Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Epinions and TV

Author:Paul Snively
Posted:4/3/2000; 6:10:58 PM
Topic:scriptingNews outline for 4/3/00
Msg #:15912 (In response to 15892)
Prev/Next:15911 / 15913

Josh wrote:

>I'm not sure if you've seen this, http://www.tivo.com/linux/, but I
>believe that is all that Tivo has to do to stay within the GPL
>realm.

>I'm not an expert though so I could easily be wrong.

No, I'm pretty sure you're correct, and I did realize they'd released the source to their modifications to the Linux kernel, commands, and GCC toolchain, as the GPL requires of them.

What they have not done--and I didn't mean to imply that they were in violation of the GPL for this--is release the source code to the TiVo system proper, as opposed to the LinuxPPC kernel mods. Since the TiVo system is, presumably, linked with the GNU libraries, which fall under the LGPL, they are not obligated to share their source code.

All I was driving at was the unfortunate irony that, by using open source code to build on and build with but not extending the same benefit to the rest of us, they have prevented me from helping Dave's prediction come true. ;-)

TiVo already has to be connected to your phone line and configured to dial up a local TiVo number--by adding one more such configuration step (to dial up your local ISP), and writing a little software, making TiVo's thumbs up/thumbs down feature make Epinions posts would be all but trivial. How cool would that be?

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