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Open Source TV
Lish writes "Everyone's favorite tech prognosticator, Robert X Cringely, is going to do a TV show called 'NerdsTV.' It will be available on the web and playable on pretty much any system. The cool part is, they will provide three video versions: one geared at techies, one for suits, and one with all the raw footage so you can edit your own version to your heart's content. There will also be audio-only versions in Ogg and Mp3. All of this is freely redistributable."
Because I'm there!
No really, this sounds like a great idea for information sharing, just release everything that you have, so noone can complain your holding back.
I get the feeling the suits might not be that happy, but the geeks will. =)
Location: Mt. Xinu
An interesting innovation. That reminds me of these two tramps walking down the street who spot a large amount of partially digested food puked out the night before.
The first tramp kneels down and starts tucking in to it. After a while he turns round to the second tramp who is just standing there and asks "what's the matter? Aren't you hungry?"
The second tramp just smiles and says "nah, I'll wait a while."
So anyway the first tramp eats it all up. They walk along and sure enough, the first tramp pukes it all up everywhere.
"Ah! Just what I was waiting for," exclaims the second tramp, "a hot meal!"
I enjoyed the show a great deal and I'm willing to ignore the shameless promotion filler at the top of Cringley's article, but... is this something that has much educational value for our schools? There hasn't been enough time past to make it valuable for a history class and the technological info in the series is surely way to low to be of any value.
Moreover, I doubt that the pictures of geeks making millions will be enough to stop the school bullies from beating the snot our of nerds. In fact it may make it worse!
Or would some else do better, such as the GNU Free Documentation License FDL be better? Or something completely different and maybe new? I just have the feeling that GPL is tailored for software in a way that makes it incomplete or even invalid for licensing a TV show.
Does someone have more insightful input than my "feelings" ;)
Man, why didn't I think of a concept like that?
Wearing pants should always be optional.
All these different version will ne nice, but there be a directors commentary!!
The suits may have some inbuilt resistance to the concept of like giving stuff away, but if it becomes successful, I can forsee an entire menswear department of suits queuing at the GPL counter. The money counts first and foremost, not some high minded principle like copyright. The Prinicple just means "an easier way to make money"
This is going to be great. I can't tell how many times I've wanted to sit and edit the TV shows I watch. Seriously, I would actually like to edit the raw footage of a Drama or anything with a story for that matter... But why would I want to edit a informative broadcast. I could be wrong, but if this is like a news format show, then a front and center camera shot is all I really want anyway.
Business News and Resources: www.usasource.net
Finally! A way to install OpenBSD without printing the FAQ.
GPL has more "buzz" surrounding it. It's a marketing thing.
Free is the way for a low buudget tv show that broadcasts over the web should be. They might just be able to build an audience that way. If enough "geeks" and "suits" watch the show he might eventually be able to make some money. Of course it all depends on the show being good enough for people to want to watch their divx and mpeg rips of the show. Especially the "raw footage" edition. All the fun of editing out the garbage yourself.
Anti-social? My code is just platform-specific.
Being PBS, don't we already have the rights to watch this stuff no cost and commercial free?
Isn't that what PBS is for?
Or does the GPL liscense mean I can superimpose robots and WWII fighter planes and elmo and call it my own show, so long as I distribute it with the actual source? Can I change the dialogue? Can MS exec's dub over "Linux sucks! We suck!" and distribute it with their marketing?
What exactly is the news here, besides the 'GPL' geek buzzword(acronymn)?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Here are the original articles which have some more information about the new show.
1. Is the World Ready for a Cringely Open Source TV Show?
2. Downloadable Video Cringely is on His Way
Luckily this is the U.S. version, which lacks my big nude scene from the UK version. I am not making this up.
Cringely, I'll be buying the "Special Edition" of your DVD when it comes out in another year.
Do NOT disappoint me.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
OK, that's it... there goes my social life (or the bit I had left)
42 + 1 = 42
The last line of the article:
Now where's that mayonnaise jar?
WTF?
But GNU/FDL starts with GNU! Woot!
:)
Ohh wait, GNU is assosated with that prat/wanker/twit/shithead[1] GNU/RMS.
So, GPL and while some (GNU/RMS) will think that the GPL should be said GNU/GPL/RMS-IS-LORD everyone else will just call him a prat/wanker/twit/shithead[1].
Go GPL, and all it's COMMIE goodness!
I like trolling slashdot, now if only I could do it w/ my +1
[1] Normally their would be a delete as approperate, but not this time.
There needs to be a show focused on the progress of technology and the computer world that does not focus on consumer advice, or How To's.
_ _
A chronicle of where we are going and how we got here in terms of computers in our society would be very nice.
Oddly, the article in the link focused mostly on how the show is being distributed. He mentions interviews with people that did not make it into Nerds1 and 2 but not much else about the content. I hope that Cringley remembers the contents the thing and not the distribution. However, I liked Truimph of the Nerds 1 so I hope the show does well.
_______________________________________________
ACK
I can't wait to see this.
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
There are only a handful of discussion shows that seem to have any kind of legs:
POLITICAL: Question Time, CNN, loads of this
SPORTS: Mainly on radio, whole stations dedicated to this ad infinitum
ARTS: That film rocked, no iot sucked and it was anti women, shut up germaine!
POOOOR MEEEE: Oprah style 'Im fat', 'I hate my wife', 'no one likes me' reassurance stuff - staggering amounts of this
IM GREAT: Oprah style 'your writing moves me so much I want to die every time I read a word of it' style stuff.
Geek chat is unlikely to get any decent airtime, and in fact is unlikely to be of any interest. Those who are into this stuff will probably be at least as knowledgable as the folk on the program, and have access to others to have these conversations in any case.
Oprah fans are all sitting at home alone with the baby rocking gently thinking 'I used to love my life'.
The problem with having a version for the 'suits' is that most of them think they know as much as (or more than) those lazy, overpaid techies and engineers. So they'll watch the "nerd" version, then glean some kind of twisted idea from the production; like replacing all the expensive point-to-point T1's with Yagi-equipped Linksys WAPs.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
The "hermetically sealed mayonnaise jar on Funk and Wagnall's porch" is an old Johnny Carson joke. Do a google search for "Carnac the Magnificent"
so it wasnt just me , the whole Open source thing seems to be somewhat of a misnomer. Somehow it doesnt fit well with its definition in the software world.
freeware is more close to what this TV show is about- free redistribution . Open source to me would be someone actually revealing how the news item was developed or articulated.
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
How do you compile a TV show?
I've said this before, but I'll say it again [a little extra karma never hurt anyone] -- we need a Cringely topic icon.
Why, you ask?
Basically, some of the best discussions come from the Slashdot community after we collectively read a piece from Cringely. His ideas are often fairly original and interesting, which makes for a nice "vacation" from the usual OS Wars, Text Editor Wars, and Software Licensing Wars.
I'd even be happy to make the icon for the Cringely topic.
So, editors, care to give a little feedback on this? There are several other topic areas that we could certainly do without, but I feel that a Cringely area of the site would be well worth it.
Thanks for listening.
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
Wouldn't this be more appropriately labelled Free TV, or Open Content TV, as opposed to Open Source TV?
slashdot!=valid HTML
that someone fills the void left by Geeks-in-Space. We've been without a techno-rant show for some time now.
I think the "open source" part comes from the fact that he's releasing all of the unedited footage that was shot for each show. So anyone can cut their own version and redistribute it.
Not sure how useful that's going to be, but it's a neat idea.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
Devon
See also: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/03/22/172622 1&mode=thread&tid=129
QuickTime Streaming Server and Quicktime Brodcaster are already OSS solutions for Cringley. He could save even more money.
/. fav - Sorenson - there's not reason why it can't be viewed on ANY operating system if they work on software to decode what's being streamed by the open source streamers - and since it would be QuickTime - it could be watched the second it stared downloading.
If he really wants to make it a download - then even as a MPEG-4 instead of the
what does this all mean...?
Apple needs to get off their ass and make QuickTime player for Linux and BSD unix - or just OSS the fscking player and charge for the Pro player.
Damnit Apple - you are always so close - yet so far.. you have drawn in tens of thousands of linux geeks with Darwin and a real Unix operating system, and you don't realize what its buying you? The alternative when Microsoft really starts to screw people with rentalware is going to be Apple - and if you have the love of the OSS community - you'll have the love of all...
oh well, at least you aren't installing DRM in your products - so i'll keep buying.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
I want my,
I want my NTV
Technoli
The receiver gets to decide his own camera angle, or if he has the MIPS and the inclination, he can render five different camera angles simultaneously. Or maybe if he's a radiologist he might enjoy watching a real-time CAT scan view of the scene.
With all the video-game hardware floating around these days, this certainly must be feasible. Surely it could be done with crude low-bandwidth animations like the music video for "Money for Nothing", where every object is only made of a few dozens polygons.
ObCringely
Some posters have complained that he hasn't formalized the open-source-ness of the show by using the GFDL. But this is (IIRC) the first time anybody has done anything at all along these lines, so I think we can cut him a little slack. It may turn out that legally it makes sense to invent a new license, like a GNU Free Video License or GNU Free Media License, to cover streamable media.
The world of TV hasn't had to deal with open source yet. This could be a highly entertaining bee to put in the *AA's bonnet.
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
...there is a place for intelligent discussion on TV.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
Three different shows? Well okay two different shows, since the rough cut will be the main show.
Most of the "bias" never gets onto video tape anyway. By that point, the story editor and/or journalist has narrowed the focus of their story down already.
It's not like they film three versions of a news story, all with different takes on the subject and choose one to show.
So, unless they plan on releasing all of his paper notes, his scriblings, his internal thought processes during the initial stages of a story, I don't think this is going to be much more than a Choose-Your-Own-Camera-Angle adventure.
So they save money on post-production, I guess.
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
...are the the future of entertainment!
I love projects like this, and this:
http://www.freefilm.cx
-----------
Gene Davis
Software Engineer
www.genedavis.com
...raw footage is not made available, but much of the material not used in a particular show is put on their web site.
For instance: If a number of experts were interviewed for a show, with excerpts from those interviews included in the actual broadcast, the web site not only includes transcripts of the broadcast but also transcripts of the complete interviews. This is very useful if you're wondering if the excerpts were taken out of context.
I think it's the future of broadcast-related web sites: all the info from the show...and more.
I have my doubts about the usefulness of the Cringely experiment, but it is interesting. At the very least.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
gcc tvshow.cpp -o tvshow
Why not fork?
what i like about this is that this is something the traditional television networks would have trouble doing since it's not clear how to capitalize it.
pbs thus can take a near monopoly on a new paradigm in (video) content production and distribution, and it might raise their donations as well.
in fact, to prognosticate a little, perhaps the future of content in a p2p world is higher quality, less lowest-common-denominator stuff, since the only viable business models are donations (pbs) and pay-for-premium-content (hbo).
-- p
Wow, this is super cool.
Why? Because off the bat there will be two versions- a tech one and a suit one.
Can you think of a more concrete way of showing (not just telling kids) that there are multiple facets to every story?
Then by giving the kids some editing tools (A mac with premier, and not even an expensive mac. For the cost of a case of beer I lent out my Power Mac 7200 with 40 megs of ram to a friend a few years ago and he made an educational video/cd-rom)
and they:
1) get skills on how to link and cut scenes (okay- you argue that this may not be very valuable, point taken)
2) get experience on "creating" a story line
3) get to see how their classmates started with the same raw footage and created vastly different final products.
If this can teach a young mind conspicuous consumption regarding news, media and information, HALLELUJIA!!! (doubtful...)
But if this can teach a young'in there are multiple sides to a story, then super-duper.
And if you can do some fancy editing and make Cringley burp, fart, and insert bathroom jokes, the school bullies will be laughing too hard to beat the snot out of you. Besides, you get a chance to make friends with them with the detention you got.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Does someone have more insightful input than my "feelings" ;)
well thanks to your +5 Insightful score and Slashdot's mod cap, I'm afraid it's just nor possible. Try to keep your comments a little less interesting, and maybe a little more inflammatory.
--
And for the love, stay away from that bright and shiny place in the center of your soul!!
And now we know why in hell would anybody want to waste bandwidth on unedited video.
The "NerdTV" video player isn't a player at all, but an applet that is being supplied by the very nice people from IBM Research. This is not any shipping IBM product, but rather a custom applet IBM's Michelle Kim and her crew are whipping-up just for "NerdTV." Going with an applet means there is no player application to download and install. We don't have to make a choice between Windows Media, RealPlayer, or QuickTime (actually, I suppose what we've done is reject all three).
An applet means you have to download the Player every time you view it.
If it is MPEG4, I trust he's choosing a profile that meets interoperability standards, in which case QT Player will play it and let people edit it, and RealPlayer will play MPEG4 with the Envivio plugin. It's just Windows Media Player that is deliberately shunning MPEG4 because they want to own the codecs and decide who can play things back.
There is a large potential audience for a GPL'd show not on the Internet via public access cable tv. For those not familar with it public access cable is a channel on most cable system that allows anyone it that locality to submit and run programming.
If a full res version was available for download all the public access station would have to do is download and air it. Many stations now have mpeg2 playback so they might not even have to put it too tape.
However, it doesn't sound like this will happen
If any networks outside the U.S. would like to run a broadcast quality version of "NerdTV," please get in touch with me because we could sure use the money.
It sounds to me like this is traditional TV workings, PBS wants exclusive broadcast rights in the US.
So it seems in practice that a low quality (120kbps) version will be gpl'd but "The Show" itself is not free in the sense of "here's a piece of information, share it with everyone who wants to share it".
From what his article said, the third video version will be the raw footage (source code) that can be used to produce a modified show. However, he wishes to protect his copyright (ie credit), so he is using the GPL. Sounds sane to me.
I wonder if this is going to be like TechTV, or just like one of TechTV's shows. Althogether I was not to impressed by techtv because the lack of depth they covered some stuff, and even on their most geeky show, the screen savers, nothing would get more complex than installing a hard drive in your computer, etc, and hardly ever any tips on doing anything outside windows. I hope this show not only showcases more "geekiness", but also greater attention to detail on open source projects and open source operating systems.
Kyle "DotCom" Lynch
...I need some cheeze-its...
I'm sure someone already said it, and yeah it's pretty much off topic, but Triumph of the Nerds, looking forward to seeing more work from Cringely
From the site: "...help people dedicate their creative works to the public domain or license them on terms more generous than copyright. Unlike the GPL, Creative Commons licenses will not be designed for software, but rather for other kinds of creative works: websites, scholarship, music, film, photography, literature, courseware, etc. "
An applet can be cached locally, so you only have to download it once per machine you watch it on - unless there are updates, then you get the newer version at that time. I wonder if he'll use the Java plugin? It would seem to make sense for this application.
As for the interoperability - we shall see but it seemed his goal was that you could edit it, so it seems probable.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is going to be 120kbps which will limit your derivative works to that or less which is not great.
You get some video editing software, download the unedited footage (equivalent of source code) and make your own version.
...of why you shouldn't use /. for legal advice.
Almost everything in this post is factually wrong.
I am not aware of any sense in which PBS is legally owned by the public. I'm not sure what "inherent" ownership means. But it is not a concept which would likely get you far in a court of law.
I believe the ownership structure of PBS is as follows: PBS is a nonprofit corporation owned by all of the local PBS stations, which are usually nonprofit corporations themselves. Most of these local stations were originally associated with colleges or universities, some of which may still maintain some ownership of the local station. Also part of the picture is CPB, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. I think CPB is responsible for the distribution of federal funds to PBS and NPR. I don't know if there is any sense in which it owns or is owned by PBS. It is also a nonprofit.
The absurdity of this statement is demonstrated (partially) by translating it to the private sector: "I own shares of GE stock, so any copyrights NBC holds, I hold."
But it also inaccurate to imply that PBS "holds" a large number of copyrights. Unlike the three major private networks, PBS does not originate most of its programming (if any, at all). Most PBS programming originates with local PBS stations. The network exists primarily to distribute those local programs of national interest to other PBS stations.
Nor does this imply, necessarily, that the local station which originates a particular show owns the copyright, either. Usually these shows are produced by independent contractors which own the copyrights. I believe PBS guarantees to its members that most of the shows which go out on their network feed can be broadcast by the local stations for up to five years after the original time it went out on the feed.
There are probably exceptions to this: If you watch The Wall Street Journal Report on your local ABC or NBC or CBS or Fox affiliate, that station may have picked it up from the PBS network feed. The Wall Street Journal Report is an independent production (now owned by CNBC) which may rent time on the PBS feed late at night on the weekends. Your local network affiliate can purchase the rights to broadcast it on Sunday. If they do so they may get the broadcast by pointing one of their satellite dishes at the PBS bird and recording the half-hour program for broadcast on Sunday.
The contracts under which local PBS stations acquire the rights to broadcast (and offer the show for network broadcast) are usually patterned on book publishing contracts. This means the creator maintains ownership of the copyright and that all rights revert to the creator at some point. In book publishing, this is when the book is out of print. For PBS it's usually five years.
NOVA is an excellent example of the ownership pattern described above. WGBH distributes the show and is often listed as the producer. But, if you look carefully at the credits, they often list a separate company as the producer of an individual episode.
PBS Home Video has the rights to sell the videos of NOVA, but they do so only for three years after the original broadcast. Of course, anyone who buys such a video copy has the fair-use right to resell it, but not to reproduce it and resell the reproductions. AFAIK, it is not legal to sell tapes of NOVA you have recorded off the air on the Internet.
Of course, all warnings about using /. for legal opinions apply to this post as well.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
It benefits the producers as well as the skeptical viewer. Frontline probably does this (supplies complete interview transcripts online) because some experts refuse to do interviews at all because they understand that their words are going to be butchered.
I know that social scientists are especially cautious. Imagine making an empirical claim, and supporting it with sound scientific evidence and theory, and then having your controversial *descriptive* words taken out of context and made to sound *prescriptive* because it would fit better into a dramatic story which was crafted to offend and upset people.
Frontline deals with hot-button political issues, so if they want comments from experts, they need to provide the experts with some kind of damage control insurance. Having the complete interview available online is one way to preemptively refute characterizations meant to create trouble for the expert or issue advocates.
Call it the anti-O'Reilly factor.
It would seem that the Open Content License (http://opencontent.org/opl.shtml) was designed specifically for things like this.
---
Computer programs reflect some of the programmer. That's why most programs behave like antisocial egomaniacs with a drink problem.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Can I edit "Plane Crazy" so he doesn't come across as a jerk?
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Excuse me? I thought we all realized that Cringley is an idiot! I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here!
JMF has an all-Java version, and the MPEG-4 player is all-java, so yes, you can create an applet that doesn't require WMP/QT/Real installed on the client. An app called jmfcustomizer trims the jar so that you only send the classes needed for your app.
That said, it seems like there is a risk of having to download the same .jar over and over again, unless your browser caches jars, or if they use something cool like Java Web Start (which isn't widely deployed).
Maybe they'll have seperate links for "self-contained applet" vs. "I already have an MPEG-4 player, thanks"
BTW, if Bob gets too many hits, won't he have to pay the content provider fee?
My only complaint about the IBM MPEG-4 support is that it only seems to support MPEG-4 video codec in .avi files (like DiVX), not the .mp4 files created by QuickTime.
--realinvalidname
yea boy oh boy thats the one big thing i've been waiting for all this time!!! now i can edit TV shows just for FUN for me and my friends!! my edited versions of his show will light the Internet on FIRE!!! my dreams have come true!!
while back in reality... the only good that will come from this is that someone will most likely edit Mr.Cringley into a porno or something funny. i don't "get" the release of the "original raw footage".
E V E R Y T H I N G I W R I T E I S F A L S E
You're missing a ".html", O foolish mortal, yea, verily.
quit jizzing all over the place when "GPL" is mentioned.
Hey, I don't care if you get the job done with a TRaSh-80 or a can opener, if it works, do it!
And it was enough do to some non-linear video editing. pretty fucking impressive if you ask me!
Besides- that shitty computer is STILL RUNNING! It's got some 340 odd megs of ram, backside cache, and dual boots 8.6 (I never had a reason to go to 9) and PPClinux. That shitty machine runs and grades my datastructures students java homework! (however DIsks of Tron sound support SUCKS in MAME)
Besides- I think the MAC IIsi and the mac LC were FAR worse than the power mac 7200. Oh yeah, and there were some CRAPPY ass quadra-like things out there- this was when macs were sold in like SEARS or something. They had *1* slot for ram! WTF?!
But yeah, my 7200 still beats the shit out of my dads old pentium 166.
Step to that, COWARD.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
could we get someone with something worth saying to host it. Cringly is a meathead.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
And I think it's called Public Access, which probably has fewer viewers than the population per square mile of North Dakota. Not just a day late, but two dollars short. And I think this is something you might be interested in... !Link!. Yay. 3 channels. Editable. W00t. I'm just not seeing the light here...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Actually, according to gnu.org, the OCL is not recommended for use seeing as how it is not free in the GPL sense. Specifically, the OCL is not considered "free" because, "there are restrictions on charging money for copies."
gnu.org recommends the use of their GPL Free Documentation License instead of the OCL. You might also be able to use the Free Art License, a copy of which is available here: http://artlibre.org/licence/lalgb.html
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