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FOSS documentary on BBC World

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the here's-something-for-your-eye dept.

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."

3 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. So which one is it? by loconet · · Score: 3, Insightful
    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.

    --
    [alk]
  2. Re:Until now? by MarkByers · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    I'll probably be modded down for this...
  3. Re:UK don't get BBC World?... by quincunx55555 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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"?