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BBC Trust Will Hear iPlayer Openness Complaints

Posted by kdawson on from the tv-without-internet-explorer dept.

AnotherDaveB writes with a Register story reporting that the BBC Trust has asked to meet with open source advocates to discuss their complaints over the corporation's Windows-only on-demand broadband TV service, iPlayer. The development came less than 48 hours after a meeting between the Open Source Consortium and regulators at Ofcom on Tuesday. Officials agreed to press the Trust, the BBC's governing body, to meet the OSC. The consortium received an invitation on Wednesday afternoon.

4 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. It's ironic... by bri2000 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...that the BBC download system won't work on Macs given that every BBC technical bod I know (and I know quite a few through my sister and her husband who both work in post-production there) is a complete Mac obsessive.

  2. Re:e-Petition (please sign it) by AndersOSU · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is anyone laboring under the impression that e-petitions do anything?

    I think it is hard to make a case that the standard paper petitions are effective, but it at least shows that the organizer is dedicated to the cause, and probably some respectable percentage of the signatories at least agree a little.

    With an e-petition, the organizer spends what, all of 15 minutes working on a petition, and who are the signatories? Are they even citizens, are they the same guy 30,000 times?

    I will never sign an e-petition. I may even start an e-petition to make my case to all those e-petition zealots that me, and probably a few dozen other people wont' stand for more e-petitions. We'll go so far as to enter our email addresses on a web form to show our solidarity. But then again it might just be too much work.

    Finally, why in the world would I trust the organizer of an e-petition with any information about my self? Seems like a great way to harvest spammable information. If I don't have to enter any information, how do you know I'm a real person?

  3. Re:What can they really do? by Ilgaz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Real Networks warned open source community about future potential problem with DRM, it got covered on Slashdot and they got flamed instead.

    Yes, they have a working DRM solution for almost everything you can imagine. Millions of Verizon etc. phones are using their software already to play purchased music. Of course, this happens because the WOKE UP and saw the power of open source, created Helix community offering their millions dollars worth patents for free to GPL projects.

    I also heard BBC other Windows Media DRM vendor is not so happy with feedback they get from the users. Azureus'es "Media center" like version (Vuze, 3.x) already sells BBC content in Wmedia DRM. Imagine a Java 5/6 application which works exactly same on 3-4 completely different operating systems is "prisoned" to Windows DRM solution to make money. Would you be happy? :)

    There the BBC Content: http://www.vuze.com/channel/bbc

    Vuze runs on anything with modern Java but can't "sell"/"rent" legal content because of the format (Wmedia DRM) is hostile to any OS other than Windows. Now they are attempting to create same thing.

    There is a waiting scandal there for Professional IT media. If any left...

  4. Here's an idea that could make them money... by dduardo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here's an idea that could make them them money and make us happier:

    Why don't they use a flash based video player like NBC, ABC, etc.

    If they detect that you are from the UK they show you the videos WITHOUT ADs. If you are outside the UK they show you the videos WITH ADs based on your country of origin.

    Everyone gets to watch their content and they makes more money though AD revenue. A win-win in my book.