead approached Isaac, myself and some others about
> doing things right. I'm very excited about what the future holds with
> Technovera involved.
>
> To that end, today they're taking the wraps off of "LxMSuite" a pilot
> project to provide data services and community related services to the
> Myth user base. I'll let the website (http://www.lxmsuite.com) speak
> for itself and simply add some info that's not available there.
>
> Coming down the pipe in the near term from them are:
>
> * The first of many new themes. James Meyer has been working closely
> with some artists/UI designers hired by Technovera to produce the
> first of many themes. It's nearly complete and is *really* sharp, I'm
> currently running it on my main machine and frankly it makes my own
> themes look like a piles of dog crap. Some screenshots are:
> http://www.lxmsuite.com/theme_preview/menu1.jpg (there's 6 of those,
> just change the number)
> http://www.lxmsuite.com/theme_preview/playbackbox_preview.jpg
> http://www.lxmsuite.com/theme_preview/playbackbox_nopreview.jpg and
> http://www.lxmsuite.com/theme_preview/video_manager.jpg.
>
> * A community web portal offering entertainment news and reviews as
> well as info of interested to home theater / HTPC users.
>
> * A recommendation engine for Myth.
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users [at] mythtv
> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>
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stephen.boddy at btinternet

May 5, 2005, 6:11 PM

Post #10 of 42 (4957 views)
Permalink

Re: LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community [In reply to]

On Thursday 05 May 2005 22:41, Donavan Stanley wrote:
> * The first of many new themes. James Meyer has been working closely
> with some artists/UI designers hired by Technovera to produce the
> first of many themes. It's nearly complete and is *really* sharp, I'm
> currently running it on my main machine and frankly it makes my own
> themes look like a piles of dog crap. Some screenshots are:
> http://www.lxmsuite.com/theme_preview/menu1.jpg (there's 6 of those,
> just change the number)
> http://www.lxmsuite.com/theme_preview/playbackbox_preview.jpg
> http://www.lxmsuite.com/theme_preview/playbackbox_nopreview.jpg and
> http://www.lxmsuite.com/theme_preview/video_manager.jpg.

I hate to sound like a knocker, and for the most part I like the design, but I
can see 4 problems with that theme

1) It's very dark. The unhighlighted menu items are quite difficult to read
for speedy operation.
2) It's rather monochromatic. Black and white with a few blue bits is a little
dull.
3) The menu6.jpg shows the blue theme on the screen, which looks a little out
of place.
4) The next release of MythTV is planned to change the theming UI and
capabilities. Perhaps they're a little premature, although obviously there is
no indication of how long 0.19 will take.

It'll be interesting to see how this evolves.
--
Steve Boddy
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dbrieck at gmail

May 5, 2005, 8:26 PM

Post #11 of 42 (4917 views)
Permalink

Re: LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community [In reply to]

So what is Tribune's role in this venture? Are they funding it, are
they part owners? They aren't exactly known for their goodwill to
others in their industry.
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dbrieck at gmail

May 5, 2005, 8:32 PM

Post #12 of 42 (4939 views)
Permalink

Re: LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community [In reply to]

This is interesting, from their FAQ:

Does all this mean I have to pay to use MythTV?

Not at all. LxMSuite was designed to add value to MythTV and provide a way
for users to help support the development of features and plugins. Users can
continue to use the free data provided from zap2it for as long as it's
offered.

Is it just me or does anyone else see this as a way for TMS to get out of
the free tv listings business? I'd give it a year before they decide to stop
offerering listings and buy this company out so that they can grab the
revenue stream they've been loosing all along.

mario.mailing at gmail

May 5, 2005, 9:44 PM

Post #13 of 42 (4931 views)
Permalink

Re: LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community [In reply to]

David Brieck Jr. wrote:

> This is interesting, from their FAQ:
>
> Does all this mean I have to pay to use MythTV?
>
> Not at all. LxMSuite was designed to add value to MythTV and provide a
> way for users to help support the development of features and plugins.
> Users can continue to use the free data provided from zap2it for as
> long as it's offered.
>
> Is it just me or does anyone else see this as a way for TMS to get out
> of the free tv listings business? I'd give it a year before they
> decide to stop offerering listings and buy this company out so that
> they can grab the revenue stream they've been loosing all along.

I wouldn't say that TMS has been loosing a revenue stream all along
exactly. How valuable would you say those surveys that we all turn in
every 3 months are? I mean yes some of the questions there pertain
directly to their product, but don't you think they have been reselling
at least some of that data they acquire from each of us?
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geckofiend at gmail

May 6, 2005, 5:13 AM

Post #14 of 42 (4926 views)
Permalink

Re: LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community [In reply to]

On 5/5/05, Stephen Boddy <stephen.boddy [at] btinternet> wrote:
> I hate to sound like a knocker, and for the most part I like the design, but I
> can see 4 problems with that theme

Bear in mind that the theme isn't done, for example none of the font
sizes/colors have been tuned yet.

> 1) It's very dark. The unhighlighted menu items are quite difficult to read
> for speedy operation.

Actually, when it's on a TV it's not nearly as dark as it appears on a monitor.

> 2) It's rather monochromatic. Black and white with a few blue bits is a little
> dull.

It's a particular style they're going for. It's not for everyone.

> 3) The menu6.jpg shows the blue theme on the screen, which looks a little out
> of place.

That's because the equivilant screen in their them wasn't complete
when that watermark was created. They'll be readjusting things later.

> 4) The next release of MythTV is planned to change the theming UI and
> capabilities. Perhaps they're a little premature, although obviously there is
> no indication of how long 0.19 will take.

They are *fully* aware of planned development given that they're in
touch with the developers. Rather than wait for the MythUI changes
they've chosen to move ahead with their theme work and make any
modifications needed.
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geckofiend at gmail

May 6, 2005, 5:35 AM

Post #15 of 42 (4932 views)
Permalink

Re: LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community [In reply to]

On 5/5/05, David Brieck Jr. <dbrieck [at] gmail> wrote:
> This is interesting, from their FAQ:
>
> Does all this mean I have to pay to use MythTV?
>
> Not at all. LxMSuite was designed to add value to MythTV and provide a way
> for users to help support the development of features and plugins. Users can
> continue to use the free data provided from zap2it for as long as it's
> offered.
>
> Is it just me or does anyone else see this as a way for TMS to get out of
> the free tv listings business? I'd give it a year before they decide to stop
> offerering listings and buy this company out so that they can grab the
> revenue stream they've been loosing all along.

I find it amazing that a company who provides a fantasic service to
our poprject gets treated like the bad guy so often. First, dealing
with individual customers is not in Tribune's buisness model. Second
even if it *was* their model there's not enough users to make a market
for a company of that size. And last, they're well aware of the fact
that people would go right back to scraping.

The free DataDirect offering saves Tribune money just by virtue of
being there so people don't scrape their website. That alone ensures
it's survival. That being said, it's also a stagnant product. It'll
never get any new features, new data or anything like that.
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geckofiend at gmail

May 6, 2005, 5:41 AM

Post #16 of 42 (4928 views)
Permalink

Re: LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community [In reply to]

On 5/5/05, David Brieck Jr. <dbrieck [at] gmail> wrote:
> So what is Tribune's role in this venture? Are they funding it, are
> they part owners? They aren't exactly known for their goodwill to
> others in their industry.

The phrasing of things on their website was done very carefully.
Tribune isn't providing funding nor are they part owners. They have
gone out of their way to help make this data services pilot work and
provide asssistance.
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dsmolka at gmail

May 6, 2005, 6:24 AM

Post #17 of 42 (4947 views)
Permalink

Re: LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community [In reply to]

While I am positively allergic to monthly charges, it strikes me that
having a paid listings service is a good idea for a reason that no one
here has yet mentioned: that it mitigates a major risk for anyone
wanting to build and sell Myth boxes.

I don't sell Myth boxes, but the idea has occured to me. I'm a
tinkerer not a salesman, and I would have a hard time selling someone
a $1000 machine that I knew could stop functioning at any time for
reasons entirely beyond my or the user's control (let alone the
reasons within my control).

If you give a person the option of a free listings service that can
drop off sometimes and may be cancelled in the future, and a paid
service that adds good content and is priced reasonably, the person
will more than likely chose to pay and feel good about it.

I also like the idea of the voting system -- it encourages
participation in the project and does something to show where the
subscription money is going, and it allows the project to develop at
an even faster clip.

I'd be curious to know what kind of strategy estimates LxM has -- how
many people they figure will sign up in the next year or so. The FAQ
says that they may have to raise the $5 fee in the future. If it takes
off like wildfire and they have 100,000 subscribers next year, would
the fee go down?

I'd be more skeptical of this if it didn't have the blessing of the
developers. On balance, however, this is a very good move for MythTV.
It will open Myth to more users, provide a financial base for future
development, and, most importantly, allow MythTV to continue as a
free, collaborative project of unlimited flexibility, which is why
most of us got involved in the first place.

We shouldn't be fretting about this, we should be toasting it.

Congratulations, MythTV.
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dbrieck at gmail

May 6, 2005, 6:49 AM

Post #18 of 42 (4920 views)
Permalink

Re: LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community [In reply to]

On 5/6/05, Donavan Stanley <geckofiend [at] gmail> wrote:
>
>
> I find it amazing that a company who provides a fantasic service to
> our poprject gets treated like the bad guy so often. First, dealing
> with individual customers is not in Tribune's buisness model. Second
> even if it *was* their model there's not enough users to make a market
> for a company of that size. And last, they're well aware of the fact
> that people would go right back to scraping.
>
> The free DataDirect offering saves Tribune money just by virtue of
> being there so people don't scrape their website. That alone ensures
> it's survival. That being said, it's also a stagnant product. It'll
> never get any new features, new data or anything like that.

Sorry to sounds like a pessimist here but Tribune never does anything
without a reason. Take for example their cars.com <http://cars.com> website.
Did you know that the only companies allowed to upload listings (from
dealers, not individuals) are companies that are owned by one of the
newspaper companies that are directly involved with the site? An independent
newspaper can't even get a quote on how much it costs.

Tribune, Gannet and Knight Ridder (all owners of cars.com <http://cars.com>)
have been buying up all of the independent newspapers around the county in
order to gain a oligopoly in the industry. To say that they are doing this
just to keep people from scraping their data is foolhardy. What they have
managed to do is gain the goodwill of the community in order to make
everyone rely on their data direct service.

Think of it this way, replace Tribune with Microsoft and tell me if you
would feel the same way. There is always an angle.

freedenizen at gmail

May 6, 2005, 7:19 AM

Post #19 of 42 (4925 views)
Permalink

Re: LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community [In reply to]

I guess I'm just a bit confused on how this will work. The site states:
The LxMSuite data services are compatible with MythTV 18.1 (or CVS as
of 5/1/2005) and higher.

Does this mean that you install myth and then install their service on
top of it? Or do you have to install a version of myth that they
provide to you? I tend to stay fairly up to date on CVS, and I'd
rather not have to wait until some features in CVS are moved to their
release. If you can install it on top of whatever version of CVS you
want, how will compatibility issues be handled? That is to say, if
something changes in CVS to cause their service not to work, will the
core Myth developers look into the problem?
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racarris at gmail

May 6, 2005, 7:23 AM

Post #20 of 42 (4945 views)
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Re: LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community [In reply to]

On 5/6/05, David Brieck Jr. <dbrieck [at] gmail> wrote:
> Sorry to sounds like a pessimist here but Tribune never does anything
> without a reason. Take for example their cars.com website. Did you know
> that the only companies allowed to upload listings (from dealers, not
> individuals) are companies that are owned by one of the newspaper companies
> that are directly involved with the site? An independent newspaper can't
> even get a quote on how much it costs.
>
> Tribune, Gannet and Knight Ridder (all owners of cars.com) have been buying
> up all of the independent newspapers around the county in order to gain a
> oligopoly in the industry. To say that they are doing this just to keep
> people from scraping their data is foolhardy. What they have managed to do
> is gain the goodwill of the community in order to make everyone rely on
> their data direct service.
>
> Think of it this way, replace Tribune with Microsoft and tell me if you
> would feel the same way. There is always an angle.

Why the heck do you feel you deserve free listings from Tribune? I
think that they have every right to charge us. They charge Comcast,
DirectTV, Tivo and everyone else. They spend money on servers,
bandwidth, system administators, and people to input the data. Do you
expect them to give this away for free?

They have been as open and generous as they can. If you don't agree
with that statement, I suggest you try and use one of the listing
scappers, like we used to have to do and like the rest of the world
uses. It isn't always fun. Better yet, why don't you sit around
every Sunday and type up the TV Guide and upload it for me to use.
Just make sure you type up the Chicago Comcast listings, but I don't
need the digital cable, so you can save some time and skip those.
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geckofiend at gmail

May 6, 2005, 7:35 AM

Post #21 of 42 (4923 views)
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Re: LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community [In reply to]

On 5/6/05, Asher Schaffer <freedenizen [at] gmail> wrote:
> Does this mean that you install myth and then install their service on
> top of it?

No. It means that only a recent CVS or the upcoming 18.1 release has
the nessesary code to use the LxMSuite version of DataDirect instead
of Zap2It labs.

> Or do you have to install a version of myth that they provide to you?

Nope, they don't provide any version of myth. The whole point of this
is that they're supporting MythTV not creating some commerical fork of
it.

> That is to say, if something changes in CVS to cause their service not
> to work, will the core Myth developers look into the problem?

Yes, though the likelyhood of that happening is pretty much nill.
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dbrieck at gmail

May 6, 2005, 8:20 AM

Post #22 of 42 (4921 views)
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Re: LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community [In reply to]

On 5/6/05, Ryan A. Carris <racarris [at] gmail> wrote:
>
>
>
> Why the heck do you feel you deserve free listings from Tribune? I
> think that they have every right to charge us. They charge Comcast,
> DirectTV, Tivo and everyone else. They spend money on servers,
> bandwidth, system administators, and people to input the data. Do you
> expect them to give this away for free?

I would have no problem with them charging for the data but if they are
planning to do it under the veil of helping open source I disagree. If they
want to charge they should come right out and say so.

They have been as open and generous as they can. If you don't agree
> with that statement, I suggest you try and use one of the listing
> scappers, like we used to have to do and like the rest of the world
> uses. It isn't always fun. Better yet, why don't you sit around
> every Sunday and type up the TV Guide and upload it for me to use.
> Just make sure you type up the Chicago Comcast listings, but I don't
> need the digital cable, so you can save some time and skip those.

When they decide to charge for listing I'll be signing up, none of us will
have a choice. Oh, and why don't we have a choice? Because they have a
stranglehold on the tv and movie listings here in america. Where else can
you find this data? No where and that's because everyone uses them, yahoo,
microsoft, and every newspaper site out there.

Once again, if this were Microsoft you'd be bitching along with me as well.

gremlin190 at yahoo

May 6, 2005, 8:33 AM

Post #23 of 42 (4911 views)
Permalink

LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community [In reply to]

Alright, let me get this straight. The services they
are providing are as followed.

1.)Tech Support
2.) A System for users to voice what improvements they
want done first
3.) Additional plugins/ themes that are and will be
unavailable to nonsubscribed users
4.) Additional features such as the movie times (can't
wait)

If so I am all for it. 60 dollars a yr. isn't too bad
considering the software is actually free. Although
cheaper is always better.

Yahoo! Mail
Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour:
http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html

nightstrm at gmail

May 6, 2005, 8:37 AM

Post #24 of 42 (4908 views)
Permalink

Re: LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community [In reply to]

Once a compatible non-CVS version of MythTV is released, I'll
definately take a look at what they have to offer. Does anyone know if
they will be releasing any widescreen-specific themes?

Nate

On 5/6/05, David Brieck Jr. <dbrieck [at] gmail> wrote:
>
> On 5/6/05, Ryan A. Carris <racarris [at] gmail> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Why the heck do you feel you deserve free listings from Tribune? I
> > think that they have every right to charge us. They charge Comcast,
> > DirectTV, Tivo and everyone else. They spend money on servers,
> > bandwidth, system administators, and people to input the data. Do you
> > expect them to give this away for free?
>
> I would have no problem with them charging for the data but if they are
> planning to do it under the veil of helping open source I disagree. If they
> want to charge they should come right out and say so.
>
> > They have been as open and generous as they can. If you don't agree
> > with that statement, I suggest you try and use one of the listing
> > scappers, like we used to have to do and like the rest of the world
> > uses. It isn't always fun. Better yet, why don't you sit around
> > every Sunday and type up the TV Guide and upload it for me to use.
> > Just make sure you type up the Chicago Comcast listings, but I don't
> > need the digital cable, so you can save some time and skip those.
>
> When they decide to charge for listing I'll be signing up, none of us will
> have a choice. Oh, and why don't we have a choice? Because they have a
> stranglehold on the tv and movie listings here in america. Where else can
> you find this data? No where and that's because everyone uses them, yahoo,
> microsoft, and every newspaper site out there.
>
> Once again, if this were Microsoft you'd be bitching along with me as well.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users [at] mythtv
> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>
>
>
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geckofiend at gmail

May 6, 2005, 8:37 AM

Post #25 of 42 (4907 views)
Permalink

Re: LxMSuite.com to provide services to the Myth community [In reply to]

On 5/6/05, David Brieck Jr. <dbrieck [at] gmail> wrote:
>
> On 5/6/05, Ryan A. Carris <racarris [at] gmail> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Why the heck do you feel you deserve free listings from Tribune? I
> > think that they have every right to charge us. They charge Comcast,
> > DirectTV, Tivo and everyone else. They spend money on servers,
> > bandwidth, system administators, and people to input the data. Do you
> > expect them to give this away for free?
>
> I would have no problem with them charging for the data but if they are
> planning to do it under the veil of helping open source I disagree. If they
> want to charge they should come right out and say so.

*They* (being TMS) aren't the ones oferring this.

> When they decide to charge for listing I'll be signing up, none of us will
> have a choice.

Sure you do, go back to scrapping the websites. What? That sucks you say?

> Oh, and why don't we have a choice? Because they have a
> stranglehold on the tv and movie listings here in america. Where else can
> you find this data? No where and that's because everyone uses them, yahoo,
> microsoft, and every newspaper site out there.

They're one of two big aggregators. It's not like there are a bunch
of little tv-listings content aggregators that got run out of
business. TMS and Gemstar provide a service. That service makes
things like MythTV a lot nicer.

People act like all this data just magicly finds it's way into
databases all nice and neat and then gets delivered by the bandwidth
faeries to our machines every night.

> Once again, if this were Microsoft you'd be bitching along with me as well.

Just because we use/write open source doesn't mean we hate businesses
or even Microsoft.
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