[Wolves] LRL Mass Debate - BBC Guidelines

[Chris Fox]

Zeth Green wrote:
> They have two years of Windows-only DRM.
> 
> I think our approach should be to work on getting a firmer commitment
> of what they will do when the two years are up. I also think we should
> try and get them to actually say the word 'Linux'. Otherwise in two
> years they might present a quicktime extension or something.

(getting a little out of the scope of a LUG discussion but never mind)

Even that's a shortsighted approach though.

What about *BSD? Amiga? RiscOS on the old BBC micro? $randomOS etc etc etc?

The whole approach of proprietary DRM - and indeed proprietary 
codecs/software - is that it's naturally exclusive to one degree or 
another. I admit that in practice it's an unavoidable problem, but I 
think it's one that needs to be recognised.

In reality, the BBC has throughout its history shown a willingness to 
innovate and I agree that getting them to acknowledge the Linux issue 
directly is a big part of the battle.

I honestly have no idea whether it's even possible, but I would guess 
that the only solution would be an open source DRM system. Unfortunately 
  I think that the OSS community would have to practically deliver a 
totally finished product to the BBC - with implementations in Linux, OSX 
and Windows - in order to convince them.

Unfortunately, with the current climate in parts of the OSS community of 
"Defective By Design" and "ewwwwww DRM ick ick bad bad", I can imagine 
that getting this done will be an even bigger stumbling block than 
getting the BBC to adopt it.

Chris