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Television Media

DishPVR 721 Review 171

Posted by michael from the couch-potato dept.
An anonymous submitter writes "TiVo's not the only Linux based PVR in the US market anymore. Echostar's Dish Network is now offering their own Linux based PVR, the dual tuner, 120 GB DP721. The first review can be found here at DBSTalk.com." Another anonymous person (how hard is it to give yourself a handle? sheesh) describes the gizmo and notes a possible problem: "Echostar is now shipping a Linux based set-top box called the DishPVR-721 that won best of show at CES. It has a 120GB drive, a pentium like processor and supports dual channel PVR. Also, from my call to their technical support this morning, they aren't planning on giving up any of the GPLed source code they have modified. I've got one in front of me right now, ugly silver box but nice specs. I'm going to open it up this morning and start taking it apart."
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DishPVR 721 Review

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  • Handles (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by Clue4All ( 580842 )
    how hard is it to give yourself a handle? sheesh

    I agree, it takes no effort to register an account and uses next to no private information. You'd think everyone would do it. It makes you wonder why the editors take shots at the New York Times every time there's an article posted because of their required registration, huh?

    • Re:Handles (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      There's enough digital detritus floating around the hard drives of my various machines without adding more junk like slashdot user ids and nytimes registrations. It's just annoying crap.

      Too many passwords, too many cookies.

  • Don't trust Echostar... (Score:4, Informative)

    by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Saturday June 29, 2002 @05:49PM (#3793244) Homepage
    Would you trust a company whose CEO is a professional gambler [guardian.co.uk]:

    Charlie Ergen is not a name that slips readily from medialand lips. Outside America his name is unknown. But today he has earned his place in TV history - the 48-year-old former professional gambler has torpedoed one of Rupert Murdoch's most ambitious plans - to set up a global TV network straddling America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

    And although 22 years his junior, the deal to buy DirecTV in the US is a personal triumph for Mr Ergen, who fought Murdoch once before and won.

    As Mr Murdoch seethes over his defeat, he will be reflecting on a personal feud that goes back five years.

    The pair first clashed in 1996 when Mr Ergen bid against Mr Murdoch in an effort to force up the price of the last remaining satellite licence in the US. He succeeded, forcing Mr Murdoch to pay almost £281m over the odds for the licence.

    After paying so much, the media tycoon's telecoms partner, MCI, pulled out of a proposed joint venture, forcing him to go cap in hand to EchoStar. The two rivals agreed to a merger deal that would have seen them sew up the satellite market between them.

    However, Mr Murdoch subsequently pulled out in the face of opposition from the cable giants and a furious Mr Ergen filed a £5bn lawsuit against him.

    The saga was eventually settled when Murdoch - left with two satellite operations and a satellite licence he couldn't fund alone, - was forced into a humiliating settlement with EchoStar. Mr Ergen ended up with the satellite business and Mr Murdoch was left with just an 8% stake in EchoStar.

    Mr Ergen, who abandoned his blackjack card games in Las Vegas when one of the casinos accused him of "counting cards" (a practice sharp-eyed gamblers use to work out where cards are in the pack as they are dealt), has now gambled again and apparently won.

    A workaholic, the Echostar boss knows the value of the money he has just borrowed to secure the deal. According to reports he watches every penny affecting the bottom line - he makes bearded linux hippies take night flights to save money and apparently requires them to double up on hotel rooms.

    Barring a late return of Mr Murdoch to the negotiating table or a rejection by competition authorities, the DirecTV deal will be crowning glory of an illustrious career for Mr Ergen.

    • Re:Don't trust Echostar... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by maetenloch ( 181291 ) on Saturday June 29, 2002 @06:28PM (#3793354)
      Would you trust a company whose CEO is a professional gambler [guardian.co.uk]:

      While gambling has a stigma in many people's minds, to be a successful professional gambler is actually quite demanding. Typically professional gamblers have to be very good at mathematics as well as data and strategy analysis. They also must also be able to evaluate situations logically and dispassionately (especially true in sports wagering) and not be swayed by emotions and hype. Furthermore they will also need good money management skills if they want to be around for long. Not to mention perseverance and the discipline to takes to be successful in the long run. Read any books by Ken Uston [amazon.com] or Bob McCune [amazon.com] and you'll come to appreciate the amount of work and analysis it takes to be a professional gambler. Any fool can gamble, but only a select few people can gamble successfully over the long haul.

      So yes, I would trust a company whose CEO was a professional gambler. It's a better background than many other CEOs have had.
      • Richard Feynman (the nobel prize winning physicist) once worked as a bodyguard to a professional gambler. The details can be found in "Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman".

        From memory, the gambler had a combination of "mathematics as well as data and strategy analysis" and combined that with knowing a few little tricks, like side betting. Strictly not allowed (like all money-making schemes in a casino) side betting involves ignoring the house, and betting on outcomes privately between gamblers. He would overhear "I'm sure this next spin will be black, I just know it", and casually reply "I bet it's not". That sort of thing. Anyway, read the book.

        My badly laboured point is, a professional gambler is someone who knows the rules intimately, knows that the odds are heavily stacked against him, and therefore knows that he has to play slightly outside the accepted rules in order to win.

        Sounds ideal for a CEO of a company selling Linux-based products..
    • Wait. The guy is smart enough to make money playing cards, and I'm supposed to distrust him because he's an "outsider." He probably didn't even go to the same CEO Preparatory School that me and Kenneth Lay were at!

      It's kinda funny how that article has absolutely no clue what "counting cards" at blackjack means. Despite what Rain Man may have led you to believe, counting cards requires nothing more than remembering which cards have been dealt and keeping a mental count of how likely you are to get a 10 when needed. If you do this correctly and spread your bets so you bet more when the odds are better, you gain a 1-2% player edge of your action - average return of ~1.5% of every dollar bet.

      (Yes, it's a little more complicated than that, but I'm a poor student and I've never been to Vegas, so i'd appreciate no overly disparaging criticism. Think: if you understand counting cards so much better than me, why are you posting on Slashdot instead of counting your casino-won money? hehe)
    • he makes bearded linux hippies take night flights to save money and apparently requires them to double up on hotel rooms.

      Heh, as much as I have flamed you in the past, I have to say, that was a slick one. I laughed. :)
    • While I don't particularly approve of the DirectTV/Echostar merger I am damn glad that Murdoch hasn't won. His idea of HDTV as evidenced by FOX is 480p. Screw you Murdoch.
    • "A workaholic, the Echostar boss knows the value of the money he has just borrowed to secure the deal. According to reports he watches every penny affecting the bottom line"

      Seems like a great reason not to trust him.... and anyone who knows anything about gambling, to become a professional (and successful) at it requires an amazing amount of skill. If he is applying this skill and is watching every penny affecting the bottomline, why shouldn't I trust him? Any other CEO's out there I shouldn't trust based upon how they acquired the management skills? Anybody trust Andersen, Worldcom, Enron, or Martha Stewart before they went tits up? (yeah, I know Martha hasn't - yet)....

      Stop worrying over the professionals' personal lives -- check their record - if they are getting the job done, great. Hell, we elected Clinton and Bush, so don't tell me about trust!

    • Oh, please, it's the Guardian. If the Guardian says anything bad about someone, I usually hold that person in the highest esteem.

      -jon

  • It really sucks using the remote to set up what you want. It would be nice if I had a keyboard and could use it to type up searches on programs.

  • Model 921 will include HDTV recording (Score:4, Informative)

    by alain ( 114463 ) on Saturday June 29, 2002 @06:03PM (#3793290)
    According to this link [ilovehdtv.com]:

    Dish Network is planning a late 2002 introduction of a new model 921 STB that combines a HDTV receiver for both over-the-air broadcasts and Dish satellite programming with a HDTV capable personal video recorder (PVR). The PVR is reported to incorporate a 160 GB hard drive that will provide for somewhere between 10 and 20 hours of HDTV recording capacity. This unit will also include provisions for web browsing. It will include a DVI/HDCP digital video interface in addition to the standard analog monitor interfaces.
  • "from my call to their technical support this morning, they aren't planning on giving up any of the GPLed source code they have modified"

    If they're attempting to breat the GPL then I say screw 'em. Either someone *will* get ahold of it and post it on the internet, or they'll (hopefully) never sell another unit once it's made known they don't respect the GPL.
    • They aren't legally allowed to distribute GPL code if they won't abide by the license, so it won't need someone to reverse engineer it... either they start distributing the code or stop distributing the PVR.

      In the past the companies that have tried this have backed down before things got legal, which means that the GPL has never been tried in court. It remains to be seen how this one gets sorted out.
    • "...or they'll (hopefully) never sell another unit once it's made known they don't respect the GPL."

      Well I dunno about u guys, but when I go shopping for PVRs I always look for the "GPL Inside" sticker. I won't buy a PVR without it!

      Heh.
      • This is a matter for lawers not consumers. Lawers with their pointy forks to stick up the butts of companies who break the law. Consumers don't care about the GPL. The only one who do don't like to be called consumers anyways.

  • How do you know? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Sc00ter ( 99550 )
    "from my call to their technical support this morning, they aren't planning on giving up any of the GPLed source code they have modified."

    How do you know they modified any? If they did, I doubt it's much, or would be of any use to anybody anyway. TiVo's modified code is only to get linux working on that box. All the stuff that makes a TiVo useful is not GPL. My guess is the same would be true for this box.

    • That doesn't matter, they are distributing it and since they are distributing it in large numbers (not the 'copy from friend' type of distributing) they have to make the source available to their customers. Even if they didn't modify it.

      Jeroen

      • That doesn't matter, they are distributing it and since they are distributing it in large numbers (not the 'copy from friend' type of distributing) they have to make the source available to their customers. Even if they didn't modify it.

        To which they would no doubt reply you can get the source from any Linux disto site on the net. If you read the GPL you will note that it is sufficient to provide an ftp site for the source code.

        I am much less interested in getting copies of linux from dish tv that being able to mod the hardware to put a decent size disk drive in it. We fill 30 hours very easily, 90 is not going to be a heck of a lot better.

        What I really want is a system with a firewire port on it that will allow me to plug in a RAID array with a Tb or so.

        • To which they would no doubt reply you can get the source from any Linux disto site on the net. If you read the GPL you will note that it is sufficient to provide an ftp site for the source code.

          If you read the GPL you'd know that pointing to someone else's ftp site is not sufficient. They have to mail the sources to any customer who asks for them, for the cost of shipping only.

          • Hmm... now, what's the shipping for a hard copy of the linux kernal...
          • > If you read the GPL you'd know that pointing to someone else's ftp site is not sufficient. They have to mail the sources to any customer who asks for them, for the cost of shipping only.

            I've read the GPL and I remember this little tidbit, which falls in line with the parent post of the guy you replied to.

            GPL Section 3

            However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.

            The previous poster had said the following:

            > How do you know they modified any? If they did, I doubt it's much, or would be of any use to anybody anyway. TiVo's modified code is only to get linux working on that box. All the stuff that makes a TiVo useful is not GPL. My guess is the same would be true for this box.

            Considering that the article states that this is a pentium-like CPU, then it's probably running a standard linux x86 kernel. The rest is probably done in a proprietary module (which Linus has said is OK, but discourages). The useful stuff (a la TiVo) is probably not GPL anyways like the poster said.
            • Which of the words "unless that component itself accompanies the executable" don't you understand?

              Bottom line is: if you ship a box that's running Linux, modified or not, then you have to provide access to Linux sources.

  • Court Test of the GPL (Score:3, Interesting)

    by KagatoLNX ( 141673 ) <kagato@@@souja...net> on Saturday June 29, 2002 @06:06PM (#3793303) Homepage
    I'd say go for it.

    I mean, I really don't want to see the GPL thrown out or anything, but it's got to go to court eventually. Then, somehow, the world will change.

    I remember reading that the FSF encourages people to license with the specification that newer versions of the GPL will apply. I know lots of people purposefully exclude that out of distrust for the FSF's motives. It would be ironic, albeit sucky, if being able to update the GPL would save a lot of code from badness.

    I mean, usually that "future changes apply" clause usually bites people in the butt. It seems about time that it got used for something beneficial.

    Has anyone ever considered a sort of "future updates to the GPL apply if a) the author is dead or b) the author files an agreement to update form with the FSF"?

    It seems that would protect against fears that the FSF may sell them out in the future. At least then users would be safe unless both the FSF *and* the author wanted to sell out. Seems much less likely.

    Also, does the redistribution clause of the GPL apply when it's distributed embedded or just as a software package. If I build a USB widget and distribute the widget running the Linux kernel with scheduler changes to accomodate my widget's real-time foobazzle, does it need to be GPL? Even if it is only allowing my widget to simply run? I don't have a problem with that (I actually kind of like it), but a lot of the less committed to free software would.

    • Echostar won't go to court with you over the GPL; they'd just release the code so you'd stop bothering them.

      Also, does the redistribution clause of the GPL apply when it's distributed embedded or just as a software package.

      If it's in someone's hands but yours, you distributed it.
      • Echostar won't go to court with you over the GPL; they'd just release the code so you'd stop bothering them.

        Correct me if I'm wrong, but that is entirely the reason you would bring Echostar to court in the first place...
    • Actually the GPL isn't like other licenses - the 'Future changes apply' is turned on its head...

      "This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option) any later version."

      This applies to the recipient, not the author. It basically says 'Use any version of the GPL that suits you.' If the FSF created a GPL3 that required you to sacrice your firstborn to RMS or something there is no requirement for anyone to use it.

      • This applies to the recipient, not the author. It basically says 'Use any version of the GPL that suits you.' If the FSF created a GPL3 that required you to sacrice your firstborn to RMS or something there is no requirement for anyone to use it.

        But if GPL3 says 'You can distribute modified binaries without releasing the source.' then it would be kinda bad, because all the evil companies would use version 3 then. Am I correct?

        -jfedor
        • But if GPL3 says 'You can distribute modified binaries without releasing the source.' then it would be kinda bad, because all the evil companies would use version 3 then. Am I correct?

          Good point. The present wording that you may use the as-released GPL or a later one (at your option) presents a potential loophole. The FSF is naively saying, in effect, "Trust us, we'll never gut the GPL." But the GPL itself contains no language that prevents any later versions from eviscerating its essential copyleft nature. Could this really ever happen? Well yes, almost anything is possible.

          The FSF should fix this. One way to do this while protecting users' key rights and obligations might be to refine the "current or later version" section to identify what provisions of the current license must survive in any later version in order for it to be valid and that, in these specified respects, the terms of the as-issued license will remain in force and prevail over any later version's provisions with respect to those terms. The lawyers over at the FSF need to sharpen their pencils and repair this little oversight.

    • The thing is the GPL won't get thrown out in court. The reason is that it does not, in any way, restrict your right to do things under copyright law. It's only when I distribute it that I have to deal with the GPL, and under normal cirumstances i wouldn't be allowed to do that at all.
    • As the author, if the GPL ceased to meet your needs, couldn't you just re-license the original code under a different license, and then develop your next iteration of the widget based on that?
      • The program is yours, you can do whatever you want, even re-licencing it.

        But you can't un-licence. People that already have it under the GPL can still use it and distribute it.

    • There was a good story [slashdot.org] on Slashdot a while ago about how GPL is more likely to withstand a court challenge than other software licenses, EULA's etc.

      Basically, Eben Moglen, general legal counsel for GNU, was saying [gnu.org] that GPL is safe because it does not restrict things that you are entitled to by other laws (ie. fair-use etc). The article is a good read.

    • GNU won't protect you from DMCA. If you touch anything with the decryption you may be in violation of the DMCA.

      I've been playing with a 3com NBX 100 which uses a number of Open Source tools all linked in one big a.out image. Just because the souce code is GNU'ed, that doesn't give me any rights to reverse engineer the device or touch the compiled code. I had to specificly get a license from the person that was listed as the copyright holder to legally rip it apart.

      Remember old Copyright violations mean civil court, DMCA means you go to jail. The GPL needs to address this issue.
    • I mean, I really don't want to see the GPL thrown out or anything, but it's got to go to court eventually. Then, somehow, the world will change.

      Throw it out. That would be great. That way all software licence agrements would then be null and void. There would be no more copy right, and ideas could flow freely.

      • That way all software licence agrements would then be null and void. There would be no more copy right, and ideas could flow freely

        Um, no. The issues is whether the General Public License is legal. Ruling it illegal does not mean that all software license agreements would be 'null and void', but rather that GPL'd software would suddenly become undistrobutable until all the people who have contributed code have been contacted and agree to allow their code to be relicensed under a different software license. In effect, it means a stop on Linux kernel distrobution for a period of unknown length, and a death-blow to many free software projects who have some authors who cannot be contacted or who's heirs refuse to relicense.

        These software would then be legally undistrobutable -- i.e. you could not offer them for download, in either source or binary form. The copyright rules of NO distrobution would apply. The GPL (and any other software license) gives rights, it does not take them away.

        Face it, copyright isn't going away any time soon. The best we can hope for is that our little corner of protection is held up in a court of law.


  • GPL'd Code (Score:4, Insightful)

    by papasui ( 567265 ) on Saturday June 29, 2002 @06:11PM (#3793315) Homepage
    Now honestly, do you really expect their technical support to have any idea whether or not they will be releasing the modified code? These are people who explain how to use the box, not the corporate strategys of the company. I'd be surprised if more than 3 of their PVR techs even know what Linux, outside something the DishPVR uses. I supervise people in a Cable modem call center and 2/3rds of the people I work with who fix peoples computers don't even know what Linux is.
    • But the calbe modem doesn't use linux, and most likely, your call center will not support people who would call in wanting help getting it to work w/ linux
    • Agreed on their tech support people.

      Last year, my PVR 500 box would occasionally just cross-link clusters of one recording on top of another. Both shows would be hosed. Since the box is always recording/buffering, you were guaranteed to lose a show or two every few days.

      I called the tech support, and the guy said he'd never heard of the situation (even though the boards were full of complaints). He then recommended I not use the surge suppressor, since those had been causing some "static problems" for these boxes. I chalked it up to the fact that he was an idiot, and they eventually pushed down a software update that stopped the problem. Of course, this wasn't announced as such - the software version numbers just changed one day and the problem stopped.

      Fast forward to last week. The box showed signs of a crashing hard drive, and tech support put me through to "Replacements", and even gave me authorization for replacement. "Replacements" figured out that the box was one month out of warrantee, and said that a replacement would run $70, or I could sign up for a "house warrantee" for both of my boxes and the dish for $2/month (one year committment), and that would chop $20 off of the $70 replacement. I took a pass on it for a while, since the box still plays, but won't record or essentially PVR.

      While I had the guy on the phone, and asked him if they had lowered the data rate / increased the compression on the local channels, since the locals were getting lots of motion artifacts recently. I said since the box uses MPEG-2 compression, that's a trade-off they could be making.

      He informed me that they don't use compression in the same way a computer signal does, and that such artifacts may have been introduced along the way by another link in the distribution chain, and that MPEG-2 didn't mean what I thought it meant.

      I nodded and smiled over the phone to get off the phone with the guy, but something bothered me before we even got to talking about compression...

      It was the same guy (by name) who told me not to use the surge supressors the year before.

      I'll continue to use the service, but won't trust the tech support for anything other than putting in the occasional record that I complained about something.

  • Replay 4500 is also a Linux based PVR (Score:3, Informative)

    by reparteeist ( 533894 ) <reparteeist@y a h o o.com> on Saturday June 29, 2002 @06:36PM (#3793371)
    "TiVo's not the only Linux based PVR in the US market anymore..."

    According to this [sonicblue.com] Sonicblue's Replay 4500 is also Linux based.

    • and do they follow the GPL?

      I would presume that they have had to modify some existing GPL code... but even if they haven't, then still must make the source code available at no cost/cost of media for any GPL'd binaries that they distribute.
    • That's interesting because everything I've read on the ReplayTV 4500 seems to indicate that it's almost identical to the 4000 series, just without the "service" built-in to the price, you have to pay an extra $250 lifetime activation. This way they can sell the boxes at a cheaper retail price to compete with Tivo.

      The 4000 series runs VxWorks which is not Linux or Linux-based. I severly doubt that they re-wrote all of the functionality of the 4000 to run on Linux for the 4500 series.

      Then again, I don't know why their own FAQ would say in a couple places that it is Linux-based? Just because people would recognize the word Linux more than VxWorks?

  • Jeeeze..... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 29, 2002 @06:47PM (#3793400)
    I know several people working on this project. Echostar is going to release all the source code that they are required to. Just because a call-center person who is trained to help people hook the box up to their TV doesn't know about it doesn't mean the code is not going to be released.

    This is a new platform for Echostar and it may take a while to get everthing in place. Based on my understanding, they have every intention of following all GPL requirements.
    • ...then upon any external distribution, even a beta, they must release to anyone who asks all source derived from a publicly released GPL'd project. I agree that a first tier technical support rep shouldn't be expected to know or understand this. But a formal letter to their corporate offices should resolve this situation promptly, otherwise the author(s') of the derived code are within their rights to sue under copyright law for software piracy; as well they should.

      It's only slightly more comforting to hear from an anonymous source that Dish Network plans to follow their legal duties and responsibilities with the licensing agreements of the code they are using. But I (and I think many others) would feel much better once they comply and make available their derived source. Until then I would suggest the authors of that source, and the free software community in general, are within their rights to complain vociferously. In fact, I would argue that /. is both correct and proper to post this front page to apply public pressure on Dish to follow through with their responsibilities. This is what /. does best, and I support them for it.

      Cheers,
      --Maynard
  • What makes you so certain that they're using a modified kernel? It's far, far more likely that they've written dynamically loadable device drivers for their hardware. And, if that is the case, they're not legally obligated to release the code for their drivers.
  • Since they don't come with rackmout attachments, I'll have to make my own, I suppose. 2 directivo's, 2 dishpvr's, a standalone tivo or two for C band and basic cable. If only general instruments would release a digital cable box tivo, I'd be set.

    Just have to build my raid array a little bigger.
  • They were a little mixed up in the review of the matching game (pretty cool to have games on there).

    "Ok here we are playing LPairs, the memory game where you have to match pairs. Notice the Linux Devil is one of the playing cards. (You will also find the UNIX Penguin as well!)

    It's pretty cool though, and I bet they will release the GPL, the tech support guy may have just been clueless. If he didn't know what the GPL is then he would just think you're randomly calling requesting the source code for the unit.
  • I have An Echostar PVR system and I consider it to be garbage... they've been pushing these out a lot lately, but quite frankly the problem with them is that compared to Tivo, the software system is about as primitive as a VCR. You cannot select favorite shows for it to record. You cannot get a listing of all the episodes of the show to show up in the future. The system is not show sensitive. If you simply press the record button on the software - it will keep recording for all time until it runs out of space. It is a very noisy piece of hardware. You're still stuck with the already crappy DishNetwork viewing guide. The only thing the device has going for it is that it doesn't cost you anything on a monthly basis.
    • Historically, all of the dishplayers have sucked in very major ways -- so much so that EchoStar has sued Microsoft repeatedly (gee, I wonder why they suck.) I'm surprised they didn't simply walk down the street and ask Tivo, Inc. to recode the existing DTivo software to deal with the EchoStar signal (DVB vs. DSS) which the hardware can do.

      Looking at the screen shots, this thing looks like only a commetic difference from the UTV. Give them some time. If they are developing the system themselves instead of letting M$ screw it up, it'll get better over time. Even the tivo was pretty crappy in the early days.
  • as long as their work doesn't modify the existing GPL code. So they just add some scripting to do what they want using a standard kernel (not an unlikely scenario). They can copyright their code or keep it secret; it's their choice. They need not release any of it as long as it does not incorporate any code that is already under GPL copyright. It would, in effect, simply be an application that runs on the Linux OS (like an accounting application or a database application).

    • Yes, but there is a good chance that they modified the kernel slighly to make it work on the specific hardware. That is what people want, so they can remod it themselves and make it work on any hardware. Now if they were smart they did this through modules that arn't directly parts of the kernel and don't have to be released. But we will see.
    • You've made one mistake about the GPL.

      If you distribute the binary, then you must make the source code available at no cost/cost of media. So Dish is required to provide source.

      However, it sounds like they are still quashing a lot of bugs, and so I wouldn't expect the engineers to make a source release available until things have stabilized a little. People seem to be calling tech support and those people are not likely to know Linux from a hole in the ground.

      • You are wrong, I am sorry to say...please go back and reread the top level post. His idea is that they do not modify any GPL licensed code, and thus nothing they write is covered by it. In this case, they are under no obligation to release anything. Of course, if they are modifying the kernel, or other GPL code, then naturally they must release their source.
        But that has nothing to do with the parent post.
    • The Linux OS?! when did that come out?
      • > "The Linux OS?! when did that come out?"

        Sigh.

        &lt bite&gt Some time in 1991, Let met quote from the www.linux.org [linux.org] webpage: "Linux is a free Unix-type operating system originally created by Linus Torvalds with the assistance of developers around the world."&lt/bite&gt

        Insisting on calling Linux "GNU/Linux systems [gnu.org]" is like insisting on calling a car a "horseles carriage".

        Wat we call Linux today is an OS, deal with it.

        Note that there are also other OS's that use FSF/GNU tools (such as the gcc compiler). You can find some more information here [bsd.org].

        And if you put the representatives from those three websites in the same room, you've got yourself a really nice family reunion: they're all related but they don't really enjoy it. But they are family and will have to get over it.
      • >>"The Linux OS?! when did that come out?"

        >"Insisting on calling Linux "GNU/Linux systems [gnu.org]" is like insisting on calling a car a "horseles carriage".

        Is it possible you missed his point?

        "Insisting on calling Linux an 'OS' is like insisting on calling an engine a 'car'"

        I don't agree w/ tacking the "GNU/Linux" phrase everywhere you see "Linux", but it sure does take out alot of the ambiguity. GNU/Linux is a good term for a 'generic' linux based OS.
  • Ok here we are playing LPairs, the memory game where you have to match pairs. Notice the Linux Devil is one of the playing cards. (You will also find the UNIX Penguin as well!)

    Wow! I never knew that Linux had a devil for a mascot! Or that the UNIX mascot is a penguin! Or even that UNIX had a mascot! You learn something new every day!

    Or, the author of the review needs to do some research. You decide.
    • I guess I'm a little slow on the draw today.
    • As the author of the review, I do humbly appologize for my mistake. I knew the Devil was the FreeBSD mascot and I also knew that Tux is the Linux mascot. I was just under a rush to get everything done to make my deadline. :) I played with the 721 for an entire day then I had to write a review, take screen shots capture video and edit it and everything had to be online by 3pm on Saturday. :) I have since corrected the page and beg for forgivness. :)

  • Two things: (Score:2, Interesting)

    by rekoil ( 168689 )
    I'm wondering how they implemented smartcard authentication: Wishful thinking says that they were dumb enough to build the smartcard driver into the kernel, thereby legally obligating them to release the source code, thereby declaring open season for smartcard hackers...

    Honestly, they most likely did it as a kernel module (which doesn't need to be GPL'ed; see Nvidia). Oh well.
    • It's unlikely that the smartcard management is done via the Linux portion of the system. I imagine that the receivers/decoders are the same logic as in the other units (General Instrumets, etc.) and they just handle the encrypted stream from the satellite or the Linux PVR code streaming it from disk.

      Ergen does not want another Direct TV on his hands.

  • I've been waiting for this thing to come out for a year. Not I can't find the price.
    Dish support doesn't have a price yet as they claim to not beselling it direct, only via resellers. any my reslellers aren'y open on weekends.
    • As a Dish Network employee I can tell you for a fact we aren't selling it direct, YET. The plan is to also offer them direct later this year, as I understand it. The primary focus at this point is to get them to the retailers first.

      The only models that Dish sells direct are the 301 and 501, but we do support all models.

  • Strange Moderation? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by redgekko ( 320391 )
    Is it just me or did alot of good posts seem to get slammed by the moderators on this topic? Some of the most important points I wanted to make but found instead in the threads were moderated down for no apparent reason. I don't think I've ever seen such a massacare.

    include('moderation_abuse_rant.inc');

    Perhaps i'm foolish to not AC this post... but I didn't think the point of slashdot was to live in fear of moderation while trying to make a valid point. I guess I'll get my answer.
  • Has anyone started a roll your own PVR that is compatible with DSS systems?

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