BBC Trust Will Hear iPlayer Openness Complaints 177
AnotherDaveB writes with a Register story reporting that the BBC Trust has asked to meet with open source advocates to discuss their complaints over the corporation's Windows-only on-demand broadband TV service, iPlayer. The development came less than 48 hours after a meeting between the Open Source Consortium and regulators at Ofcom on Tuesday. Officials agreed to press the Trust, the BBC's governing body, to meet the OSC. The consortium received an invitation on Wednesday afternoon.
Re:What can they really do? (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, what do you consider "Everyone"?
Windows and Apple?
Do you add Linux?
BSD?
Solaris?
True64?
VMS?
BeOS? (yes, apparantly people still use this)
[Insert Cell Phone OS here]?
PalmOS?
Who do you include, who do you drop?
It's ironic... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Licences are compulsay, shows should be avaliab (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't kid yourself, it does.
Western industrial civilization created soe of the best things ever created by man. It has allowed us to build building that touch the sky, send a machine outside out solar system, and put men on the moon and got them home. More people have clean water, access to food, and medical care then ever in the history of mankind.
Greatest. Society. Ever.
Greatest != perfect
Re:What can they really do? (Score:3, Interesting)
Release (or cite, if it is external) the specs for the standard of the file format, along with the protocol used to communicate with the DRMd server, and preferentially a stripped down player with source code for reference and let the developers make their own players for their own platforms. It is possible to have security (DRM, for all that matters) and openness at the same time and, if it was not possible, security through obscurity would not solve the DRM problem, as CSS and the HD-DVD keys debacle proved.
Re:e-Petition (please sign it) (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it is hard to make a case that the standard paper petitions are effective, but it at least shows that the organizer is dedicated to the cause, and probably some respectable percentage of the signatories at least agree a little.
With an e-petition, the organizer spends what, all of 15 minutes working on a petition, and who are the signatories? Are they even citizens, are they the same guy 30,000 times?
I will never sign an e-petition. I may even start an e-petition to make my case to all those e-petition zealots that me, and probably a few dozen other people wont' stand for more e-petitions. We'll go so far as to enter our email addresses on a web form to show our solidarity. But then again it might just be too much work.
Finally, why in the world would I trust the organizer of an e-petition with any information about my self? Seems like a great way to harvest spammable information. If I don't have to enter any information, how do you know I'm a real person?
Re:What can they really do? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What can they really do? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, they have a working DRM solution for almost everything you can imagine. Millions of Verizon etc. phones are using their software already to play purchased music. Of course, this happens because the WOKE UP and saw the power of open source, created Helix community offering their millions dollars worth patents for free to GPL projects.
I also heard BBC other Windows Media DRM vendor is not so happy with feedback they get from the users. Azureus'es "Media center" like version (Vuze, 3.x) already sells BBC content in Wmedia DRM. Imagine a Java 5/6 application which works exactly same on 3-4 completely different operating systems is "prisoned" to Windows DRM solution to make money. Would you be happy?
There the BBC Content: http://www.vuze.com/channel/bbc [vuze.com]
Vuze runs on anything with modern Java but can't "sell"/"rent" legal content because of the format (Wmedia DRM) is hostile to any OS other than Windows. Now they are attempting to create same thing.
There is a waiting scandal there for Professional IT media. If any left...
Re:Why make the Radio content subject to this (Score:2, Interesting)
Microsoft may be the "flavour-of-the-week" as they break every anti-trust, competition and price fixing laws and offer these large corporations incentives elsewhere. Makes you wonder.
Here's an idea that could make them money... (Score:5, Interesting)
Why don't they use a flash based video player like NBC, ABC, etc.
If they detect that you are from the UK they show you the videos WITHOUT ADs. If you are outside the UK they show you the videos WITH ADs based on your country of origin.
Everyone gets to watch their content and they makes more money though AD revenue. A win-win in my book.
Re:e-Petition (please sign it) (Score:3, Interesting)
Firstly, you need to be a UK citizin and enter a UK postcode to use the Goverment ePetition.
Secondly, let me quote the example of the Road Charging ePetition on the same site. It forced a response from the (then) Prime Minister Tony Blair and was widely reported in the news and debated in Parliament.
See...
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/2007/02
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6349027.stm [bbc.co.uk]
for more information, or Google it.
That was well over 1m votes in a country with a total population of 60m, or 1 in 60.
So, yes, I think they can work.
Re:It's not paranoia... (Score:3, Interesting)
My post must have been unclear, please allow me to clarify.
(1) The BBC is already using a system that detects your country of origin based on your IP address. If you're not connecting from the UK, you can't get certain content from their website. This is implemented by a simple security check.
(2) The "licence-fee payer" login would be checked by a BBC server before files were served. Login schemes are already used by many websites, including this one. The technology is mature and very secure when properly implemented.
(3) Limiting the range of programmes available online is a job for the BBC webmasters, who have full control of the files available through their own servers. They can simply avoid uploading certain programmes. The BBC already uses this technique to limit on-demand access to certain radio programmes in order to comply with music licencing requirements.
None of these involve DRM. The security is all on the server side.
The point I am making is these achieve the same result as using Microsoft DRM (which can be bypassed in any case by off-air recording) with the result that access to BBC programmes can be platform-independent for all licence fee payers. Sorry if this is unclear, I am tired.