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A Ready-Made MythTV Set-Top Box in Australia
Anonymous Coward writes "Australian Personal Computer magazine published a review of a new all-in-one set-top-box based on linux.
A quick analysis of the device yields some cheats/hacks that not only allow you to enable the advertisment skipping feature they disabled, but could allow system compromise.
The system also runs a GPL version of MythTV - anyone else see any licensing issues?" Only if they don't follow the GPL.
Don't get your panties in a twist every time someone is making money with a method that involves the GPL. Instead of asking the dumbass question "anyone else see any licensing issues?", do some research yourself for fuck's sake.
Its amusing how many of your cry about how Linux is still lacking desktop penetration, yet you are quick to run anybody down using it to make a product for PROFIT (Perish the thought!). Lay down your purism, pour your haterade down the drain and sit back and enjoy the fact that hardly anybody will buy that overpriced box.. Would you all rather it was running windows? I would! I wish it was running on window ME with 32 megs of ram for the power Tivo user. Yeh baby. Some nice pointed out specs on the site crediting those who have paved their way (ie Redhat etc) might be good though.
You're making the assumption that most folks are computer/Linux literate. Myth is easy to use and stable (given the right hardware) once you get it up and running. Lots of people who wouldn't even know where to begin to install Linux can easily use MythTV. Those that try installing Linux for the first time, or setting up Myth for the first time end up missing some of the finer points as well. The amount of time it takes to install Linux + MythTV + *properly* configure X for TV out + tweak the OS/Myth for optimal performance + yadda yadda yadda adds up REALLY fast. I know for a fact that I've spent FAR more than $500 worth of my time (based on my hourly rate) getting my Myth machine just right.