git ssb

title: > BBC msPlayer date: 2007-09-07 21:52 status: published description: > How the BBC are helping Microsoft maintain their monopoly on the UK's operating systems.

tags: BBC, Microsoft, collusion, Free Software

links:

• url: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_movement
  title: > Wikipedia: Free software movement rel: related type: text/html

<p>
The <abbr class="caps">BBC</abbr> recently launched a video-on-demand service called “iPlayer”. To ensure that copyright violators have to invest more time in copying each video, and to make it awkward for everyone else to view content that they're allowed to view<b><a href="/msplayer/#note1" id="ref1"></a></b>, the <abbr class="caps">BBC</abbr> decided to encapsulate their content in <dfn><abbr class="caps">DRM</abbr></dfn>—officially “digital rights management”, equally accurately “digital restrictions management”. </p>
<aside id="note1">
<p>
<b></b> (This probably wasn't an objective, but it's certainly an outcome.) <b><a href="/msplayer/#ref1">↑</a></b>
</p>
</aside>
<p>
They chose Microsoft to provide the <abbr class="caps">DRM</abbr>, ostensibly a good choice, since Microsoft have proven themselves adept at bundling obtrusive unwanted software along with software the customer actually wants—it was for this reason that they were convicted of operating a monopoly in the <abbr class="caps">EU</abbr>. </p>
<p>
Unfortunately, Microsoft's <abbr class="caps">DRM</abbr> system only works on Microsoft's operating system, Windows; and even then, only on the five-year-old version, <abbr class="caps">XP</abbr>, which has since been superceded by Vista. Oddly, having better <abbr class="caps">DRM</abbr> capabilities is one of Vista's selling points. And it's odd that the British Broadcasting Corporation would choose to anoint Windows <abbr class="caps">XP</abbr> as its favourite operating system, since there isn't even a version of it that uses British English. (There <em>is</em> a Welsh version, because <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/01/24/windows_for_welsh_speakers/">too many Welsh speakers started using Free Software</a>.) </p>
<p>
The <abbr class="caps">BBC</abbr> Trust maintains that it's a good idea to ask a convicted software monopoly to produce software whose purpose is to restrict users' capabilities, and that only runs when using the monopoly's operating system software. </p>
<p>
A petition was sent to the <abbr class="caps">UK</abbr> government to protest against this decision. <a href="http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page13090.asp">They've responded</a>; an excerpt: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>
The <abbr class="caps">BBC</abbr> Trust made it a condition […] that the iPlayer is available to users of a range of operating systems, and has given a commitment that it will ensure that the <abbr class="caps">BBC</abbr> meets this demand as soon as possible. They will measure the <abbr class="caps">BBC</abbr>'s progress on this every six months and publish the findings. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>
—<cite><a href="http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page13090.asp">iplayer - epetition response</a></cite>
</p>
<p>
<strong>Every six months</strong>. They're going to <em>review</em> their <em>progress</em> every <em>six months</em>. The government, the <abbr class="caps">BBC</abbr> Trust and the <abbr class="caps">BBC</abbr> don't seem to understand the pace at which technology, particularly internet-based technology, moves. The length of time it's taken the <abbr class="caps">BBC</abbr> to produce the iPlayer since announcing it is evidence of this. Hopefully such a long delay will harm Microsoft Windows Vista as much as it will harm Free Software. </p>
<p>
The <abbr class="caps">BBC</abbr> shouldn't just make the iPlayer available for <q>a range of operating systems</q>—they should make it <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source">open source</a>, so that <em>anyone</em> with the right skills (or who can persuade someone with the right skills to help them) can make an iPlayer for their operating system. Anyone would be able to improve the iPlayer, and we wouldn't be reliant on the <abbr class="caps">BBC</abbr> to provide fixes for errors. Open-sourcing the iPlayer would <em>instantly</em> satisfy the <abbr class="caps">BBC</abbr>'s commitment. </p>