[odf-discuss] BBC iplayer DRM linked to XP

[Lars Noodén]

In Finland, YLE has been heading a similar direction with their online
archives.  As far as I can tell it is in violation of Finland's
constitution to restrict access to only the active customers of one
single vendor.

However ...

the current head of YLE, Finland's analog to the BBC, was appointed
during the summer holidays a few years ago at the 11th hour after
several well-qualified and highly experienced candidates were
inexplicably passed over.  The current head has no experience in
broadcasting, media or technology and exhibits no noteworthy
characteristics except for being rather young.   However, he did pull a
two year stint at MS.

I think what would help the situation globally is to do three things:

 * One would be to damper the amount and frequency of the MS articles,
of any nature, churning the press.  Only those of substance need rise to
the surface.  Everything else is just there to saturate the press.

 * Another would be to increase the number of articles, or at least
mentions, of better technologies.  These are becoming diffuse, lost in
the noise and need to be brought to the forefront of awareness.

 * Lastly, it would help to promote awareness of *all* open formats,
with supporting tools, especially open audio formats.  There is too much
confusion and ignorance regarding options.  Openness applies even to
audio and video.  Running WMA/WMV/WMP or promoting the files, adds a
small paper cut to world democracy, which looks like it might die the
death of a thousand cuts. In the same token running WMA/WMV instead of
Ogg or even (the not quite Free) MP3 raises the price of computing by an
ever so slight amount.

Personally, I'd like to see something like the OpenDocument Alliance or
Fellowship or Foundation, but for *all* open formats / standards.
Especially now that MS is attempting yet again to re-define "open" and
the press is eagerly helping.

-Lars

Ian Lynch wrote:
> http://defectivebydesign.org/blog/BBCcorrupted
> 
> Some might consider this worth digging ;-)
> 
> Ian