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BBC Trust to Meet With OSC Over iPlayer

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the open-to-suggestions dept.

Virgil Tibbs writes "With the Launch of the BBC's iPlayer imminent, the BBC trust has agreed to hear the Open Source Consortium's concerns regarding the BBC iPlayer's tie in with Microsoft's software. The move by the BBC to use Windows Media DRM & their apparent lack of commitment towards other platforms has caused outrage in many circles and prompted several online petitions."

9 of 125 comments (clear)

  1. Whats the Problem?? by Deviate_X · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The BBC said they are going to look at other platforms later. They are just making downloads available to the vast majority of the people who paid for it first, this is normal.

    This is like 4oD and SKY Anytime which currently only work with Windows XP (not even Vista). I'm sure they will be updatiung their software for at least Vista and Mac soon enough. It not like they said NO is it!

    1. Re:Whats the Problem?? by FrostedWheat · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The BBC said they are going to look at other platforms later

      The problem is that as far as the BBC is concerned 'other platforms' == 'Mac'. They've only ever referred to the Mac when talking about non-Microsoft platforms, something I believe they are doing deliberately.

    2. Re:Whats the Problem?? by mccalli · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The BBC said they are going to look at other platforms later. They are just making downloads available to the vast majority of the people who paid for it first, this is normal.

      I simply don't believe them though. They claimed they'll report 'within two years' and have already said that timescale is unrealistically short. You also have the head of the project making anti-Apple comments, and Linux hasn't even got a mention.

      By tying themselves to Windows DRM, they've closed all their options off already. Microsoft won't be porting this to any other system, so it's a dead end as far as portability is concerned. With that background, I cannot see how they'll ever make this service available on other platforms.

      Cheers,
      Ian

  2. Bed partners by Skiron · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Being English, and having to buy a TV licence*, I think what the BBC are doing with licence payers money borders on being illegal. You cannot take money from people then bar them from the purpose of that licence - this is definitely MS driven with the BBC in cahoots with them (remember, the BBC is a very similar monopoly like MS and allowed to be by the Politicians 'in hand').

    Nick
    * Not having a TV licence in the UK is very serious - you will be hounded incessantly and even get visits by the BBC licence people late at night (MIBS). The onslaught of not having a TV licence is very similar to deliberate tax evasion, but worse.

    1. Re:Bed partners by WIAKywbfatw · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You cannot take money from people then bar them from the purpose of that licence - this is definitely MS driven with the BBC in cahoots with them (remember, the BBC is a very similar monopoly like MS and allowed to be by the Politicians 'in hand').

      Where to start...

      Firstly, the BBC has a charter that it must abide by. While I, like you, would like to see the BBC develop its online content across as many platforms as possible (including MacOS and Linux) I think it's important to realise that making content available to everybody on every platform is not in the charter.

      If the BBC were to roll out content that required a certain platform or (even platforms) then it wouldn't be in breach of its charter: if I wanted to access the content on BeOS, or OS/2, I don't have the "right" to demand that the BBC makes it happen.

      While I have no doubt that it will eventually make content available on the big three (Windows, MacOS, Linux) there's nothing to stop the BBC making its first steps on one of the platforms only.

      You'll notice that the BBC has several DAB-only radio stations. Well, just because I don't have a DAB radio, I'm not entitled to demand that those radio stations are made available to me via the analogue airwaves, am I?

      Secondly, the BBC is not a monopoly. There are dozens of other TV broadcasters in the UK, dozens of other radio broadcasters and hundreds of news websites. The BBC may be the only one of them to benefit from the TV licence but it's not a monopoly.

      --

      "Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
    2. Re:Bed partners by The+Cisco+Kid · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You miss the point.

      As far as your 'DAB radio' comment, sure, you need a 'DAB radio' - but you dont need any specific brand of one. The specification for that type of broadcast is fully and clearly documented, and anyone that has the appropriate skillset could build one. BBC doesnt design their content for specific brands of hardware, they comply with a public spec, and anyone is free to implement it. They should do the same with all their content, and they should be software neutral as well. They shouldnt be designing software either for one OS only, *OR* for multiple ones, they should be producing shows, and broadcasting/distributing them in formats that are publically documented that anyone can write software to display.

    3. Re:Bed partners by The+Cisco+Kid · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The Digital Restrictions Management *IS* the problem. If they would just make plain Mpegs (or AVI's, or whatever) available, the entire problem of having to choose what 'platforms' to support goes away.

      When BBC broadcasts over-the-air, there is no requirement that only Brand X TV's are able to receive the signal, and Brand Y VCR's are unable to receive it and record it to tapes which can subsequently be copied. Why does there need to be this requirement for shows transmitted over a packet network?

      Neither hardware nor data should be locked to (a) specific brand(s) of software.

  3. Re:Online petition, oh noes! by EveryNickIsTaken · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I believe the DVD sales, moreso than a petition prompted the movie. Hell, high DVD sales are what prompted the return of Family Guy and the pending return of Futurama.

  4. What's more interesting.... by Danathar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Is that alternate computing platforms have finally started to gain enough clout that those choosing Microsoft only solutions will have to think twice about ignoring non-windows platforms.

    3 or 4 years ago choosing a windows only solution would not cause you any pain. Increasingly, for popular internet multimedia sites, choosing a Windows only solution is more likely to cause you pain.

    I consider this a good thing.