Richard Freeman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> posted [EMAIL PROTECTED], excerpted below, on Fri, 29 Sep 2006 22:09:51 -0400:
> Open-source software has a lot of benefits even for non-programmers. Buy a > proprietary DVR and you can almost guarantee that you won't be able to > migrate your programming when you upgrade models in a few years, and you > probably won't be able to upgrade it. Buy a pre-packaged DVR that uses > FOSS and most likely there WILL be an upgrade and migration path - it > might cost you to have it taken care of for you, but with the proprietary > system it will cost you a LOT more. Very good point indeed. I don't have a DVR as I dropped TV some years ago (I don't like being treated like a programable zombie by the ads, neither do I much care for programming obviously targeted at the folks most likely to be effectively programmed to buy what they obviously don't need by repeating an ad a few times), but the same thing applies to both routers and mp3 players. I've been spending some time recently researching both, for my next upgrades. My next router will likely be a Linksys WRT compatible router (if it's not, it'll be a full computer running a conventional x86 or x86_64/amd64 based Linux kernel), bought with the intent of upgrading it to one of the several open source firmware alternatives available. Likewise, my next mp3 player, which will be my first hard drive based unit, will be purchased with the intent of upgrading it to rockbox or a similar alternative, as well as upgrading the hard drive to a 120 gig or so model. I'm not a programmer, but the ability to upgrade these devices and choose from multiple sources for firmware is pretty valuable to me -- and evidently to a lot of other folks, programmer and non-programmer alike, as well. Just because these folks can't do it themselves matters little, as long as they can replace the firmware, and the hardware is open enough (intentionally or not) so those that /can/ program, can do their thing and create alternative firmware for the rest of us to use. -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman -- [email protected] mailing list
