Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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."

3 of 125 comments (clear)

  1. 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. 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.