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Democrats Government Software Linux Politics

Linux Not Supported For Democratic Convention Video 794

bucketoftruth writes "If you browse to the Democratic Convention website and attempt to check out any of their upcoming streams, you bump into the following limitation: 'We're sorry, but the Democratic Convention video web site isn't compatible with your operating system and/or browser. Please try again on a computer with the following Compatible operating systems: Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista, or a Mac with Tiger (OS 10.4) or Leopard (OS 10.5). Compatible browsers: Internet Explorer (version 6 or later), Firefox (version 2), or, if you are on a Mac, Safari (version 3.1) also works.'"
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Linux Not Supported For Democratic Convention Video

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  • by Daimanta ( 1140543 ) on Monday August 25, 2008 @07:13PM (#24744159) Journal

    Vote McCain/Whoever 2008

    • by SanityInAnarchy ( 655584 ) <ninja@slaphack.com> on Monday August 25, 2008 @07:20PM (#24744241) Journal

      McCain hates Net Neutrality.

      There really isn't a win here.

      • by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 25, 2008 @07:46PM (#24744605)

        Sheesh, we even had a story about McCain's tech platform [slashdot.org] (once he finally formulated one).

        It specifically says that he believes in protecting children from porn and the RIAA's War on Sharing, but NOT 'prescriptive' legislation like Net Neutrality.

        • by Roger W Moore ( 538166 ) on Monday August 25, 2008 @08:21PM (#24744997) Journal

          It specifically says that he believes in protecting children from porn and the RIAA's War on Sharing, but NOT 'prescriptive' legislation like Net Neutrality.

          Well two out of three isn't bad. Children should be protected from all three: porn, the RIAA war on sharing and prescriptive legislation like net neutrality.

    • by runningduck ( 810975 ) on Monday August 25, 2008 @08:59PM (#24745467)

      me@LiMac:~$ lynx -head -dump http://www.barackobama.com/ [barackobama.com]
      HTTP/1.1 200 OK
      Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:35:02 GMT
      Server: PWS/1.3.22
      X-Px: ht dal-btn-n15
      ETag: "74ea62-af3-48b339d1"
      Content-Length: 1220
      Content-Type: text/html
      Content-Encoding: gzip
      Vary: Accept-Encoding
      Last-Modified: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:01:37 GMT
      Cache-Control: max-age=1446
      Expires: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:59:08 GMT
      Connection: close

      me@LiMac:~$ lynx -head -dump http://www.johnmccain.com/ [johnmccain.com]
      HTTP/1.1 200 OK
      Content-Length: 106909
      Content-Type: text/html
      Content-Location: http://www.johnmccain.com/Home.htm [johnmccain.com]
      Last-Modified: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:35:41 GMT
      Accept-Ranges: bytes
      ETag: W/"18c861ab137c91:280"
      Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
      X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
      Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:35:59 GMT
      Connection: close

      You can also try: http://www.barackobama.com/index.php [barackobama.com]

      Most signs point to the fact that McCain hates Linux, not Obama.

    • by Alsee ( 515537 ) on Monday August 25, 2008 @09:40PM (#24745851) Homepage

      Vote McCain/Whoever 2008

      Finally! A VP candidate with no bad positions on any of the issues!

      Well hell, we should just skip waiting for McCain to drop dead of old age for the VP to move up to president. Whoever is the better half of that ticket! I say we just elect Whoever as President in the first place!

      Who's with me? WHOEVER FOR PRESIDENT! Hell yeah!

      -

  • OS Related? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cefek ( 148764 ) on Monday August 25, 2008 @07:15PM (#24744175)

    I don't get it. If they say they're compatible with Firefox - as in web browser - why does that browser need to run on a particular operating system? Since invention of flash video we are free from unnecessary plugins and related burden. Just enter address, and let it play.

    But I guess politicians never opt for easy solutions.

  • User agent (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Adrian Lopez ( 2615 ) on Monday August 25, 2008 @07:16PM (#24744197) Homepage

    I wonder how the website might respond if you spoof the browser's user agent string. Would it function well enough, or is their notice legitimate?

    • Re:User agent (Score:5, Informative)

      by KingArthur10 ( 679328 ) <arthur.bogardNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday August 25, 2008 @07:20PM (#24744237)
      It requires Silverlight. If you spoof the agent string, it asks you to install both Silverlight and Move Network's media player plug-in.
      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        Any chance this works with Moonlight? Or is that plug-in a Window-only plugin, rather than some sort of Silverlight plugin?

    • Re:User agent (Score:4, Informative)

      by _xeno_ ( 155264 ) on Monday August 25, 2008 @07:27PM (#24744339) Homepage Journal

      Would it function well enough, or is their notice legitimate?

      It wouldn't work: this is Silverlight rearing its ugly head again.

      You might be able to get away with user-agent spoofing and Moonlight [mono-project.com], but I don't know how far along Moonlight actually is.

      $ apt-cache search moonlight
      mono-smcs - Mono C# 3.0 compiler for CLI 2.1 (Moonlight / Silverlight)

      I'll take that to mean "not far enough." Although you can download builds directly from the Moonlight [mono-project.com] site itself.

      These builds do not include media codecs (video or audio), for that, you must currently build Moonlight from source code.

      That would seem to settle it: not quite far enough, unless you're willing to build it from source. Which I'm sure someone, somewhere, will, and let us know how it goes.

  • Furthermore (Score:5, Informative)

    by eclectro ( 227083 ) on Monday August 25, 2008 @07:18PM (#24744217)

    Biden his VP choice is against net neutrality [gizmodo.com]

    I think Obama has lost his mojo.

    • Re:Furthermore (Score:5, Informative)

      by bigstrat2003 ( 1058574 ) * on Monday August 25, 2008 @07:38PM (#24744483)
      Obama lost his mojo two months ago [slashdot.org].
  • Plug-in overload (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Midnight Thunder ( 17205 ) on Monday August 25, 2008 @07:21PM (#24744253) Homepage Journal

    When I get to the site I am told I need the Silverlight plugin AND 'Move Networks Player'. Oh, and it proposes a Java Applet to install it!? Couldn't they just streaming WMV or something less complicated? Looks like they need someone to go over and give them an explanation on how to do things right.

  • by n3xg3n ( 994581 ) on Monday August 25, 2008 @07:23PM (#24744279)
    This Page [demconvention.com] claims:

    Building on a commitment to bring more people into the Convention experience than ever before, the Democratic National Convention Committee has taken a comprehensive approach to ensure the 2008 Democratic National Convention will be the most technologically-savvy event of its kind.

    Really? If it were the "most technologically-savvy event" wouldn't it at least make an effort to support ALL operating systems, especially the one used mostly by the "technologically-savvy" people. It isn't a difficult feat to use technology which is supported by the three major OSes on the market. This isn't acceptable in this day and age. =/

  • by Darundal ( 891860 ) on Monday August 25, 2008 @07:24PM (#24744299) Journal
    ...with the Beijing Olympics. They are using Silverlight on the site for the streaming video. Out of curiosity, was the error reported the error given when one tries to use FF on Linux to view the streaming stuff, or does it pop that up when you try to view the stream in FF with Moonlight? The Olympics streaming video on the site refused to work even with a tested Moonlight install with me.
  • by gambolt ( 1146363 ) on Monday August 25, 2008 @07:26PM (#24744321)
  • Email Time (Score:5, Informative)

    by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Monday August 25, 2008 @07:29PM (#24744367)

    Rather than everyone speculating WHY they chose to use such an annoying setup and complaining here, let's just all Email them and let them know we are not happy and why. I did (not that I even WANT to watch the video). Doesn't take long.

    Here is the Email address: info@demconvention.com

  • Hah! (Score:5, Funny)

    by the eric conspiracy ( 20178 ) on Monday August 25, 2008 @07:32PM (#24744417)

    We're sorry, but the Democratic Convention video web site isn't compatible with your operating system and/or browser.

    Phew. That's a relief.

  • by baggins2001 ( 697667 ) on Monday August 25, 2008 @07:39PM (#24744511)
    I attended a number of conventions within our state and if it is as screwed up everywhere else as it is here, they could actually lose.
    They lost my vote when Obama voted for immunity for Telco's.
    I was hoping that they were going to be on the forefront of technology issues. They weren't even close. During the computer/technology meeting they spent 45 + minutes during a 2 hour session talking about Short Wave Radio issues.
    Finally some other people took over the meeting and it started getting more towards computer and technology issues. but basically a lot of it was hog wash.
    They spent a lot of time talking about caps on downloads. They were upset that they couldn't download more than 10 movies during a month.
    I'm sorry but I feel there are more pressing issues, like broadband for rural areas, software usage in schools and government, open internet. Just to name a few. They were all more interested in who got elected, not what they were getting elected for.
    Later I had someone come talk to me about my blog. He told me there were some things we just shouldn't talk about. He never mentioned my blog, but I think it was more than a coincidence that he came and talked to me the day after I posted the info.
    I met some good concerned people there, but the people in charge were totally off the wall and I felt that it was more of a way to pacify the masses, making them have a feeling that they had an input to the party. I left the convention feeling like they were so screwed up that they could actually lose the next election.
    And I bet it is going to be a lot closer than they thought.
    It's going to be interesting, a large number of Republicans don't want McCain and a large number of Democrats don't want Obama.
    • by ljw1004 ( 764174 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2008 @02:47AM (#24748145)

      "there are more pressing issues". And yet you thought that immunity for Telcos was more important than social justice, patriot act abuses, guantanamo, iraq, afghanistan, healthcare, missile defence?

  • File Complaints Here (Score:4, Informative)

    by md17 ( 68506 ) * <james.jamesward@org> on Monday August 25, 2008 @07:41PM (#24744531) Homepage
    Complaining about this on Slashdot does little to change it. Instead, please send your complaints to: info@demconvention.com [mailto]
  • by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Monday August 25, 2008 @07:41PM (#24744537)

    Okay, on my Mac it doesn't work in either Firefox or Safari. I have intentionally not installed the Silverlight plugin; but it doesn't tell me I need it! It just says it's not compatible with my browser - and then tells me to use... my current OS and browser.

    There's a web developer that's on the ball...

  • by rk ( 6314 ) * on Monday August 25, 2008 @07:44PM (#24744587) Journal

    At least, not mine, despite their page stating that they support "Mac with Tiger (OS 10.4) or Leopard (OS 10.5)." and "Firefox (version 2), or, if you are on a Mac, Safari (version 3.1) also works." I have a Mac running Tiger, Safari 3.1, and Firefox 2, and I got the "We're sorry" message with both.

    Aren't Mac users a big chunk of the core Democratic Party base? ;-)

  • So what? (Score:4, Funny)

    by 4D6963 ( 933028 ) on Monday August 25, 2008 @07:46PM (#24744609)

    So what? You're gonna vote for the candidate whose website supports Linux? Pfft, how silly. I'll only choose my candidate based on their web server's OS.

    In 2008 vote for the candidate whose server runs FreeBSD!!

  • by olddoc ( 152678 ) on Monday August 25, 2008 @08:00PM (#24744747)

    They want me to pay for my operating system??

    Oh well, I think I have windows installed in a PC in one of my seven houses....

  • by symbolset ( 646467 ) * on Monday August 25, 2008 @08:45PM (#24745281) Journal

    Netcraft confirms it. [netcraft.com]

    I can't believe you guys didn't notice this yet. You're slipping.

  • by guisar ( 69737 ) on Monday August 25, 2008 @10:23PM (#24746237) Homepage

    Is there any reason, any reason whatsoever that you have made your web site and videos inaccessible from anything other than a machine running Microsoft Windows? I had to go over to my neighbours house just to write this. It's ridiculous. When I made a donation to the ACLU earlier, they had no such requirement. I also heard Sen Biden is against network neutrality. Perhaps it's time to pop over to johnmccain.com. I do notice his videos are available in flash which works everywhere. Careful democratic party- you are showing a bit of plumbers crack and revealing your true allegiances. Fix this, fix it now.

  • by theolein ( 316044 ) on Tuesday August 26, 2008 @05:15AM (#24748897) Journal

    This Message was undeliverable due to the following reason:

    Your message was not delivered because the destination computer refused
    to accept it (the error message is reproduced below). This type of error
    is usually due to a mis-configured account or mail delivery system on the
    destination computer; however, it could be caused by your message since
    some mail systems refuse messages with invalid header information, or if
    they are too large.

    Your message was rejected by mail.demconvention.com for the following reason:

            5.7.1 Message rejected as spam by Content Filtering.

    The following recipients did not receive this message:

    Please reply to
    if you feel this message to be in error.
    Reporting-MTA: dns; xxxxx.xxxx..xxx
    Arrival-Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 11:07:40 +0200
    Received-From-MTA: dns; [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx]

    Final-Recipient: RFC822;
    Action: failed
    Status: 5.1.1
    Remote-MTA: dns; mail.demconvention.com (67.132.2.16)
    Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 550 5.7.1 Message rejected as spam by Content Filtering.

    From: xxxxx xxxxx
    Date: 26 August 2008 11:07:39 GMT+02:00
    To: info@demconvention.com
    Cc: news-tips@nytimes.com, letters@washpost.com
    Subject: How much did Microsoft pay you?

    Hi,

    at http://www.demconvention.com/dncc-video/ [demconvention.com] clicking on the link asks me to install Microsoft's Silverlight plug-in in order to view the videos streamed there. Given that around 90% of the world's computers already have Adobe's Flash plug-in installed which is the basis behind sites such as youtube, etc (and, yes it does do HD video and streaming), and about 0.1% of the world's computers have Microsoft's Silverlight technology installed and that Flash works on all browsers on Windows, Mac and Linux (and most mobile phones), one really has to ask oneself what incentive Microsoft gave you to get you to use their technology, and how one can square that incentive with the claim that the Democratic Party is a party with a platform aiming to avoid the stain of lobbying and corruption?

    One also has to ask oneself how and why a supposed convention interested in reaching out to as many people as it can is using technological means that almost guarantee a smaller audience than using existing ones.

    I've already written to a number of newspapers, including the NYT and the WashingtonPost, alerting them to this.

    I would truly love to hear what you have to say about it.

    Regards

    xxxx
    xxxx
    xxx

  • by alizard ( 107678 ) <alizard AT ecis DOT com> on Tuesday August 26, 2008 @07:25AM (#24749523) Homepage
    the "Linux not supported" error message is delivered by a Linux server.

    From netcraft:
    Linux Apache/2.0.52 Red Hat

"Conversion, fastidious Goddess, loves blood better than brick, and feasts most subtly on the human will." -- Virginia Woolf, "Mrs. Dalloway"

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