TiVo Goes After Sites Hosting Image Backups

TiVo User writes "TiVo has apparently decided to come down on sites that hosted 'image backups,' essentially tarballs of the OS for the machine, which just happens to be Linux. TiVo owners use the images to install on new, larger hard drives (increasing the recording capacity of the unit) or to recover a dead system. Why TiVo has a problem with this, but allows others to sell the same images for profit is beyond me." Read on for the rest of TiVo User's comments. "The images are not used to create pirate TiVos (as a subscription service, TiVo justifiably controls access to their database tightly), so there wouldn't appear to be much harm in allowing them to be hosted. TiVo has always walked a fine line in allowing the user community to mod their units, perhaps they have finally stepped over that line, considering there are free alternatives that are less restrictive. To their credit, the legal mumbo jumbo in their cease letter is non-threatening compared to most other of this type, but it's interesting the letter draws no distinction between the portions of the software that are Linux, and therefore expressly distributable, and those that are proprietary to TiVo."

Comments

Three points

[Space cowboy]

1. If Tivo has commercially-sensitive proprietary kernel modules, they are not obliged to distribute them, and AFAIK, the Tivo filesystem code falls into this category

2. They're bound to get a lot of people jumping on them "you must distribute", etc. See (1).

3. They're walking a fine line. I'm setting up a Mini-ITX/Hauppage 350 PVR with MythTV as a front-end. It looks cool, and it'll have a lot more features (like: burn a DVD as well as the normal PVR stuff :-) If I can do it, a lot of others can too...

Simon

Re:Three points

[AKnightCowboy]

If Tivo has commercially-sensitive proprietary kernel modules, they are not obliged to distribute them, and AFAIK, the Tivo filesystem code falls into this category

That's not what Linus said in this earlier Slashdot story from Monday. It seems pretty unbelievable that TiVo developed their "proprietary kernel modules" for whatever hardware they're using without any knowledge of the kernel internals or intention to link the resulting binary module to the kernel. IANAL of course, but from reading through Linus' postings it seems like he thinks this kind of situation would require TiVo to release the source code to any binary kernel modules as well since they are derived from the GPL'd Linux kernel. I'm not familiar with TiVos in particular, but does anyone have any proof that they've made no derivative works from userland code or the Linux kernel without releasing source code to the modifications?

Personally I think TiVo should have to distribute the source code to their product so that people can choose whether or not they want to buy the service or would prefer to just write their own interface to guide information using XmlTV. One of the main reasons I wouldn't buy a TiVo is I don't want to be tied to one company's guide information. If they fold I am screwed and my TiVo would be useless. It almost happened to ReplayTV users.

Hardware requirements for free alternatives?

[PastaAnta]

I know this is slightly offtopic, but what hardware is required for the free alternatives (MythTV/Freevo) to work smoothly?

Will a 1GHz VIA MiniITX board be able to do simultaneous encoding/playback (timeshifting) in MPEG2 or is an Athlon XP 1800+ necessary?

What hardware do YOU use?