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BBC to hear open source concerns (BBC News)
The BBC News looks at
requests to make the BBC's on demand TV service work on all computer
operating systems. "The BBC Trust has offered to meet with open
source advocates who argue that the corporation has a duty to make the
download service platform agnostic. When the BBC iPlayer, as it is known,
launches on 27 July it will only work with PCs running Microsoft Windows
XP." (Thanks to Mark Tall)
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BBC to hear open source concerns (BBC News) Posted Jul 23, 2007 1:11 UTC (Mon) by bluegecko (guest, #42312) [Link] With the help of Wine (Windows API implementation), one would have thought that porting Windows apps is relatively easy these days.
BBC to hear open source concerns (BBC News) Posted Jul 23, 2007 2:08 UTC (Mon) by gdt (subscriber, #6284) [Link] There are two camps in this discussion: people who want support for Linux or MacOS or AmgiaOS or whatever; and people interested in freedom. The concern of the people interested in freedom is the availability of specifications, not the porting of a Windows binary. When BBC's wireless service started specifications were provided by the BBC. Many people built their own receivers -- homebrew crystal sets were common. When the BBC's television service started there were no commercial receivers. The BBC provided specifications and hobbyists designed and constructed their own televisions. Why should the BBC's Internet service be different? Partly because the signal is digital, and copies of the signal could undermine the BBC's huge revenue from DVD sales. Partly because the signal is global, and the signal could undermine the BBC's huge revenue of sales to overseas television networks. Partly because of politics: why should BBC television license payers underwrite people who don't pay a license fee? The BBC responded to these concerns by using a signal with digital rights management. Part of the farce of DRM requires the specifications to be secret. That in turn limits the availability of the software. Advocates of freedom point out that there are other ways of meeting the BBC's concerns and that some of the BBC's concerns are over-weighted. They also point out that providing the specifications makes it the task of the manufacturer of the media player to meet the requirements of the BBC's signal, not the BBC's task to support whatever media player television license holders may choose to use.
BBC to hear open source concerns (BBC News) Posted Jul 23, 2007 2:46 UTC (Mon) by masuel (guest, #28661) [Link] There is also the nasty issue of commercial players that cry fowleverytime the bcc allows access to there (the bbc's) content, as its "unfair".
"If the bbc service is great nobody will use/payfor ours"
urm ... sounds logical, but there responce is not to make better content
"Lets lobby to ensure the bbc service is MORE crippled than ours!"
the logic being that they don't have to improve anything but suddenly
BBC to hear open source concerns (BBC News) Posted Jul 23, 2007 4:06 UTC (Mon) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] There is another "camp": those who just want to run the application on their platform natively. "Linux support" in non-free software often means x86-only.
BBC to hear open source concerns (BBC News) Posted Jul 23, 2007 5:39 UTC (Mon) by pjm (subscriber, #2080) [Link] I think gdt intended this as part of the first camp, if I understand your camp specification correctly. For clarification, let's call this the camp that wants iPlayer software to run on their preferred platform, even if iPlayer remains a proprietary, source-hidden application.
BBC to hear open source concerns (BBC News) Posted Jul 23, 2007 6:26 UTC (Mon) by djabsolut (guest, #12799) [Link] Perhaps at this point in time, people wanting an open-spec (or open-source) version are asking too much of the BBC.Having a binary-only player for Linux (for now) is much better than no player. Once BBC is comfortable in supporting a native Linux version (with or without the help of Wine API),
BBC to hear open source concerns (BBC News) Posted Jul 23, 2007 3:13 UTC (Mon) by mbottrell (guest, #43008) [Link] For on-demand TV I have no issue with it containing some form of DRM... but ensuring the client is available for all platforms... Linux, Mac and Windows seems the obvious choice.
Without DRM you could expect users would gobble up these and start sharing them via P2P networks and the like.
I'm sure the BBC has sucked lots of money into the service and they should be able to make a return on it.
Why not provide a player and some specs (for those that wish to 'write their own').... happy for them to ship a binary only module for their DRM that is mandatory to be used to enable the service.
I'm a non-Brit, but love the stuff that comes from the BBC, I would be more than happy to part with a few dollars to see more of their stuff.
BBC to hear open source concerns (BBC News) Posted Jul 23, 2007 7:04 UTC (Mon) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link] > Without DRM you could expect users would gobble up these and start sharing them via P2P networks and the like.
As if DRM has ever or will ever prevent this. Not even the whole Hollywood paired with some of the largest companies in the computer industry could build a really proof copy protection (aka DRM) for the new HD-formats. So why do people still believe, that it can be done, despite of even the simple theoretical proof, that it can't?
BBC to hear open source concerns (BBC News) Posted Jul 23, 2007 9:50 UTC (Mon) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link] Right now I can record everything that the BBC broadcasts as fair-to-good quality MPEG2 streams straight off the air. The BBC has the /ability/ to make everyone in the country use a special custom box to receive these broadcasts, effectively a form of DRM, but they correctly established that as with /every previous service/ they had introduced it should simply be made available to the public and paid for out of the license fee. As a license payer I agree with this. Because the BBC wanted to do this, the other public service operators (like Channel 4) went along with it, and then so did the remaining major broadcasters (Five, ITV, MTV, etc.) so I get a couple of dozen DRM-free TV channels without, apparently, bringing about the end of the world.
I use this recording ability to time-shift TV shows and watch them later. I no longer watch any live TV, the set-top receiver is now unplugged. Many other people simply re-encode them and upload the results to the Internet or make them available via Bittorrent. This is illegal, but understandable, because TV networks don't consistently provide any sensible way to watch a show that you missed or which simply wasn't available in your area. Providing such unauthorised copies is thus seen as friendly and helpful.
So this isn't about trying to maintain a status quo. Instead it's pressure from the rest of the, profit-making, television industry. Given the choice between an easy-to-use, universal service from the BBC and some annoying subscription or pay-per-view DRM-strangled nonsense from them, they know that they'll have no online viewers in six months time and the BBC gets a winner takes all scenario for online TV.
What they seem to have missed is that if the BBC doesn't do it, the Internet will deliver the same thing, illegally or not, by some other route and there eventually won't even be a Television industry. I wouldn't be surprised if the trend data which used to show that every year people watched more TV (and every year people also said they'd probably watch less in future) were by now showing that people watch Youtube and similar sites more and watch TV less. Youtube isn't a good way to deliver drama or movies, but it does deliver comedy sketches and music videos which a lot of people used to watch on TV.
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