LWN.net Logo

Tivo Healthcare (Free Software Magazine)

Tivo Healthcare (Free Software Magazine)

Posted Jan 16, 2007 0:51 UTC (Tue) by error27 (subscriber, #8346)
Parent article: Tivo Healthcare (Free Software Magazine)

Technically "tivoization" means taking your TV shows or other media and making them available at a later date.

It helps if everyone uses words correctly.


(Log in to post comments)

Tivo Healthcare (Free Software Magazine)

Posted Jan 16, 2007 1:50 UTC (Tue) by sholdowa (guest, #34811) [Link]

Umm... not really. From wikipedia:

"Tivoization is the creation of a system that incorporates software under the terms of a copyleft software license, but uses hardware to prevent users from running modified versions of the software on that hardware. Richard Stallman, creator of the copyleft GNU General Public License (GPL), coined the term and believes this practice denies users some of the freedom that the GPL was designed to protect.

The term came about in reference to TiVo's use of GPL software on TiVo brand digital video recorders (DVR). TiVo's software incorporates the Linux kernel and parts of GNU, both of which are licensed under the GPL Version 2 (GPL v.2). The GPL v.2 requires TiVo to release the associated source code for others to use and modify. One of the goals of this GPL requirement is to allow others to modify the software to better suit their purposes."

Tivo Healthcare (Free Software Magazine)

Posted Jan 16, 2007 4:14 UTC (Tue) by error27 (subscriber, #8346) [Link]

I guess it's a hacker vs cracker thing. Trust me, if you talk about things getting TiVOized everything in the real world thinks it's about time shifting media.

I don't know why people pick on TiVO when they could just set up a MythTV box. Probably it comes from a mix of laziness and jealousy.

Tivo Healthcare (Free Software Magazine)

Posted Jan 16, 2007 13:45 UTC (Tue) by leoc (subscriber, #39773) [Link]

I personally use and love mythtv and would use nothing else, but it is still not an easy thing to set up for most people. Hopefully it will get there one day, but right now a Tivo is just a lot easier.

Tivo Healthcare (Free Software Magazine)

Posted Jan 16, 2007 19:45 UTC (Tue) by sholdowa (guest, #34811) [Link]

I think RMS should have the last say, seeing as he invented the concept. TiVo is NOT just about a PVR, it is far more specifically about the way it 'uses' GPL

Don't you mean "Betamaxization"!

Posted Jan 16, 2007 6:47 UTC (Tue) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link]

The only specific term I've ever seen for this is "time-shifting". Of
course we always used to say "taping" or "recording", and the latter is
still accurate.

I've never, ever heard the brand-name of a particular piece of recording
equipment used for time-shifting. I *have* heard "Xeroxing" for
photocopying, but it does sound dated now.

It's been verbed, but not verbized...

Posted Jan 16, 2007 15:39 UTC (Tue) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link]

Actually, the use of "TiVoed" or "TiVoing" is pretty common ("I was out last night, so I TiVoed the second two hours of 24.").

I don't think I've ever heard "tivoize" used except in the sense that the FSF uses it, to mean locking hardware against software updates.

Copyright © 2012, Eklektix, Inc.
Comments and public postings are copyrighted by their creators.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds