Alan Pope wrote: > 2009/3/15 Matthew Macdonald-Wallace <[email protected]>: >> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/10/highfield_quits_kangaroo/ >> >> Ashley Highfield (Ex-BBC Iplayer boss) now works for MS. I seem to >> recall that the latest appointee of the BBC's media division is an ex >> MS UK employee. >> > > I wonder how many potential recruits to that role, at that level, with > the necessary experience would also fall into the group "have once > worked at Microsoft". > >> If you use Flash (or AIR which seems to run perfectly on Ubuntu for >> iPlayer and Google Analytics) then cross-platform gaming should be easy. >> > > As a parent I can testify that the _vast_ majority of kids content on > the BBC website is indeed already in various versions of flash. Some > older video is real format but that's gone out of fashion of late. > > Of course neither of those platforms are open, but then if you're > downloading a closed source game from bbc.co.uk, all bets are off in > terms of 'I only want free software on my computers'. Fail at multiple > levels there. > > What the BBC _should_ be doing of course is commissioning new Free > software projects. Rather than having great swathes of code on their > site that nobody can improve upon, and will eventually die off and > become unusable when the various versions of flash, air, real (and so > on) are no longer supported by the vendors.
Sorry but I have to defend the bbc here. firstly bbc.co.uk/opensource - dirac video codec is free software at the beebs hands as is kamelia - the python framework and other things. There are people in the BBC who are doing amazing work promoting free software and open standards within the organisation - this needs to be recognised in discussions like this. One example that springs particularly in my mind: http://welcomebackstage.com/2008/11/george-wright-responds-to-backstage-questions/ There are policy makers and content producers who cause big problems for free software advocates in the beeb - these are the people who writing to people get to (also write to content producers association who are equally to blame for DRM and subsequently Adobe Air etc.) If you have some cool technical ideas though, you might be interested in the BBC Backstage mailing list or the Backstage Idea thingy: http://ideas.welcomebackstage.com/mailinglists http://ideas.welcomebackstage.com/ There are good people in the BBC, lets try and work with them rather than flaming the organisation... :) <teflon suit> :) Cheers Tim -- www.tdobson.net ---- If each of us have one object, and we exchange them, then each of us still has one object. If each of us have one idea, and we exchange them, then each of us now has two ideas. - George Bernard Shaw -- [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
