Canada's CBC - Powered By OSS

Otter Escaping North writes "Blake Crosby's Under the Hood column on CBC's website recently discussed how almost the entire site is powered by open source software. It's great to see a government-funded agency making frugal technology decisions, and even better to see them trumpeting the benefits of doing so."

Comments

Now for the media content

[bignickel]

As a Canadian taxpayer I'm thrilled to see so much OSS in use at the CBC. Now they just need to focus on non-proprietary file formats for their content (Windows Media is still king - at least for my regional radio). However, Ogg is an option for the national radio broadcast, and the always excellent Radio 3 Podcast. Now, we only need to get rid of Freestyle...

The fact that the CBC uses OSS.....

[8127972]

...... Likely has more to do with their lack of funding:

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.h tml?id=b07beeab-4ad7-4fba-a2d7-f223bc16cd70&k=5921 2

Re:The fact that the CBC uses OSS.....

[Kimos]

Or they'd just rather spend the funding they do have on content and journalists, rather than software...

IMHO what makes this interesting isn't money, it's that a huge technology-centric organization like the CBC can use OSS and that it works great!

Re:Hardly Praise

[Goose42]

Yes, overall the CBC's ratings are lower than other Canadian networks, but the CBC has a drastically different audience than any other Canadian network. Would CTV or Global air something like The Nature Of Things (one of the greatest science documentary shows ever created) during primetime? Or spend the money to make it in HD? Hell no. Does any other major corporate network (radio, TV, or otherwise) give a crap about independant music in Canada? Hell no. But the CBC does, and the massive success of the Radio 3 podcast is proof of that. Its not so much a corporate network as it is a public service. Being that they're partially funded by tax money, they have a duty to give to the widest possible base of viewers. Even though they're loading up on the reality shows, they're still dedicated to The Nature Of Things and their documentaries (hell, they even have a whole cable channel dedicated to them).

As well, CBC News is still considered to be some of the best in the business. CBC Newsworld is by far the best news channel I've ever seen, and George Stromboulopoulos's The Hour is truly amazing.

While they may be losing out on some major bids due to lack of funds, that doesn't really matter as much to the CBC as it would to a completely corporate network, because the advertising dollar isn't their sole bottom line.

As for Corner Gas, that's CTV, not CBC.

Re:Hardly Praise

[hey!]

I don't know about CBC, but you could say similar things about public television in the US, which is mainly privately funded. Public TV doesn't have the ratings.

But...

Most of the innovation in television programming in the US comes out of PBS.

Would there be a cooking channel without Julia Child? Home improvement shows without This Old House and Crockett's Victory Garden? The History Channel without a long tradition of shows like The American Experience and of course Ken Burns Civil war? A Disocvery Channel without Nova? Even reality TV shows have their origins in public broadcasting (albeit the PBS versions were considerably more high brow).

Sure, you may like Discovery Channel better than Nova (I don't), but the fact is people don't invest in something like that until the know it's going to be popular.

Somebody has to dare to be unpopular, even if it's because they're stuffy and pretentious.