Customer appreciation - a request

[DMZ]

I have not found anything so far about the fate or continuation of these forums..

Google being the mostest and baddest web recorder on the planet certainly could, if at such a time these forums come to a close, roll them up for the SageTV customers and offer them for download by us.

There is SO much info here it's a SageTV encyclopedia which we all really could use.

Just to be clear, I mean a roll-up, downloadable, offline archive to reference and not something which requires the internet for it's content.

If this has been addressed somewhere, please do tell. :-)

[heffe2001]

I think an entire vbulletin forum would be pretty difficult for them to 'roll up' for anyone to use, as you'd need a license for the software at a minimum, and a machine with some sort of sql on it as a minimum to get up and going...

What I would request, is a backup of the forums that could be moved to a non-sage hosted site, to be loaded back onto a vbulletin system and run that way. It'd look just like what we have here now, same users adn all that, but hosted by someone other than Sage/Google.

[DMZ]

An sql dump ISO could be useful. I didn't particularly mean rolled into a pretty package. ;-)

I'd certainly love it if a complete migration was done but that is complicated since, well, who gets it? A forum like this could instantly turn $$ in google ads if put back online by the biggest sagetv fan, or whomever.

The crux of the matter is this is a huge resource for all sage owners. It can't be replaced, is probably trivial to google and no formal statement AFAIK regarding it has been made... It would be a bummer to see it simply go away, which it can and perhaps will do.

[flavius]

Yes, the forums will remain open and we plan to make current version downloads available to current customers. Plans are to continue making the 3rd Party plug-in downloads available as well.

This is from Brent's interview with Jeff. This doesn't sound like there's a reason to be concerned for the immediate future. EPG data is going to be supplied for at least one year. Google honors the extender warranty etc.

Moving the forum wouldn't be a big deal technically. I would be surprised if the whole thing does the exceed the size of a single DVD, including the OS of the server, but I doubt Google would let us, since they own the content now.

I'm not concerned about the forum at all, since shutting it down is not in their interest. Then again, Google is certainly not immune against making mistakes.

[svemuri]

Originally Posted by flavius

I doubt Google would let us, since they own the content now.

According to forum TOS, each post is "owned" by the author with only a license to Sage. Not that it changes much. If there is an effort to mirror the content (not exact look/feel), may be this will make it a little bit more reassuring.

[flavius]

The TOS:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/rules.php

states that you technically own your post. The TOS also says that:

1) They can do with your post as they see fit.
2) They can delete anything for any reason.

IANAL, but effectively the ownership is merely stated to protect the site from liability.

[DMZ]

Yeah, who owns what is a slippery slope in the 21st century.. I hereby copyright, patent and trademark all my posts and grant google to do with my IP what they wish in exchange for a downloadable ISO in the event this forum is retired. ;-)

Originally Posted by flavius

I'm not concerned about the forum at all, since shutting it down is not in their interest.

..but what interest beyond satisfying a frey-google agreement is it? ..I dare say, none. Aside from a expense on the ledger.. ripe for pruning.

Seriously though, I will get along perfectly fine in any event. It's just a request that would be easy to accommodate when the powers that be decide to EOL this thing.

SageTV is just such a sweet geeky cookie under the hood and no matter what comes next for anyone after SageTV, it's still great software and along with information here it would make tinkering with it more practical for years to come. I just have a difficult time seeing these forums still alive in 5-10 years. Time will tell if Google won't. ;-)