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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."
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" ;)
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.
Well as any mass media theorist will tell you, any news/information/education program has an inherent bias. Doesn't matter what the producer says, some sort of bias creeps in when they have to make decisions just related to keeping to the alloted time for the program. So by giving you the uncut material, they eliminate some of the bias. There will still be bias remaining from the fact that the producers had limited resources in gathering the original material.
The opinions expressed above are those off one side of my brain, the other side and my employer may not agree.
Devon