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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."

8 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. Great Microsoft quote FTA by mustafap · · Score: 5, Funny

    "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.

    --
    Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
  2. i like this part from TA by mapkinase · · Score: 5, Informative
    Following its ten transmissions on BBC World the documentary will be available copyright-free for broadcast throughout the world.


    good job, lads.
    --
    I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
  3. Re:Code Breakers = Breaking or Broken Code? by Billosaur · · Score: 4, Interesting
    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.

    --
    GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
  4. 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]
  5. 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...
  6. Quoted out of context ... by molarmass192 · · Score: 3, Funny

    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!

    --

    Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
  7. UK don't get BBC World?... by Manip · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. 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"?