More than 10,000 people have signed an e-petition on the 10 Downing Street website urging the BBC to make its iPlayer available to non-Windows users.
At the time of writing, 10,006 people had signed the petition calling for the prime minister to instruct the BBC to provide the iPlayer for other operating systems, such as Linux or Apple's OS X.
iPlayer is the BBC's online on-demand television service which was launched last month. It will be available for public download on 27 July — but only for Windows XP users.
At the launch of the iPlayer last month, Ashley Highfield, director of future media and technology at the BBC, said: "I'm fundamentally committed to universality. We're not favouring one platform over another."
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He added: "Our general rule of thumb is to reach the biggest audiences first."
A BBC statement said it is in the corporation's interests to make its content as "widely available as possible".
The BBC added that developing a version for Apple Macs and Microsoft Vista is "absolutely on our critical path for this year".
Open-source industry group, the Open Source Consortium has been invited to meet the BBC's independent governing body — the BBC Trust — to discuss its concerns about the iPlayer.
Talkback
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/iplayer/
I notice Channel 4's offering 4OD is also a Windows only affiar.
Channel 4 are not funded by a mandatory license and do not have all sorts of fair play and public service mandates. Ch4 are funded by advertising. I pay them nothing. I pay the BBC the licenses fee. I object to paying for a service that requires me to buy another operating system to use. This (and a number of other aspects of this case) is out of character for them and the people within the Beeb who think this is a good idea, need to be .. erm .. realigned !!
if the BBC wasted tax payers money to reach a tiny % of the market.
Paying the licence does NOT guarantee you can receive BBC programmes merely that are legally allowed to.
Just a bunch of geeks with no understanding of the commerical world. and yes the BBC is commercial regardless of its funding
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And what *is* the market for something like the iPlayer?
Certainly *not* the plain old desktop Windows(TM) PC. If you are at home, where are you going to watch TV? On your Windows(TM) PC, or on your TV?
No, by far the bigger market for something like the iPlayer is:
Portable Media Players (Apple 70-80%, others 20-30%, Microsoft 0%)
Mobile phones (Everyone else 94%, Microsoft 6%)
Consumer electronics devices (eg Tivo-like - and here *Linux* has more market share than Microsoft).
The 'market share' arguments sound a little hollow unless you subscribe to the 'whole world is the PC' religion that Microsoft have been trying to inflict on everyone and appear to have succeeded with certain individuals within the BBC.
No, it simply doesn't add up, and someone in the BBC needs to figure out a much more convincing story than they have so far because more and more of the world has *smelt a rat*...
Thats probably an argument for an itunes version, which I suspect the BBC will do next (strangely still not Linux)
So you concede that there should be an easy way to port the core player code to other architectures. This they will not achieve by use of Microsoft specific codec/DRMs. This way leads to them having to have a different download file for each of the different architectures and codec/DRMs that they support. My license fee would then be paying for a whole pile of maintenance and support headaches.
I also find it amusing that you write the Mac crowd off as "a tiny % of the market". The Mac was shoved into 3rd place by desktop Linux a while ago now, with desktop Linux having half as many seats again as Mac.
Also, don't forget that the current strategy does not include Windows 98, or Windows Vista.
Mac's a small share of the market probably worth investing in
Linux outside the geek community its zero % of the market
BBC should be spending money based on that market share,
if it can expand 95% windows coverage to linux for an extra 1% of investment sure go for it however disproportional spending is a waste of tax payers money, the BBC is NOT required to reach 100% of license payers, when analogue signals get switched of I doubt it will even reach 90%
Wow :-) So the "Geek community" is not worth the license fee to cover eh? If your comment was even logical I might take the offense you presumably intended!
The idea is to create a standard that can be worked to by whoever wants to build an iPlayer. There will likely be a chunk that will have to come from the Beeb for the actual DRM component .. while they still need it.
So who do you think will be doing the developing for this then Mr. "Long Number"? Will it be the graphic designers pumping away on their Macs? Marrrrp! Wrong answer.
Not by committees
Microsoft is the world standard on desktops (not mobile devices)
Beeb has already said it will be coming up with a mac version (suspect written by Microsoft)
Linux sales zero linux relevance to public bodies zero
Is your theory that if you miss out the pesky link words that the reply will be so short that I don't notice the yawning great gaps in your logic?
You really do need to study this subject a little more closely before making such ill thought out comments. If your logic was followed we would not have GSM, digital TV, the Internet etc etc.
Microsoft's once total grasp on the desktop is slipping away increasingly fast. Macs are making a resurgence. Linux is rising hard. It goes like that in the IT industry. Once the first pebble slips off, the whole scree goes with it. Viz Big Blue.
Finally, your amazing assertion that if you don't pay a license fee for a piece of software then you cease to exist. If you like I can dig up a raft of links to articles about the mounting number of public bodies who have turned over their server AND desktop to Linux. I'm sure the folks who sign in every day on a Linux desktop would be a little confused by your assertion. Me? I just wonder how much Microsoft UK is paying you .. and whether they want a little more in terms of cogent argument for their money.
It's up there with the Cornish Independance party when it comes to relevance in the real world.
Microsoft made record profits , the % of PC's sold that have it on is sitll 95% , Macs 5% Linux 0%
And yes consumers pay for things, if you don't pay you don't count
Linux is nothing more than a cult
Biggest single user of Microsoft products in the world, its the NHS 1.3 million licence for 6 years
Did someone beat you up with a Linux install disk when you were a child or something? You seem to have a real chip on your shoulder about this!
> What dream world do people live in when they think
> open source is taking off
Maybe you need to wake up from your nightmare and check out reality .. Linux and OSS is taking a rapid hold in both the public and private sector. It's not a matter of debate, people are using it and are displacing Microsoft installations to do so.
> It's up there with the Cornish Independance party when
> it comes to relevance in the real world.
Then I guess it is a matter of perception then. To those in the Cornish Independence Party, it is very relevant. To those outside Cornwall, it isn't. If you live in a world immediately encircled by Microsoft software, then you actually have to look around to see the truth. If you can't bring yourself to do that for some reason, then you won't see it.
> Microsoft made record profits
.. on a function (the OS) that has been done and done and done, so why do we need to keep paying them for it. Imagine if half the cost of your car was royalties to the inventor of the internal combustion engine ...
> the % of PC's sold that have it on is sitll 95% ,
> Macs 5% Linux 0%
I would ask you to validate those figures if I wanted to embarrass you. You completely missed the chunk of the market that comes with no OS at all. You also miss the chunk that is sold with Windows and then cleaned off and reinstalled with something else. The vendors would be happy to sell them bare metal but Big Bill has them tied down to simply tax every machine sold, with or without Windows.
> And yes consumers pay for things, if you don't pay you
> don't count Linux is nothing more than a cult
Nothing really to debate on that point. Debate and discussion requires something of substance to counter. Nothing to go at in that one. You don't like Linux for some deep seated psychological reason, so you have mapped it out of your reality and then reinforced that blind prejudice with pejorative terms like "Cult".
> Biggest single user of Microsoft products in the world,
> its the NHS 1.3 million licence for 6 years
Mmm .. great value for money that isn't. The bulk of the terminals could just as easily be running Linux as Windows, but we, the tax paying general public, have to send our money across the pond to do something that could just as soon be free.
We know you don't like Linux .. which is your choice of course. I'm afraid though, that doesn't mean you can just map it out of existence. It *does* exist. People *are* using it every day at work. Yes, currently, Microsoft has the bulk of the market share, but the official figures *do* show that that share is shrinking.
History teaches us that when market share starts to fall in the IT industry, it doesn't turn round again, it just keeps on falling.
So, other than "Waah waah, Linux is a poo pants" is there anything coherent to come, or are we done here?