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Council of the EU Says "We Cannot Support Linux"
An anonymous reader writes "The Council of the EU has a streaming service so that we can watch its meetings — but the service can only be accessed by Mac or MS Windows users. This is because they employ WMV format for the videos. In the FAQ they express a really strange opinion about this: 'The live streaming media service of the Council of the European Union can be viewed on Microsoft Windows and Macintosh platforms. We cannot support Linux in a legal way. So the answer is: No support for Linux.' An online petition has been set up to create pressure to convince the EU council to change its service to one that is platform independent."
First off, they didn't hire an interpreter (come on, you going to tell me there isn't a properly-qualified English-language interpreter to fix that garbage? Second, whichever Microsoft zealot wrote that page really needs to expatiate on his reasoning. From where I sit, it looks like a blatant lie to cover up for laziness.
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"We cannot support Linux in a legal way."
What's so illegal about a Flash-based streaming player?
I would guess they can't support GNU/Linux in a legal way because they can't offer the codecs. Only parties that have an agreement of sorts or have paid M$ royalties can use it. GNU/Linux doesn't, though distributions like that one that used to be known as Lindows (can't remember the name) comes with closed-source ones.
The petition to urge them to use a platform-independent format is a good answer.
That should be "We're too ignorant to support Linux in a legal way."
thegodmovie.com - watch it
What about Realplayer exactly is illegal? I know it won't solve *BSDs and other *Nix users' problems, but Linux has a realplayer version.
So why again is it illegal to run something that is not MS specific?
Hello, welcome to the new year, we're in the 21st century, not in the early 90s, there's something called "interoperability" that has been growing in the tech world... Time for reality to harvest!
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
Obvoiusly soneone has wanted to point this out, if it's explicitly written on the EU site. At the risk of sounding trollish:
We will not have our legislation locked down in ways that force EU citicens to buy software from one specific vendor. FUCK YOU.
We like to think we're better than the US. Apperarently our legislators are also bought off. If you as an elected politician get your salary from Microsoft Corporation or Apple Computer inc, please report directly to me for your ticket to Baghdad and the Saddam Hussein rope massage. Thank you for your incompetent attempt at running a democracy, please don't come again.
Here's an equivalent argument.
90% of a country's population is caucasian, 6% is black, 3% is oriental and 1% is of other racial groups. The EU suddenly decides that it can only offer services to the majority, how fast do you think people's asses would be nailed to the wall?
They have an obligation to not discriminate between groups of people. By only allowing people using Windows or Mac OS/X to use services, that's discrimination.
Also, those statistics are misleading, since Opera identifies itself as IE by default.
Goten Xiao
When people recommend half-assed or not ready OSS solutions, it hurts the OSS cause. Theora isn't ready to go, it's not even remotely ready. There's a reason why it's still an alpha whereas Vorbis is a full release. It is in no way shape or form a ready competitor to WMV at this time.
It's much better to admit there's nothing that works out there that's OSS than to recommend a poor OSS solution. The reason is that the number one justification against OSS is shoddy quality. You talk to J. Random PHB and the reason they don't want to use OSS is because it's poor quality/not supported. Well, advocating things that are, in fact, poor quality just provides them with ammo for their argument.
Also it can hurt a format to get lots of exposure before it's ready. If everyone's first exposure to Theora is when it's buggy, that idea will form in their minds and later when it's stable, they will still associate Theora = buggy and thus give it a pass.
At this point, we just need to wait on Theora. Vorbis is great, I've no doubt in time Theroa will be its match, however it's not the kind of thing that will happen in a day.
They are a government agency. A business can decide to ignore some potential customers, but a government cannot decide to ignore citizens.
The really funny part of this story is you also can't watch those videos if you've got the version of Windows Vista with media player ripped out due to the EU's antitrust rulings (unless you download media player or some other WMV-capable player, of course). Hah hah.
That's an unbelievably bizarre metaphor - equating operating system support as anything like racial discrimination.
First they (the EU) force MS to marked a version of Windows without media-player... and then they release content that needs that very media player...
Not so fast dude! The last time I checked, no body has ever chosen to be born caucasian, black, oriental or otherwise...on the other hand, there is likely a huge probability that all these folks that do not belong to the "chosen" platform to support actually chose to use the platform. And now, they are clamoring for support! Jeez!
Sorry in advance in case you made an application to whoever created you, to create you the way you are.
From the linked site. It has been relatively easy to get .wmv, .mov, etc. working in Linux for quite some time now. Check out the MPlayer plugin for Firefox. For K/X/Ubuntu or other Debian-based distro users, "apt-get install mozilla-mplayer".
I do agree, however, that all government websites should make their content available platform-independent. But then, that would require common-sense, now wouldn't it?
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
"Why don't we just create a world wide class action law suit against companies or organizations that do not support independent OS architecture?"
The community is not even really asking for *support*; merely to not be explicitly suppressed.
I have a banking site that I must use, which uses the user agent to decide who may and who may not use the web site to pay their bills.
I do not want "support" for my browser, I just want them to stop purposely trying to prevent me from using it. They do *more* work to try to suppress users than they would do to "support" them.
And any banking institution that has IT staff who consider it appropriate to use the User Agent string as part of security, should be approached with great suspicion anyway. This is not some small independent savings and loan -- it is Wells Fargo. The thing is, Wells Fargo's online banking system is pretty good. But their "Financial Services" division is nowhere near at the same level of competence.
Because *I* owe *them* money in this case, it's not exactly like I can choose to walk away. So I sort of have to take it. I'm just waiting for them to accuse me of fraud because instead of using my normal browser user agent string ("Bond/007; UK; Licensed to Kill"), I change it to something close enough to Internet Explorer 6 to get me in. (Great security *there*, Wells Fargo.)
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I guess we're supposed to ignore all the people who have been using Ogg Vorbis+Theora feeds for years (many listed on the Ogg Theora website and instead give in to an argument based on a version name and vague goals of "readiness", or for another overmoderated post in this thread, market presence built on violating the law. We're not supposed to advocate for people using unencumbered FLOSS software to do this job across platforms in a non-discriminatory way. Even according to the open source argument which dismisses social solidarity out of hand (something governments ought not do), discouraging use seems particularly unwise.
Digital Citizen
Same arguement applies here as it does with any other form of computerized documentation. All forms of government computerized documention should be done to open standards so it won't become unreadable when the license is no longer supported by the compan/y/ies that owns the patents. Really now, does anyone in the world want their governments computerized/digitized documentation controlled by some company that controls the patents for the method of storage? Does anyone want their governments documentation in a format that is digitalized by an executable with unknown code written in a country other then your own? Does anyone really want to trust their government or the maker of the file creating software not to include something akin to the SONY rootkit?
Citizens of the world should unite in the cause of demanding that all closed software be removed from all government computers and all government files. Citizens of the EU and other places often throw it up that the US is not as free as its forefathers planned and attempted to maintain with its Constitution and unfortunately too often they are right. Here is a chance for the EU to help lead the way, some of its countries already moving to keep closed formats out of government documents, time to increase that though. In the EU one should not need the permission of a US company to view EU government at work.
But whenever we see some site choose to make new content available in those very same Windows formats, many of the same people who were telling potential new users that all these things were easy on Linux suddenly switch and say that Linux users are locked out.
If we want to get people to use Linux, we have to get our story straight as to what Linux can do!
No, it's not. Using a codec that everyone can play after installing the additional software is better than using one that some people can't play at all.
Besides, it's not as if the Windows users would have to fend for themselves -- all the EU has to do is pick a player for Windows and link to it from their site (maybe write something like "can't see the video? click here"). It's Not That Hard!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
While I agree with your comments re: the suckiness of English (I speak five modern languages, including a couple of the "hard" ones), my comment in this regard wasn't that English should be forced upon anyone - if that page were in Dutch, French, or German, I'd shrug and figure that's where the website is, so the choice of language makes sense. But the fact that these conferences are streamed in wmv-only format and then the entire website is in broken English - that just looks bad. Really, unprofessionally, and given the number of interpreters/translators available to the EU, inexcusably bad. Moral of the story is: if you can't find a good translator for your webpage, write it in your native tongue.
political_news.c: warning: comparison is always true due to limited range of data type
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."