As the story goes, Google acquired the DVR software company SageTV back in 2011 … with the engineers and software getting to work on Google Fiber. Fast forward a few years, and the beloved-though-abandoned consumer software may be getting a new lease on life. From the amazingly-still-operational SageTV forums:
Google has agreed to open source the SageTV platform! This isn’t happening today…but will be happening in the near future (i.e. months, not years).
Beyond timing the other logical question is why? And I’m surely not the only one wondering if this foreshadows Google’s consolidation onto the thricely reimagined Google TV Android TV for operational efficiency and given the growing number of cord cutters who could benefit from over-the-top apps. Beyond Fiber, it’ll be interesting to see if there’s enough talent in the Sage community to move the open-sourced software forward… or if there might be some commerical products out there, like an Amazon Fire TV or Roku, looking to integrate DVR capabilities that might leverage this upcoming treasure trove.