Save the BBC from Windows DRM!

I can't believe they'd just throw away their sterling reputation - and for what? The DRM and Microsoft?? What are they thinking of? They should remember their two core duties: ensure their independence and ensure high standards of openness and transparency.

A note to our UK friends on LXer: make noise about this.

From a Canadian who loves the BBC and the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation).

Quoting:LONDON (AP) -- A software lobby group is campaigning to highlight the role of software giant Microsoft Corp. in the British Broadcasting Corp.'s digital media strategy by petitioning Great Britain Prime Minister Gordon Brown to address the issue.

The Free Software Foundation, a Boston-based open software lobby group, has registered a petition on the prime minister's Web site with around 13,000 signatories, and plans to mount protests outside two of the BBC's offices next week, according to its Web site.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070803/microsoft_bbc.html?.v=1

Thanks henke.

If I may add:

Quoting:The former director of Microsoft's Windows digital media unit, is now a BBC new media strategist.

Translated: The guy who put the Disabling & Restricting Malware (DRM) in Microsoft, now has to decide about which video-formats the BBC uses, and who may watch and who may not.

We have to keep an eye on this; the last words here will probably not been spoken soon.

Same with Finnish Yleisradio. The new boss is an ex-Microsoftie, and he has already denied that this has anything to do with Yle's choice of WMV as their preferred format ;-(

"No I didn't stop beating my wife"

mvermeer, any links? That's pretty alarming, IMHO.

Ah, so it's Jungner you were talking about. Still, any links to the denial stuff? Should be a funny read, that one.

Wow. I read this stuff and my conspiracy flag goes up. Was Huggie Bear planted by Microsoft?

>I read this stuff and my conspiracy flag goes up.

For this you don't need any conspiracy flags. This is pure blatant show of power.

>Was Huggie Bear planted by Microsoft?

Huggie Bear is a Cylon, planted to keep us all off guard. Hutch was also a Cylon. Starsky was just annoying.

Quoting:any links?

Tried to search, but the best I could come up with was a Swedish text from Yle itself. I can't read Finnish, you see, but I can understand Swedish a tiny bit while reading.

Here's what they had to say about WMV:

Apart from MPEG4, it's the best format available, it's supported by four different gratis players - WMP, Flash, Realplayer and Quicktime player, and those players together enable WMV on a lot of platforms: Both Windows, Mac as well as Linux, and therefore the majority of the people can use it. (please take into consideration this is my first SE=>EN translation, so it may suck a bit)