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BBC accused of forcing people to use Microsoft operating systems |
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Written by Felix Da Silva (fdasilva@bitnip.com)
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Thursday, 28 June 2007 |
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 The accusations against the BBC have been made by advocacy group the Open
Source Consortium (OSC). They argue that the iPlayer will force people to use and purchase Microsoft
products because it will initially only work on Microsoft Windows computers.
This would give the software company an unfair advantage and would be
uncompetitive, they say.
The charge concerns the use of Microsoft technology in the corporation's
forthcoming iPlayer. The web service, set for launch later this year, allows viewers to watch
shows up to 30 days after broadcast. The BBC has said it does intend to allow access to its content from computers
with other operating systems.
BBC stated that,
The BBC aims to make its content as widely available as possible and has always
taken a platform agnostic approach to its internet services. It is not possible to put an exact time frame on when BBC iPlayer will be
available for Mac users. However, we are working to ensure this happens as soon
as possible and the BBC Trust will be monitoring progress on a six monthly
basis.
The OSC says that,
The BBC has a mandate to provide equal access to people irrespective of platform... We don't think it is appropriate to lock people into a particular desktop
technology.The BBC had initially chosen to concentrate on a Windows-based system as it is
the world's dominant operating system.
I love open source and this whole site is open source based using Joomla and mySQL. However, making such threats over such a minor thing as supporting only Windows playable format when it is first launched is silly. Considering that the BBC does intend to let other systems to use the iPlayer in due time.
There is no reason to cater to every tiny format which creates extra costs and risks when it is unsure of its outcome. It is only logical for any company to make the decision to cater to the majority
first and then as it becomes successful, support
the less common formats. Being threatened by a complaint to the EC by doing something that makes business sense is illogical.
It is unlikely that someone will not buy a Mac simply because they cannot watch some videos. In addition, there are ways to run Windows only software on a Mac.
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