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Open Source at TiVo
CowboyRobot writes "ACM Queue has an article by TiVo co-founder Jim Barton, in which he explains how the company relies on open source technologies to create a closed-source product. A good lesson in how other companies can do the same. From the article: Careful management of our sources to abide by the terms of the GNU General Public License while protecting our proprietary developments is a small price to pay for this benefit."
>in which he explains how the company relies on open >source technologies to create a closed-source product ... but haven't Microsoft been doing this for years with the BSD source code?
--
Craig
I applaud Tivo for showing such appreciation for open source publically. As more and more companies hail the benifits of open source we might see even more developers do so, both lowering development costs and supporting more platforms. Both which are good for consumers. I myself am wedged so far into Microsoft territory that I cannot budge and every application we use for our industry is 100% Microsoft product requirements, whether it be windows or internet explorer. Hopefully continued publicity like this will improve the knowledge of alternative solutions.
It's true that Microsoft has been using non-copylefted open source code for years, but it's a greater accomplishment to segregate copylefted programs from proprietary programs.
Will I retire or break 10K?
One disgruntled ex-employee as a whistleblower could screw with the whole company. It's easier just to let people have the source.
Espescially in TiVos case. It's not like you can realistically build your own TiVo anyways. The embedded software is an extremely minor component of the system as a whole.
Businesses arent as evil and corrupt in general as some would have you believe. They're run by people, in the end.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Wonder if they'll ultimately be forced to release this code? Anyone know if the FSF has expressed an opinion on this?
The FSF would be fools to force such an issue. Tivo is trying to work with the system as well and maintain their advantage over their competators. Jerking them around with the GPL would simply drive them and others away, thats not what we want, (right RMS?)
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Wonder if they'll ultimately be forced to release this code?
They won't. One of the major principles of contract law is that if a contract is confusing, the confusion is resolved in favour of the party which did not write or choose the contract.
Given that there's widespread disagreement about how far "GPL taint" extends, I'm pretty sure that any dispute here would be resolved in favour of the loadable modules not needing to be released.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
I think it's more rigorous that "Linus says its OK." I think the license for the Linux kernel is officially GPL+"binary loadable modules are OK" so the kernel is not strictly under the GPL.
Anyone know if the FSF has expressed an opinion on this?
It's implied:
(emphasis mine) That's from section 7 of the article, BTW.Wonder if they'll ultimately be forced to release this code?
The GPLed source is here
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
Been in the business world a long time? ;)
OK, serious response.
First, general philosophy: History has show, consistently, that trusting corporations to do the right thing is a terrifically bad idea. Especially when it's more costly/troublesome than doing the wrong thing. Especially when the chances that they'll get caught, or punished, are insignificant. I needn't remind you that both Ken Lay and Martha Stewart still walk the streets as a reminder of this.
Now, practical response: Whistleblowers? Are you kidding? There's no better way to ruin one's career, permanently and irrevocably, than turning whistleblower. It's one thing if you're Dr. Jeffrey Wigand taking on tobacco companies who are killing people. It's another thing altogether to ruin your career because your employer stole some open-source wonk's implementation of the cosine function.
- David Stein
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
rather than sending jobs to india, lowering TCO is the way to go. as more companies--ie, ernie ball and now tivo--hail the benefits of open source the movement gains momenteum. eventually there will be a[nother] tech revolution......
bring it on.
!(^((ri)|(mp))aa$)
You may want to go check over at fool.com.. Don't have a link handy, but it had an excellent article basically stating tivo should hit profits by the quarter after next.
;-)
/.'ers actually dont watch much TV, but as a tivo-loving-owner, I have to say I refuse to watch tv without it.
:-) I heart my tivo!
Realize that to most people, once the hardware costs are paid, 13$ a month is more than fair to watch tv on their own schedule, as opposed to having to sit down at prime time
Of course, dont get me wrong, I suspect a great ## of
(Especially after finding the 30-second skip hack!)
I like being able to work in the office whenever I want, come home, watch this mornings babylon 5, the evenings StarGate, and maybe just a little scrubs...
So if nothing else, SCO keep your hands off
"Between their broken business model (selling hardware that forces you to pay monthly fees for unnecessary service, and leaving you with a useless piece of garbage when they finally die), and cable and satellite providers coming up with PVR hardware for free plus a monthly fee that's cheaper than TIVOs, I'm surprised they still exist."
They provide a kick ass service and you're surprised they still exist?
"Derp de derp."
I'm not RMS, nor do I speak for him, the FSF, or any of the Linux kernel copyright holders. However, you appear to misunderstand a significant point about the development of the GNU Project and GNU/Linux in particular. There's nothing foolish about requiring compliance with the generous GNU General Public License, particularly nothing foolish about insisting that people cooperate in the commons the GNU GPL builds for us all. Nobody is more important than anyone else in this partnership (including Tivo). It is Tivo's job, not ours, to find a way to make money with GPL-covered programs if that is their desire.
Perhaps you aren't aware that the GNU Project (and the continued development of the GNU/Linux operating system in particular) is not about achieving mere popularity at the expense of user's freedom to share and modify. From this essay:
And this essay:
Digital Citizen
>> "13$ a month is more than fair to watch tv on their own schedule, as opposed to having to sit down at prime time"
Gee, I've been doing that with my VCR since 1984.
uradu is right on the money.
It's a well-known trend, called the "frontier effect" or something similar. Usual course of business:
1) One company creates a great product that comprises a brand-new market. Tons of R&D invested in development; research costs expected to be recouped once (their) market matures.
2) Product hits and causes a stir. Huge sales and good times for frontier company.
3) Entry of competitors, who produce similar (or better) products. They want a piece of the promising and profitable market, and they have an edge because they don't have to invest tons of R&D like the frontier corporation did.
4) Market becomes overcrowded; new entries are indistinguishable from other products. Profits grow thin. Mainstream companies (Microsoft, Dell, Sony) weigh in with their versions, which grab market share by branding otherwise bland products.
5) Frontier company is now struggling. Competitors moved in and devoured the market before the frontier company could recoup its huge R&D outlay. May fold or be acquired by a competitor.
Look at the burgeoning technology-gadget markets: MP3 players, DVD players, PDAs... this trend has hit virtually every new technology that comes out.
And this inevitable trend is why huge, bloated companies like Microsoft and Sony are so successful. Leave the risky, expensive, market-creation junk to foolhardy startups; weigh in with an entry once the market has proven itself. Fault MS for lots of things, but not this one - it's a wise strategy.
- David Stein
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
GPL-hater handbook, technique number 23: Bringing up "GNU/Linux" in a discussion about the GPL to discredit RMS and/or the GPL.
RMS' _request_ that people use the term GNU/Linux has absolutely nothing to do with the GPL. Yeah maybe it makes him look foolish but he has the right to _ask_ for whatever he likes.
This is different than the GPL which is a legal document. You *must* abide by the GPL or you violate copyright law in a pretty clear way.
Linus can't do much about the license now because 1) he has to hunt down all the copyright holders* and 2) others would just fork it.
Besides, the GPL already says you can do anything you want with Linux already except distribute it under a different license, what the heck more could Linus do to it besides make it a BSD license?
* I think it was a mistake for Linus to ignore the FSF's recommendation that the copyrights be centralized.. hopefully SCO won't request that all the copyright holders be tracked down..!!
I would suspect that a large portion of the reason is that there was quite a bit of hardware in the box that at the time had no support in BSD.
One of the major complaints I was hearing for several years about BSD is that if you had hardware that was not supported out of the box (display cards, sound cards, printers, etc.) you were pretty much left to write your own drivers. I am pretty sure that this is not completely the case now, but it was the general feel I got from the people I knew using BSD.
TV Tuner cards, Mpeg encoder/decoder chips/hardware, and sat receiver equipment would all have to be written from scratch, though some or even all of it may have had an available partial base available in the Linux world. There may also have been more available coders to choose from who had some familiarity with Linux than who had familiarity with BSD.
That's just my suspicion however. The real reasons may have been that the original develpment was done on a PC, and when they went to production they decided that moving over to the PPC for a cooler chip, it was just a re-compile away for Linux.
-Rusty
You never know...
" The fact that it requires service destroys any value. "
Right.
"Derp de derp."
Me: But we can't even get someone on a phone to help with the {insert issue} problem.
... no charge if it was an MS bug ...
..
...)
having worked on numerous MS based projects where we've come across problems which did not appear to be due to our code, picking up the phone - quoting some 'contract number' (can't remember what it's called) - explaining issue - sending sample code - speaking to the guy in charge of that area of code - getting a tested patch some weeks later
I can honestly say MS ain't that bad
(speaking as a Linux user that is