Rex Crum writes in Investor's Business Daily . . .

“TiVo Inc. makes TV set-top boxes that can digitally record and store several hours of programming on a hard disk drive. With the TiVo box, you can delay a show, leave the room for a minute and the machine will continue making a digital recording of the program you were watching.”

“The chances are that TiVo customers will care only that the TiVo box works and records what they want. And that's fine with Jim Barton, TiVo's chief technology officer, For him, it's what's inside TiVo that matters. And what's inside of TiVo is Linux. 'What we needed is something that was not simple technology,' Barton said. 'With Linux, the source code was free and we could do all our own development.'”

“While Linux is best known for its uses in the server market, the so-called open source operating system — available for free to anyone — quietly is building another beachhead among information appliances. These devices include everything from the TiVo product to microwave ovens that can download product-repair data from the Internet, and represent a potentially lucrative market for the makers of whatever operating software their producers decide to use.”

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