With the rollout of the General Public License version 3 less than four weeks away, the folks corporations with the most to lose are upping the FUD stakes.
Apple released their DRM-free music tracks; though the music has user info embedded in the tracks, it is easily removed within iTunes itself, a very simple process. They know what's coming, and are positioning themselves wisely.
Microsoft continues their usual bluster --do they own informationweek? It seems that under their agreement with Novell, they get to see technical documentation before some Linux developers.
And the company that has a great deal to lose under the GPLv3, Tivo, has finally sounded the alarm--their business might be harmed by the new license. Funny, that; the GPLv3 was written specifically with Tivo in mind, to prevent the Tivoization of open source software, namely Linux.
And this is where it gets dicey; if someone is able to get the noise going successfully--'Linux wants to take away your Tivo!!!'--in the next four weeks, then it won't be just a matter of Novell never recovering, but Linux as a whole.
I personally think that Tivo left it just a little bit too late; we'll certainly know when/if sounds start coming from congress on this if the lobbyists were able to 'lobby' effectively enough with their paid our elected representatives.
If they fail--as I expect they will-then lots of good home-grown, open source DVR technology is in the pipe; though they don't say it anywhere on their website, I've seen some of these products up close, and in very small print, they say: for use with Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Linux.
PCI cards and cardbus (PCMCIA) for desktops and laptops respectively, that turn your older computer into a Tivo-like box. And the price? Around $80 US.
The main reason I think that Tivo is going to fail in this: these products are made in China, in Chinese factories making products thought up by Taiwanese engineers. And when it comes to cutting costs, there's nothing cheaper than Chinese slaves labor.
Again, look at what Apple is doing; they are releasing their own PVR/file and music sharing device, the AppleTV. Though it does not explicitly state that it has PVR capabilities, the fact that there is a USB port on it (only for 'service and diagnostics', allegedly) leads one to believe that if your were to hook up, say, a terabyte drive, then you would effectively have your PVR.
The AppleTV is made in China, in factories making products thought up by Taiwanese engineers, and Google is changing the format of its Youtube videos from flash video to H264, which, coincidentally (or not), is the exact same specification used in Apple video iPods, iTunes, and AppleTV.
Whatever your Tivo-like appliance of the future looks like, it won't carry the name Tivo; it might be LinuxMCE, or it might be AppleTV, or it might even possibly be XboxMCE, though that remains in doubt, especially since the Xbox wants to limit what channels you can watch (not allowing HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, et al.). It will be made in China, in Chinese factories creating products thought up by Taiwanese engineers.
And it will certainly run on Linux, be open source, and not allow any DRM, with the possible exception of that in a business environment--per the GPLv3. Score one for the good guys. And I haven't given up on Apple yet--their opening up their music tracks did a lot to restore my shaken faith in them.
A couple more details/specs on those plug in cards--they can apparently run on as little as 256Mb ram, not sure about the video card (probably 128Mb), provided you want standard def tv; for HD tv, you obviously need to up the ram and cpu speed considerably (standard tv cpu--pentium II/III, HD tv cpu--P4 and up).
And if you are going to be recording the HD content (which is the whole point of these Tivo-like boxes), then your hard drive capacity will need to be really big. Like 750Mb/OneTb. But not to worry, as the prices on those has come way down, and will continue to fall; the terabyte drive goes for as little as $300 US.
Huge thanks to the commentators in yesterday's diary; I was fresh out of ideas, and you all gave me a passel of 'em. Much obliged. Just run down after a long week, I expect.
A follow-up to the Sidux install; I've re-installed Fedora 7 over it as it's just too much fun to play around with, and a great selling point when showing possible future Linux users what they are missing--a few spins of the translucent cube and they are all but hooked.
The Fedora 7 liveCD is just a tiny install; for the real (non-network) install you should get the installable DVD (which is also live); it has everything under the sun, and lets you bypass what is an absolute crushing load on Fedora's servers, not a one which went down (unlike Ubuntu).
If you want a really nifty GUI installer for software, then in the terminal, type yum install yumex --you have to be root to do so, and it will install the very shiny YUM Extender front end for YUM, the package manager for Fedora. All dependencies will be calculated for you, and it will check for updates automatically if you want it to.
There is a bug in the building stacks section of Yumex, but you can safely quit it without apparent harm to your install. Suspend to RAM is also very iffy at the present time, so use with caution.
As I predicted, Fedora 7 grabbed the top spot at Distrowatch; they are pulling away from PCLinuxOS, nearly lapping Ubuntu, who is in danger of losing the number three spot to LinuxMint, and OpenSuse is in fifth, though they seem to be in free fall, and could conceivably be overtaken by SabayonLinux.
Though I have Fedora 7 on my test/recruiting machine, I'm holding back with all my might from putting it on my main machine as well; and before all the howls of 'you betrayed us, you said you'd use Ubuntu forever!' start up, let me say that I have another Ubuntu install on an external USB hard drive that I will not touch--have to keep it handy for when Linspire's Click 'N Run goes live in a few days.
I just want to see what Fedora 7 looks and feels like on a more modern and powerful machine--it has absolutely nothing to do with spending hours spinning the Beryl translucent cube. Absolutely nothing. Read my lips: nothing.