FOSS documentary on BBC World

Zoxed writes ""A two-part documentary, 'The Code Breakers' will be aired on BBC World TV starting on 10 May 2006. Code Breakers investigates how poor countries are using FOSS applications for development, and includes stories and interviews from around the world." The first part is screening tonight on BBC World."

Comments

Great Microsoft quote FTA

[mustafap]

"According to Jonathan Murray of Microsoft "The Open Source community stimulates innovation in software, it's something that frankly we feel very good about and it's something that we absolutely see as being a partnership with Microsoft."

Must have had his fingers crossed behind his back at the time. Still, it made me laugh.

Re:Great Microsoft quote FTA

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

"According to Jonathan Murray of Microsoft "The Open Source community stimulates innovation in software, it's something that frankly we feel very good about and it's something that we absolutely see as being a partnership with Microsoft."

Must have had his fingers crossed behind his back at the time. Still, it made me laugh.

There's nothing to laugh about, everything he said is true:

- The open source community is very active

- They feel good about it, since they "leverage" a lot of open source code (read: they legally steal the work of others) to make Windows better, like with the TCP/IP stack for example.

- They see it as a partnership with Microsoft, i.e. they'd love people to keep producing good code for free that they can reuse, turn around and sell.

Re:Great Microsoft quote FTA

[Anonymous Coward]

he Open Source community stimulates innovation in software,

- The open source community is very active

Yes, they're active, but innovative? Hardly.

Re:Great Microsoft quote FTA

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you refering to the *BSD TCP/IP stack? The one that is freely available to everyone?

Re:Great Microsoft quote FTA

[jaweekes]

WTF!!!

15:30 The Code Breakers.

That's 3:30pm!!!. Anyone going to BitTorrent it for those of us (OK, almost all of us) that actually work????

Re:Great Microsoft quote FTA

[drinkypoo]

(read: they legally steal the work of others)

All right slashbot, freeze! This is the stupidity police. Put DOWN the KEYBOARD!

Theft is a legal concept. Otherwise you're just "taking" something. Therefore there is no such thing as legal theft.

In addition, if it's licensed so that anyone can use it, then clearly the copyright holder[s] intended that people should be able to use it.

Finally, unless you are taking the only copy of a work, intellectual property cannot be stolen because an integral part of theft is depriving someone of something. Making a copy might reduce the value of the work, but it might also increase it - either way, it is not theft.

Re:Great Microsoft quote FTA

[Decaff]

Yes, they're active, but innovative? Hardly.

I have to agree. There a large number of great FOSS projects, but I can't say I see that many innovative ones. I can't see anything to compare to, say, the work of Xerox developing GUI systems or Smalltalk.

Re:Great Microsoft quote FTA

[coogan]

No, he wasnt crossing his fingers - he was busy filling a carboard box...

Re:Great Microsoft quote FTA

[NZBeeMan]

News at 7:

The BBC says that FOSS isn't ready for the 'prime time'

Re:Great Microsoft quote FTA

[triso]

Therefore there is no such thing as legal theft.

Hmmm. Unless you are a lawyer. That's legal theft for sure.

Re:Great Microsoft quote FTA

[grcumb]

"I have to agree. There a large number of great FOSS projects, but I can't say I see that many innovative ones."

Er... you can't be serious. You know that thing called the World Wide Web, the massively revolutionary technological change that has proven to be the way that most people interact with the Internet? Almost entirely FOSS. And how about the really unique and original permutations that allowed for the creation of online communities, like wikis and blogs? All originated as FOSS projects.

And then there's email, IRC and Jabber. Oh, and Perl, which was highly innovative when it arrived. And Firefox's XUL UI, which allows quick, easy and open development of UI elements.

And that's just innovation on features. When you get down to technical innovation (i.e. taking new approaches to old problems), the list gets too long for any individual to compile.

Re:Great Microsoft quote FTA

[Decaff]

Er... you can't be serious. You know that thing called the World Wide Web, the massively revolutionary technological change that has proven to be the way that most people interact with the Internet? Almost entirely FOSS.

It wasn't invented in a FOSS environment. The first web browser ran on the NeXTSTEP platform - proprietary UNIX, using their Objective C language.

And how about the really unique and original permutations that allowed for the creation of online communities, like wikis and blogs? All originated as FOSS projects.

No, they didn't. Similar things had been around for decades before in the form of bulletin boards and similar systems.

And then there's email, IRC and Jabber. Oh, and Perl, which was highly innovative when it arrived. And Firefox's XUL UI, which allows quick, easy and open development of UI elements.

Sorry, nothing new there. E-mail was around long before FOSS, as was messaging (heard of Minitel?). Perl was innovative in some ways, but was based on previous languages - some C syntax, some shell scripting. Quick and easy UI development has been around since Smalltalk in the 70s.

And that's just innovation on features. When you get down to technical innovation (i.e. taking new approaches to old problems), the list gets too long for any individual to compile.

But that is not the point - I can't see anything specific to FOSS here.

Code Breakers = Breaking or Broken Code?

[PrescriptionWarning]

Seem like their documentary title could use some adjusting, code breaking sounds a lot like simply creating a program that just doesn't work (i.e. is broken)

Even though it may sound better to the masses, it does seem a little misleading to what the documentary is actually about.

Re:Code Breakers = Breaking or Broken Code?

[observer7]

i think it sounds more like to the mases about breaking enemy code in an old ww2 movie or documentry . needs a new title

Re:Code Breakers = Breaking or Broken Code?

[Billosaur]

Seem like their documentary title could use some adjusting, code breaking sounds a lot like simply creating a program that just doesn't work (i.e. is broken)

At first I thought it was a documentary about Bletchley Park, where the Allies broke the German Enigma cipher.

Perhaps they are refering to the "code" of buying all your software from Microsoft, which certainly could use some breaking if not downright thrashing.

Re:Code Breakers = Breaking or Broken Code?

[mike260]

There was 'Breaking the Code' a while ago, which was a drama focussing on Turing's homosexuality rather than his codebreaking work.

Re:Code Breakers = Breaking or Broken Code?

[Dis*abstraction]

It is about open source.

Re:Code Breakers = Breaking or Broken Code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya, with that title, I expected it to be about spies and people who decode secret messages.

Re:Code Breakers = Breaking or Broken Code?

[thoughtlover]

At first, I thought it was an OSS documentary about the BBC. What is an OSS documentary? Would they give out all the raw footage for others to cut and re-edit the documentary as they saw fit?

Hmmm...

i like this part from TA

[mapkinase]

Following its ten transmissions on BBC World the documentary will be available copyright-free for broadcast throughout the world.

good job, lads.

Re:i like this part from TA

[Anonymous Coward]

will it be shown on the regular bbc? I've never heard of this bbc world... they give people like me shit service, I get forced to pay over £120 a year so I can have 2 channels I don't even watch and a news service who is fightened of the government, bastards, it is mostly unfair though because I have to pay £120 for a single 16 inch tv, people with 40 plasma TVs in their house also have to pay the same. and that's just stupid

Re:i like this part from TA

[h2g2bob]

But.... Ironically only on RealPlayer, not Helix player.

Re:i like this part from TA

[pandrijeczko]

The paltry sum of £120 per year is well worth it - what about the radio stations, the web site (absolutely fantastic for someone like me learning another language)and the downloadable old radio shows also!

And to top the lot, there's Dr Who with the Cybermen THIS COMING SATURDAY!!! :-)

Re:i like this part from TA

[Cal Paterson]

£120 is probably a lot for the people who have a television and don't use any BBC services. I'm not one of them, but consider that perhaps it is unfair to charge £120 a year to someone who just wants to watch the Movies on Sky. I'm not one of these people (I only use Freeview), but the blanket £120 sum is unfair.

Also consider, people sharing a residence (read:students) have to pay the tv licence per head. Four people in one residence means £480 a year; and everyone in the residence has to pay it (saying 2 of the four don't watch tv doesn't save you paying for all four).

This rule means that when many poorer students go to university, they now cannot afford a television. That's certainly the situation I'm looking at. Add this in to the new tutition fees, and you have made poor students broke. For the first half of their lives. Student loans for tuition fees generally amount to £20k-£40k, depending on your course and whether you have to live in expensive areas.

All this because the country is filled with baby boomers, many of whom were given state grants for their entire further education, and who don't give a damn about young people; they just want tax cuts on medium incomes, and this just means that poorer people pick up the bill.

Re:i like this part from TA

[aembleton]

Don't worry about Student Loans. They are not like normal bank loans. You only pay them once you start earning enough. Currently you pay 9% of gross earnings after the first £15K/year, and you only have to keep on paying until you've paid it off. Additionally the interest rates are less than what you would get in a savings account, so technically you make money out of is. Just think, if you earn over ~£4K/year you have to pay 10% tax. You see when you start earning, you have to pay tax on what you earn, the only difference between tax and a student loan is that: a) You got something for it (an education). b) You no longer have to pay any once you have either paid it off or have reached 65. Yes, I have a student loan. I currently owe over £13K and it is going up £30 a month in interest. I am not too worried by it. If you are still worried about student loans, go to Hull University. That is where I went, and as far as I can tell it is about the cheapest place to live as a student.

Re:i like this part from TA

[Anonymous Coward]

FUD

  * Who has a TV and doesn't watch the BBC?

  * The 'movies' on Sky will cost you at least 360 GBP/ year (sub+ movie channel is 34.00/ month) - and you're saying 120/yr is too much for these people?

  * people sharing a residence (read:students) have to pay per *residence* - If they live in halls, each 'room' is a residence - if they share a flat, it's one residence in total

Re:i like this part from TA

[Ilex]

£120 is probably a lot for the people who have a television and don't use any BBC services. I'm not one of them, but consider that perhaps it is unfair to charge £120 a year to someone who just wants to watch the Movies on Sky. I'm not one of these people (I only use Freeview), but the blanket £120 sum is unfair.

At £34 per month (£408 year) for Sky Moves the £120 per year doesn't seem too bad + you don't get any advertising on the BBC channels. The TV tax only has to be paid if you are able to receive the BBC channels. As Sky and Cable carry the BBC channels then the license fee has to be paid. If you had a TV which isn't connected to any form of tuner then you don't have to pay the fee. So if you just want to watch DVD's and use your TV to play console games then you don't need to pay. A premium subscription to an online DVD rental club will also be a lot cheaper than the $KY subscription anyway.

Also consider, people sharing a residence (read:students) have to pay the tv licence per head. Four people in one residence means £480 a year; and everyone in the residence has to pay it (saying 2 of the four don't watch tv doesn't save you paying for all four).

Just have a TV in the communal area then you can all share the cost of license. It only applies for TV's intended for your sole use e.g your private room.

I expect a lot of students these days leech TV episodes off Bittorent and watch them on their computer screens so they don't have to pay the license fee. I know that's what I'd do!

All this because the country is filled with baby boomers, many of whom were given state grants for their entire further education, and who don't give a damn about young people; they just want tax cuts on medium incomes, and this just means that poorer people pick up the bill.

The baby boomers are spoilt, but in reality it's the middle income hard working people who are picking up the bill for supporting the idle. Single mothers / Asylum seekers who have never done an honest day work in their lives living in a council house rent free and driving BMW / Audi's courtesy of Mr and Mrs tax payer.

Re:i like this part from TA

[pandrijeczko]

£120 is probably a lot for the people who have a television and don't use any BBC services.

I agree with your statement in principle but I do not see any other way of running the system. How do you ensure that someone who has no interest in BBC services and therefore does not have to pay a license does not use any of the BBC's TV, radio & web services?

Personally, I never use a library but I am willing taxes towards libraries because of the benefits they bring to the general populace - education, entertainment, communications (Internet connectivity). The BBC provides the same services and I consider the License Fee as a tax to fund that.

Also consider, people sharing a residence (read:students) have to pay the tv licence per head.

Actually, you're incorrect on this point. In a single shared household, where there is a TV in a communal area, they need buy one license only - if a single building is treated as multiple "residences", say, 3 flats in a 3 storey house or in halls of residences then yes, a license is needed for each one of those.

Student loans for tuition fees generally amount to £20k-£40k, depending on your course and whether you have to live in expensive areas.

This is a completely different topic but as a middle-aged British tax payer on a good income, I hope that the proportion of the taxes I pay to fund higher education go to "encouraging" current school-leavers to take degrees in subjects (like the sciences, medical degrees, teaching, etc) where there are skill shortages currently - in other words, let students taking degrees in these subjects get tuition fee discounts.

But I do *not* want my taxes funding "media studies" degrees (= three year skive from having to work for a living) and I fully agree students should pay at least some of the cost of their further education on the basis that their salaries later on will be higher. However, you go out of the country having taken that degree then you get a bill for your full tuition cost as you go through customs on your way out.

they just want tax cuts on medium incomes

I'm cohabiting with my spouse, we don't have kids and she and I earn above average incomes - if anyone gets taxed "over the odds" then it's us, believe me! Sure, I don't mind making a tax contribution for the benefit of everyone else to send their kids to school, have free healthcare, etc. but I expect to see that money spent wisely.

As for the BBC, I am increasingly sickened by marketing lies & being constantly bombarded with advertising in just about every other element of my life - therefore, £120 a year is a miniscule sum for me to pay to get away from that...

I'm *very proud* of the BBC as an world-recognised British institution (no, I don't work for them) and therefore the license fee is excellent value to me.

Re:i like this part from TA

[FireFury03]

£120 is probably a lot for the people who have a television and don't use any BBC services. I'm not one of them, but consider that perhaps it is unfair to charge £120 a year to someone who just wants to watch the Movies on Sky. I'm not one of these people (I only use Freeview), but the blanket £120 sum is unfair.

(I'm a UK resident, with a fully paid up TV licence)

To my mind, 120 ukp is too much and I think they shouldn't have been allowed to just raise the licence fee to pay for a load of new channels which (for the most part) show nothing but crap.

However, IMHO the BBC should be about producing TV shows that are not viable for commercial channels to do - either because the programs are quite specialist (e.g. The Sky At Night) or because they can use the air-time to show something that costs less money to produce but still brings in a reasonable audiance (pick any of the crappy reality shows). So my licence fee should _not_ be spent on funding popularist crap that any commercial channel would show such as Fame Acadamy, EastEnders, etc - we have enough commercial channels doing that kind of content already.

Of course you have to keep the viewing figures up so that people don't consider their licence fee "wasted" - I believe that the whole way the Beeb works should be changed:
- Let them run BBC 1 and 2, paid for by the licence fee as usual. On these channels they should show all the stuff that a commercial channel wouldn't show for the above reasons.
- Let them run BBC 3 and 4 as commercial channels, not paid for by the licence fee. These can run all the stuff that is viable for a commercial channel.
- If a series that's been showing on BBC1/2 becomes considered "commercially viable", sell it to BBC3/4 and reinvest the cash from that sale into BBC1/2. This also means that you free up some time on BBC1/2 for more quality content.

If they worked to that system they could continue to produce quality programs that no commercial channel would touch, and also produce the cheap, popularist stuff without wasting the licence fee on it. Also, because some revenue is coming from the commercial side, they shouldn't need such high licence fees.

The BBC has produced a lot of really good programs, but frequently I also feel that a lot of the other stuff they produce are a waste of the licence fee because it's content that the existing commercial channels wouldn't hesitate to show.

Re:i like this part from TA

[aembleton]

I think you're spot on about making the BBC invest in programmes that are not commercially viable. However, rather than making BBC3 and 4 commercial, they should just sell their successful programmes to other Freeview channels. That way most people continue to view it, the BBC gets funding and the commercial sector is happy.

Re:i like this part from TA

[Cal Paterson]

Who has a TV and doesn't watch the BBC?
There are people like this. I doesn't matter whether or not you believe that it's possible that somewhere where you can't see it, people are watching Sky Movies and not watching BBC.

and you're saying 120/yr is too much for these people?
It could be. You're not allowing them to make the choice. Just because someone can afford something, doesn't mean that it's ok just to charge them because you can. They may not watch the BBC; they may not want to. Right now we get away with putting the BBC on everything and charging everyone; hardly fair on people who don't use the service.

people sharing a residence (read:students) have to pay per *residence* - If they live in halls, each 'room' is a residence - if they share a flat, it's one residence in total
Have a look at the offical documentation, unless you're using a "communal area" you'll need your own tv licence. Student flats and halls are covered, but communal areas do not always exist, and if you decide to have your own television, then you have to pay for your own licence. My understand is that quite a few people do pay for their own licences currently.

FUD
"OMG some1 d0en'7 4gr33 w1th m3333!!!! FUDD!!!!F F UFDD!!

Until now?

[ZSpade]

"It's not that FOSS has had a bad press, it has had no press because there is no company that 'owns' it,"

Until now? I mean this is on the BBC, which isn't just a major news source in the US or Britain, but the entire world. The continual adoption of Open Source software by developing countries is starting to give me hope that we might actually have a chance of escaping the Monocrosoft empire.

Re:Until now?

[MarkByers]

The continual adoption of Open Source software by developing countries is starting to give me hope that we might actually have a chance of escaping the Monocrosoft empire.

You can escape already now, as long as you are willing to make some sacrifices like having to explain to family members why the you haven't played the fantastic game that they emailed to you as an .exe file.

Re:Until now?

[Trelane]

like having to explain to family members why the you haven't played the fantastic game that they emailed to you as an .exe file.

You mean rootmerootmerootme.exe? I thought it was a pretty lame game until I realized that it was a mixed-reality game that acted like it was a virus....

Re:Until now?

[Peter Trepan]

But there's also an urgent reason to get everyone else to switch to FOSS as well: In twenty years, when everyone's walking around with heads-up displays ala Vernor Vinge, coordinating everything of importance through the internet, the company/government that controls the tools will control society as well. Having a closed-source monoculture at that point would be a terrible, possibly irreparable, blow to open civil society. You'd literally have to buy a license to live.

Re:Until now?

[Red Alastor]

You can escape already now, as long as you are willing to make some sacrifices like having to explain to family members why the you haven't played the fantastic game that they emailed to you as an .exe file.

Most games don't fit e-mail attachment size restrictions since a long time. Beside, do you trust your family not to send you "bonzi buddy" like games ?

Re:Until now?

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd literally have to buy a license to live

Wondering what EULA would that have to be.

Re:Until now?

[VENONA]

Except that on the version of BBC I get on Dish Network, it won't be available. There are 3-4 episodes of 'What Not to Wear' on tonight, though.

From the Linux Journal LJ Index, June 2006:
Percentage of local authorities using Linux in the UK: 33
Percentage of local authorities using Linux in France: 71
Percentage of local authorities using Linux in Holland: 55
Percentage of local authorities using Linux in Germany: 68

Local authorities using Linux in the US is probably in single digits, which represents a horrible waste of tax dollars if I'm correct. I wonder if that's because mainstream press has still never mentioned it here. Or maybe BBC-USA just knows it's target audience only too well. Which is a scary thought, for all those that couldn't stand five minutes of 'What Not to Wear'.

Related quote

[spellraiser]

Intel, IBM, Sun and Microsoft all seem to agree that FOSS is a welcome presence in computer software.

Yes, and a skunk seems harmless enough until it releases its foul scent.

Re:Related quote

[just_another_sean]

Yes, and a skunk seems harmless enough until it releases its foul scent.

Hah, yeah no doubt. ...

Wait, who's the skunk then?

They said what?

[NoUse]

FTA:

"Intel, IBM, Sun and Microsoft all seem to agree that FOSS is a welcome presence in computer software."

Shared Source maybe, but FOSS?

Re:They said what?

[tiocsti]

Some shared source licenses are also open source licenses. Certainly there's nothing wrong with the Microsoft Permissive License or the Microsoft Community License from an opensource perspective. The microsoft reference license, on the other hand, is not quite so free or useful (you can use it to understand, but cant modify it or redistribute it).

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/li censingbasics/sharedsourcelicenses.mspx

Re:They said what?

[Pollardito]

FTA:

"Intel, IBM, Sun and Microsoft all seem to agree that FOSS is a welcome presence in computer software."

Shared Source maybe, but FOSS?

dunno, seems like Microsoft has always loved having the ability to take things like IP stacks from FOSS

Re:They said what?

[makomk]

Interestingly, the Microsoft Community License (Ms-CL) seems to have some of the same properties that they were complaining about in the GPL (actually, at a first glance, it looks to be somewhere between the GPL and LGPL in terms of restrictiveness and whether you can use it as part of a closed-source program).

Re:They said what?

[babbling]

Based on comments that Microsoft employees make about Free Software, I sometimes wonder if there is anyone in management at Microsoft who actually understands the philosophy behind Free Software. They don't seem to understand why this huge threat to their business has emerged. It seems like it is all a big mystery to Microsoft. This isn't surprising, I suppose. The Free Software mentality is almost completely opposite to the Microsoft mentality.

Re:They said what?

[rtb61]

Yes there seems to be the odd bright glimmer starting to appear at microsoft as the farm yard animals are put out to pasture in the back paddocks where they no longer can do to much harm. But why should they confuse the issue with their own fine print, I think GPL2 is pefectly adequate.

While they are at it they might as well start making some code etc. contributions to the $100.00 notebook project or at the very least allow their staff to volutarily participate if the choose to do so.

So which one is it?

[loconet]

And yet, a few years ago they saw it as a cancer..

And yet this is the shaky basis on which Ballmer dismisses open source as anathema to all commercial software companies. It can't be used at all, he reasons, because even a tiny germ of it, like a metastasizing cancer, contaminates the entire body. Thus Microsoft 'has a problem' with government funding of open-source.

Unbelievable. actually.. not.

Re:So which one is it?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

And yet, a few years ago they saw it as a cancer..

At least you should get your quotes right. It's the GPL that Ballmer sees as a cancer, not eopen source in general.

Re:So which one is it?

[mapkinase]

It reminds me of opposition of local ISP to the free city-wide Wi-Fi projects.

Write your own innovative code, protect it as you wish and do not be a whiney child, Mr. Ballmer. You have your copyright on your code, Mr. Stallman have his own copyright.

And government has a right to invest in the projects that benefit the population of the country. It has subsidized non-profit and profit organizations for that purpose.

If you do not like government involvement, Mr. Ballmer, go to Russia - the country that has (or at least had) the most rampant laissez faire capitalism in the world.

Checks Moon - Not Blue Yet....

[AntiDragon]

A publicly broadcast documentary about FOSS? This sounds awfully...mainstream? How will I continue to arrogantly lord it over the unwashed masses with my greater knowledge of FOSS if they just start talking about it publicly?

Hehe...

Actually, I did smile at this bit from the article:

"Intel, IBM, Sun and Microsoft all seem to agree that FOSS is a welcome presence in computer software."

Oh, how loaded can a statement be?

Re:Checks Moon - Not Blue Yet....

[Anonymous Coward]

How will I continue to arrogantly lord it over the unwashed masses

I have every confidence you will find a way.

Quoted out of context ...

[molarmass192]

The ending of that quote is missing, here it is:

"... unless those FOSS projects are using that commie bastard cancerous GNU GPL license. Great, now you've gone and made me say GNU. ARGH! I said GNU again!"

It's humor people!

Re:Bad job

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

The GPL lays down what it means to liberate something.

Have you read the GPL? Firstly, it isn't an appropriate license for artwork. Secondly, copyleft is what lays down what it means to truly liberate something. The GPL leaves strings attached.

I means you let them use it *for anything they want*, no restrictions. *at all* BBC doesn't meet that. It totally violates the spirit of the open source movement.

The BBC isn't in the open source business, so they violate nothing at all. They happen to be able to produce quality programs, often for free, because British taxpayers foots the bill.

BBC World separate from BBC

[doodlelogic]

BBC world isn't paid for out of the licence fee. It carries advertising. Where there is subsidy (e.g. radio broadcasts in Afghanistan) this is paid for out of the Foreign Office budget as a very cheap part (c.f. the Iraq War) of the UK's promotion of democracy/ defence of its interests.

Re:BBC World separate from BBC

[FireFury03]

BBC world isn't paid for out of the licence fee. It carries advertising.

Hmm, and I'm trying to work out if there's any way to actually see this content here in the UK... It looks like possibly there isn't, how ironic :(

Re:BBC World separate from BBC

[magetoo]

I'm fairly certain it's available for free via satellite. I've had it included in the standard cable package (for free) at several places I've lived here in Sweden. There's no way the cable companies would give it away for free if they had to pay for it.

Re:BBC World separate from BBC

[FireFury03]

I'm fairly certain it's available for free via satellite.

Doesn't look like it's on Astra or EuroBird.

The Beeb are not allowed to advertise in the UK, so they would have to strip the ads, but it still seems crazy that you can't see some BBC content in the UK.

actually you get more

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you get BBC1 and BBC 2 with no adverts every 25 minutes through films (or anywhere else) but you can watch ITV1, Channel 4 and Channel 5 for free as well, plus you get all the radio stations. Pays for some infrastructure and some decent off the wall programs that probably otherwise wouldn't be made if it was down to viewing figures that bring in advertising. Like maybe a series on FOSS.

will it be shown on the regular bbc?... have 2 channels I don't even watch

Oh despite yer moan at 2 quid a week (how does that compare to Sky TV these days? 15 a month I think...) you do watch the beeb then? ;-)

Long overdue and bloody obvious!

[Digital_Mercenary]

Long overdue and bloody obvious!

"Much of the role of open source in the development of the Internet is well known: The most widely used TCP/IP protocol implementation was developed as part of Berkeley networking; Bind runs the DNS, without which none of the web sites we depend on would be reachable; sendmail is the heart of the Internet email backbone; Apache is the dominant web server; Perl the dominant language for creating dynamic sites; etc."
--Open Source Paradigm Shift
by Tim O'Reilly
June 2004

Alright lads get on with it!!!

UK don't get BBC World?...

[Manip]

In an ironic twist most people in the UK (home of the BBC) won't get to see this as we don't receive BBC World and it isn't being broadcast on any of the "normal" BBC channels.

A little ironic don't you think... Kind of like the yanks not getting something created by ABC or Fox but letting the rest of the world have it.

Re:UK don't get BBC World?...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly the dilemma I am in, if anyone knows a free way of recieving it in the UK conventionally then please say so. I hope the production of this didn't come from our TV licenses because that would be even worse.

Re:UK don't get BBC World?...

[malsdavis]

I remeber reading an aticle on the BBC website a while ago about this program. From what I recall it isn't going to be shown on the BBC terrestial channels (BBC 1 or 2) for atleast quite a while due to already full schedules. BBC 4 (their documentory/boring channel) should show it in the near future however. Although I could be getting mixed up with some other similar program.

Re:UK don't get BBC World?...

[Anonymous Coward]

There are 3 ways to get BBC World
1) DAB Digital Radio
2) Online (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/)
3) Sky/Freeview/NTL

For info read
http://www.bbc.co.uk/digitalradio/listen/which.sht ml

Re:UK don't get BBC World?...

[Marcion]

If you have a satellite dish then you can do a bit of manual re-tuning: ALL EUROPE: BBC World is a digital channel available free-to-air from the Eutelsat Hotbird 6 satellite at 13 East with the following parameters: Frequency: 12,597 MHz Beam: Wide Polarisation: Vertical FEC: 3/4 Symbol Rate: 27.5 Msym/sec BBC World is also available in digital format free-to-air from the Astra 1E satellite at 19.2 East with the following parameters: Frequency: 11,597 MHz Beam: Wide Polarisation: Vertical FEC: 5/6 Symbol Rate: 22 Msym/sec To receive the signal from either satellite you will need an appropriate DVB compliant satellite receiver and a dish of an adequate size, usually 90cm, but please seek local advice.

Re:UK don't get BBC World?...

[nudeatom]

Unfortunatly, the World service is not the same as BBC World World Service is radio, BBC world is TV.

Re:UK don't get BBC World?...

[RalphSleigh]

Do you get this channel with sky even? Its the first time I have heard about it...

Re:UK don't get BBC World?...

[RalphSleigh]

Even worse, I try the realplayer link and get "BBC World is not available in the UK".. Sheesh...

Re:UK don't get BBC World?...

[quincunx55555]

Last I knew, we (Amerikuns) don't get CNNi (International), or MTV International (if it still exists). When I was in Norway, during the summer of 1991, I was shocked at the amount of near real news comming out of CNNi. It was "info-rich" compared to the fluff they broadcast domestically. The CNNi Headline News actually spent the whole half hour talking about world events. The domestic version would spend 5-10 minutes on world events, 10-15 minutes on domestic "news", then spend the last 5 minutes or so with a useless story like how some people have pot bellied pigs as pets (interviewing owners, footage of the pigs, etc).

Back then MTV played music videos (I know, I'm dating myself); but even the international version was waaaaaaay better than what we received in the US. By 1991, Beavis and Butthead were the only source of non-pop music videos (Zombie owes his successful exposure to them) on MTV; everything else was so tightly controlled by the RIAA (I think), that there was no creativity or diversification. However, MTV International played a broad range of music videos, mostly from popular bands around the world; but I had never seen The Gypsy Kings, or KLF on "domestic" MTV.

It started to make me wonder if people outside the USA have a better picture of what's going on (even in our own country) since we are so "sheltered" from information. How many more networks/info-outlets perform this "double broadcasting"?

Re:UK don't get BBC World?...

[slick_bill_willy]

Well, I just checked the BBC world listings and I can't see it either, because it's being aired at 3:30 PM today on the east coast! (which has already passed!) I guess they figure working stiffs don't need to see it.

Re:UK don't get BBC World?...

[pe1chl]

Remember that most sat dish owners in the UK will have pointed their dish at Astra2 (28.2 East).
BBC World is not available there.

But this is not all that unusual. Here in the Netherlands there is a similar channel (BVN) that is available on Astra, Hotbird and other satellites all over the world but cannot be received on cable or terrestrial DVB.
About the only difference is that satellite dish owners here usually have their dish pointed at Astra1 at 19.2 East so they can receive BVN.

Re:UK don't get BBC World?...

[VENONA]

"It started to make me wonder if people outside the USA have a better picture of what's going on (even in our own country) since we are so "sheltered" from information."

I'm absolutely certain of it. The first three Web sites I hit for international news are:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
http://news.google.com/

Tremendously different slant on many issues than staying with US domestic news. Also some very clearcut cases of biased reporting in US media (not just the horrible Fox News). In fact, after a few years of the first two (Google News is comparatively new, of course) I can't *stand* domestic US 'news' services. But then I was never into pot-bellied pigs, either.

Re:UK don't get BBC World?...

[magetoo]

(This is all from a Swedish perspective)

Back then MTV played music videos (I know, I'm dating myself); but even the international version was waaaaaaay better than what we received in the US.

Well, International became European (UK based), then Nordic, and now, since recently, it's national. With a healthy dose of guaranteed-to-sell US/international artists, obviously. And of course it's 50% "Pimp my ride" and "Cribs" now... International doesn't seem to even be on cable networks. MTV2 is, though.

It started to make me wonder if people outside the USA have a better picture of what's going on (even in our own country) since we are so "sheltered" from information. How many more networks/info-outlets perform this "double broadcasting"?

Sorta kinda maybe. BBCW seems to be geared more towards the business traveller/news junkie type of audience, and so has a more serious news profile. I'd imagine that the same thing goes for CNNi, even if I can't get here.

That (BBC/CNN/etc) is not what most people are watching for news though. We probably get more international news, but then we're also much more affected by what goes on in the (rest of the) EU, for example; hence more coverage of things like the Italian election, the German economy, etc.

As for "double broadcasting", you pretty much have to do it in English to be relevant for anyone but a relatively small group of expatriates. And for that group, providing news from home and "apple pie" type entertainment is probably going to be even more important than having your own offices in every country in the world.

That's my 14.56 öre anyway. (Or, 1.563 Euro cent.)

Re:UK don't get BBC World?...

[nogginthenog]

Why would we want to watch our own propaganda? :-)

Re:UK don't get BBC World?...

[isorox]

Even worse, I try the realplayer link and get "BBC World is not available in the UK".. Sheesh...

BBC World is a commercial channel, funded and run completely seperatly from the normal BBC news (although staff are shared, BBC World pay for this). The BBC charter doesn't allow it to be broadcast in the UK.

Of course the competition argue that the license fee subsidises BBC World, which it arguably does.

You're not missing much, besides it is available in the UK, point you sat dish to an appropiate satelite.

Re:UK don't get BBC World?...

[isorox]

1) DAB Digital Radio

No, BBC World is a commercial TV channel broadcast mainly from Television Centre in West London. BBC World Service Radio is funded by the foreign office, and is broadcast mainly from Bush House in the centre of London.

Re:UK don't get BBC World?...

[isorox]

I hope the production of this didn't come from our TV licenses

BBC World is a commercial channel and receives no license fee money. Many programs are broadcast on World and on normal BBC Channels (Top Gear, Click, joint overnights when maintenence is going on in either N24 or Worlds studios), appropiate finance arragements are made.

Re:Until now? [OT Vernor Vinge]

[spun]

You mention Vernor Vinge, and I have to mention "True Names." For anyone that hasn't read it, it is the best cyberpunk short story ever. What with all the bot nets and MMORPGs around today, Vernor's vision of cyberspace is looking more and more realistic. Then think about all the "unlicensed" computer tech the protagonist keeps buried under his house and ask yourself, with DRM heading in the direction it is, will this be us in five years? Vernor is some kind of prophet, I tell you.

that title is awful!

[AlgorithMan]

man, this title is horrible!
The Code Breakers

I could scream in agony! this sounds like it was about crackers, thieves, reverse software engineers that break the law and infringe patents!

lets say tv-magazines write this title and the word "FOSS" - then people who read this, but don't watch the ducumentary will think FOSS was something criminal!

thank you very much for this FUD, BBC a.k.a. broadcasters of copyrighted media

Re:that title is awful!

[towsonu2003]

you're just embarrased (as in: shy) because you are getting tv coverage. You'll get used to it ;)

Re:that title is awful!

[jejones]

No kidding. I thought they were doing a TV series based on David Kahn's classic book about codes and ciphers.

Re:that title is awful!

[Clith]

I agree. Something like "The DRM-busters" or "The MS Lock-in Breakers" would be better.

Re:that title is awful!

[kaeru]

These concerns on the title were actually raised. The intention was as stated by parent of this title, was to give impression of breaking the lock-in effect through writing code. None technical people seemed to be happy with this title and it stuck.

Of course you can't quite put MS in the title without getting a lot of heat. :) Although it would have definitely made it much clearer/better.

Normal disclaimer, these views are personal and not that of IOSN or UNDP-APDIP.

US OSS media coverage

[yoyoofthemilk]

I have noticed that in the US there isn't very much media coverage of Open Source Software. I for one would really appreciate it if they would start talking about it, it would make television much more interesting not having to only hear about MS software on TV. There used to be a channel called TechTV that would occasional talk about Linux, and they would get help calls asking about getting into Linux, unfortunately they were bought out by G4. Grrrrrr...

Microsoft Windows Free in Poor Countries

[bayers]

Microsoft Windows and Adobe Photoshop are free in poor countries. Or they cost the same as Linux.

Go to any market in the third world and you can buy these software products for about $1 a CD.

It's not the software you buy in poor countries as much as it is the CD. The software on the CD doesn't matter.

Re:BBC promoting communism on it's propaganda outl

[towsonu2003]

mod OP up Funny:+5

Re:Bad job

[DragonWriter]

If you're going to liberate it after 10 broadcasts, you might as well never liberate it.

Why? Is the utility destroyed after 10 broadcasts?

The GPL lays down what it means to liberate something. I means you let them use it *for anything they want*, no restrictions. *at all*

The GPL does not allow things to be used without any restrictions at all; in fact, it places rather strict restrictions.

Sendmail

[Kadin2048]

Does anyone know what percentage of mail servers these days use Sendmail?

Personally I dumped it for Postfix at the first opportunity, as did most other people I know. It just seems so much more painful to use.

I guess migrating a large enterprise from one to the other could be quite a bitch, so there's a lot of inertia to keep with what you know, but I'm just curious if Sendmail's time as one of the "killer apps" that drives the internet is waning.

My apologies if I start a flamewar here...

Code Breakers Website Powered By Plone CMS

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the favicon.ico its the plone.org logo. Good to see the website taking a slashdotting with ease!

BBC America?

[sapped]

Great. It doesn't look as if it will be on BBC America.

Re:Bad job

[babbling]

Once something is liberated, it no longer matters whether or not it was previously liberated.

This is completely different from certain Creative Commons licenses, which *ARE* damaging. The "share-alike, non-commercial" CC licenses are particularly bad because the "non-commercial" bit partially circumvents the intentions of the "share-alike" bit. Anyone with an interest in freedom should want commercial products to make use of any free culture in a "share-alike" way. That is the only way that free culture will eventually be able to overtake proprietary culture.

"Share-alike, non-commercial" rules just mean people can't ever make money off derivative works, no matter how much freedom the person (who would be making money) is willing to offer people. These licenses seem designed to promote the lie that free culture can't also be commercial.

Can someone report back to me?

[Bruce Perens]

I am not going to see this yet because I don't have cable. Not much time in my life to view TV. But I'm told I'm in it, and would like to hear exactly how I'm in it. Also, if you work for the beeb, it would be nice to send me a DVD. Otherwise, I'll wait until it goes free and ask someone out on the net for one.

Thanks

Bruce

Re:Can someone report back to me?

[lilo_booter]

You were indeed in it (largely being credited for substituting Free for Open), and I would be happy to send you a DVD or provide a download if you don't already have a copy.

For the record, my take on the documentary was that it was fairly good on the whole (ignoring some obviously glaring mistakes in the voice over), but it gave way too much airtime to the Microsoft spokesman. Worth watching though.

Cheers,

Charlie

Re:Can someone report back to me?

[fbonjour]

Hi Charlie, Bruce,

I waited for Part 2 before posting.

I agree with Charlie, but with one reserve: the main point of the documentary seems to have been to present the possible impact that the lower TCO of FOSS would have on IT in 3rd world and poor countries. Examples included Brazil (where the government has by law to consider FOSS for all public software purchase), India (where a school bus tours some country villages to teach kids computing skills, using FOSS) and Sri Lanka (where the Sahana project for disaster management was developed using FOSS).

As such, I think it was nice and I learned plenty.

However, as a first contact with FOSS, it was pretty bad: rather than making the point of the advantages of cooperation for development and the higher quality of software, the emphasis was almost entirely on the fact that it was much cheaper. I felt FOSS came out as very cheap software, and therefore (as the contrary wasn't specified) poorer quality when compared to proprietary. I think that only one journalist at the end (from The Observer) pointed out that he suspected that FOSS was a better model for large projects such as OSs. OK, there was some positive input (from IBM, Sun and others) about FOSS which wasn't specifically cost-oriented, but given the general aim of the documentary, it was a minor point.

Considering that the documentary included almost Jaywalk-like footage of people who were asked if they heard of FOSS ("FO... what was that again?"), it's hard to imagine that "The Codebreakers" wasn't at least partially directed towards non-technical people who have never heard of Open Source. As was pointed out several times in this forum, and by Charlie, Microsoft was the most quoted company --- although IBM, Sun, HP were quoted once or twice each.

Bruce, you and RMS were quoted, clearly from public appearances in meetings and summits. RMS was shown giving the definition of "free" and you were credited with rebranding "free" as "Open source".

Oh, in case you're interested to know what Microsoft think of FOSS, well first of all it's a big world out there, with room for everyone, and second, they love it, because it's such healthy competition, and it stimulates them to create even better software.

Honestly...

Filipe

The US doesn't get it either... officially.

[stalky14]

In order to get BBC World in the US you have to either:
1. Have a C-band (big) dish and a FTA digital receiver.
      (Currently. It's only non-scrambled by the grace of their hearts.)
2. Have a grey market Canadian satellite subscription.
3. Pirate the Canadian or Central American satellite services.

BBC World is apparently available for US carriers to offer, but
as with most stuff from abroad with actual thought-stimulating
content, US carriers "don't see a market" here for it. Shovel me
some more Fox News Channel please, and turn up my morphene drip
while you're at it. Ahhh. That's better.

Sigh.

Download Available?

[triso]

Will this be available for download after it has aired or is BBC Radio the only one that has downloads?

Broadcast Schedule

[Anonymous Coward]

The days in the first link don't work. By going to the BBC World link you can find local broadcast times. For US Pacific time they are:

Episode 1:
Thurs. 6/11/06 2:30 (AM)
Sat. 6/13/06 18:30
Sun. 6/14/06 0:30 (AM)

Episode 2:
Wed. 6/17/06 12:30 (PM)
Thurs. 6/18/06 2:30 (AM)
Sun. 6/21/06 18:30
Mon. 6/22/06 0:30

Re:Bad job

[Petrushka]

"Share-alike, non-commercial" rules just mean people can't ever make money off derivative works ...

No. that's a misunderstanding. What "non-commercial" rules mean is that the same restrictions apply to people wanting to make money out of the content as would apply if the content were under copyright without a CC licence attached.

Whether there's a CC "non-commercial" licence or not, you have to get permission from the copyright owner to do that.

What the "non-commercial" CC licence does is bestow extra freedoms on those people who don't want to make money out of the content; it doesn't have any effect at all on those who do.

Free documentary? Can someone put up a Torrent?

[KWTm]

If the show is going to be freely available, it would be great to get a copy, by the F/OS BitTorrent protocol, no less -- if simply to send a copy to my snarky relative who says "free" software is for "cheap" people.

Anyone putting up a torrent, or know where a torrent is available?