FOSS documentary on BBC World 100
Zoxed writes ""A two-part documentary, 'The Code Breakers' will be aired on BBC World TV starting on 10 May 2006. Code Breakers investigates how poor countries are using FOSS applications for development, and includes stories and interviews from around the world."
The first part is screening tonight on BBC World."
Great Microsoft quote FTA (Score:5, Funny)
Must have had his fingers crossed behind his back at the time. Still, it made me laugh.
Related quote (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, and a skunk seems harmless enough until it releases its foul scent.
Re:Related quote (Score:2)
Hah, yeah no doubt.
Wait, who's the skunk then?
Re:Great Microsoft quote FTA (Score:3, Insightful)
Must have had his fingers crossed behind his back at the time. Still, it made me laugh.
There's nothing to laugh about, everything he said is true:
- The open source community is very active
- They feel good about it, since they "leverage" a lot of open source code (read: they
Re:Great Microsoft quote FTA (Score:2)
I have to agree. There a large number of great FOSS projects, but I can't say I see that many innovative ones. I can't see anything to compare to, say, the work of Xerox developing GUI systems or Smalltalk.
Re:Great Microsoft quote FTA (Score:2)
"I have to agree. There a large number of great FOSS projects, but I can't say I see that many innovative ones."
Er... you can't be serious. You know that thing called the World Wide Web, the massively revolutionary technological change that has proven to be the way that most people interact with the Internet? Almost entirely FOSS. And how about the really unique and original permutations that allowed for the creation of online communities, like wikis and blogs? All originated as FOSS projects.
And then t
Re:Great Microsoft quote FTA (Score:2)
It wasn't invented in a FOSS environment. The first web browser ran on the NeXTSTEP platform - proprietary UNIX, using their Objective C language.
And how about the really unique and original permutations that allowed for the creation of online communities, like wikis and blogs? All originat
Re:Great Microsoft quote FTA (Score:2)
All right slashbot, freeze! This is the stupidity police. Put DOWN the KEYBOARD!
Theft is a legal concept. Otherwise you're just "taking" something. Therefore there is no such thing as legal theft.
In addition, if it's licensed so that anyone can use it, then clearly the copyright holder[s] intended that people should be able to use it.
Finally, unless you are taking the only copy of a work, intellectual property cannot be stolen because an integral p
Re:Great Microsoft quote FTA (Score:1)
So which one is it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Unbelievable. actually.. not.
Re:So which one is it? (Score:2)
At least you should get your quotes right. It's the GPL that Ballmer sees as a cancer, not eopen source in general.
Re:So which one is it? (Score:2)
Write your own innovative code, protect it as you wish and do not be a whiney child, Mr. Ballmer. You have your copyright on your code, Mr. Stallman have his own copyright.
And government has a right to invest in the projects that benefit the population of the country. It has subsidized non-profit and profit organizations for that purpose.
If you do not like government involvement, Mr. Ballmer, go to Russia - the country that has (o
Quoted out of context ... (Score:4, Funny)
"... unless those FOSS projects are using that commie bastard cancerous GNU GPL license. Great, now you've gone and made me say GNU. ARGH! I said GNU again!"
It's humor people!
Re:Great Microsoft quote FTA (Score:1)
15:30 The Code Breakers.
That's 3:30pm!!!. Anyone going to BitTorrent it for those of us (OK, almost all of us) that actually work????
Re:Great Microsoft quote FTA (Score:1)
News at 7:
The BBC says that FOSS isn't ready for the 'prime time'
Re:Great Microsoft quote FTA (Score:1)
Code Breakers = Breaking or Broken Code? (Score:1)
Even though it may sound better to the masses, it does seem a little misleading to what the documentary is actually about.
Re:Code Breakers = Breaking or Broken Code? (Score:5, Interesting)
At first I thought it was a documentary about Bletchley Park [wikipedia.org], where the Allies broke the German Enigma cipher.
Perhaps they are refering to the "code" of buying all your software from Microsoft, which certainly could use some breaking if not downright thrashing.
Re:Code Breakers = Breaking or Broken Code? (Score:2)
Re:Code Breakers = Breaking or Broken Code? (Score:1)
Hmmm...
Re:Code Breakers = Breaking or Broken Code? (Score:1)
i like this part from TA (Score:5, Informative)
good job, lads.
Re:Bad job (Score:2)
Have you read the GPL? Firstly, it isn't an appropriate license for artwork. Secondly, copyleft is what lays down what it means to truly liberate something. The GPL leaves strings attached.
I means you let them use it *for anything they want*, no restrictions. *at all* BBC doesn't meet that. It totally violates the spirit of the open source movement.
The BBC isn't in the open source business, so they violate nothing at all. They happen to be able to produc
Re:Bad job (Score:2)
Re:Bad job (Score:2)
This is completely different from certain Creative Commons licenses, which *ARE* damaging. The "share-alike, non-commercial" CC licenses are particularly bad because the "non-commercial" bit partially circumvents the intentions of the "share-alike" bit. Anyone with an interest in freedom should want commercial products to make use of any free culture in a "share-alike" way. That is the only way that free culture wil
Re:Bad job (Score:2)
No. that's a misunderstanding. What "non-commercial" rules mean is that the same restrictions apply to people wanting to make money out of the content as would apply if the content were under copyright without a CC licence attached.
Whether there's a CC "non-commercial" licence or not, you have to get permission from the copyright owner to do that.
What the "non-commercial" CC licence does is bestow extra f
BBC World separate from BBC (Score:2)
Re:BBC World separate from BBC (Score:2)
Hmm, and I'm trying to work out if there's any way to actually see this content here in the UK... It looks like possibly there isn't, how ironic
Re:BBC World separate from BBC (Score:1)
Re:BBC World separate from BBC (Score:2)
Doesn't look like it's on Astra or EuroBird.
The Beeb are not allowed to advertise in the UK, so they would have to strip the ads, but it still seems crazy that you can't see some BBC content in the UK.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:i like this part from TA (Score:2)
Also consider, people sharing a residence (read:students) have to pay the tv licence per head. Four people in one residence means £480 a year; and everyone in the reside
Re:i like this part from TA (Score:1)
Re:i like this part from TA (Score:2)
There are people like this. I doesn't matter whether or not you believe that it's possible that somewhere where you can't see it, people are watching Sky Movies and not watching BBC.
and you're saying 120/yr is too much for these people?
It could be. You're not allowing them to make the choice. Just because someone can afford something, doesn't mean that it's ok just to charge them because you can. They may not watch the BBC; they may not want to. Right now we
Re:i like this part from TA (Score:1, Flamebait)
At £34 per month (£408 year) for Sky Moves the £120 per year doesn't seem too bad + you don't get any advertising on the BBC channels. The TV tax only has to be
Re: (Score:2)
Re:i like this part from TA (Score:2)
(I'm a UK resident, with a fully paid up TV licence)
To my mind, 120 ukp is too much and I think they shouldn't have been allowed to just raise the licence fee to pay for a load of
Re:i like this part from TA (Score:1)
Re:i like this part from TA (Score:1)
Can someone report back to me? (Score:2)
Thanks
Bruce
Re:Can someone report back to me? (Score:2, Informative)
For the record, my take on the documentary was that it was fairly good on the whole (ignoring some obviously glaring mistakes in the voice over), but it gave way too much airtime to the Microsoft spokesman. Worth watching though.
Cheers,
Charlie
Re:Can someone report back to me? (Score:1)
I waited for Part 2 before posting.
I agree with Charlie, but with one reserve: the main point of the documentary seems to have been to present the possible impact that the lower TCO of FOSS would have on IT in 3rd world and poor countries. Examples included Brazil (where the government has by law to consider FOSS for all public software purchase), India (where a school bus tours some country villages to teach kids computing skills, using FOSS) and Sri Lanka (where the Sahana project
Until now? (Score:2)
Until now? I mean this is on the BBC, which isn't just a major news source in the US or Britain, but the entire world. The continual adoption of Open Source software by developing countries is starting to give me hope that we might actually have a chance of escaping the Monocrosoft empire.
Re:Until now? (Score:5, Insightful)
You can escape already now, as long as you are willing to make some sacrifices like having to explain to family members why the you haven't played the fantastic game that they emailed to you as an
Re:Until now? (Score:2)
Re:Until now? (Score:2)
Re:Until now? [OT Vernor Vinge] (Score:2)
Re:Until now? (Score:2)
Re:Until now? (Score:2)
From the Linux Journal LJ Index, June 2006:
Percentage of local authorities using Linux in the UK: 33
Percentage of local authorities using Linux in France: 71
Percentage of local authorities using Linux in Holland: 55
Percentage of local authorities using Linux in Germany: 68
Local authorities using Linux in the US is probably in single digits, which represents a horrib
They said what? (Score:2, Insightful)
"Intel, IBM, Sun and Microsoft all seem to agree that FOSS is a welcome presence in computer software."
Shared Source maybe, but FOSS?
Re:They said what? (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/li censingbasics/sharedsourcelicenses.mspx [microsoft.com]
Re:They said what? (Score:2)
Re:They said what? (Score:2)
While they are at it they might as well start making some code etc. contributions to the $100.00 notebook project or at the very least allow their staff to volutarily participate if the choose to do so.
Re:They said what? (Score:2)
Re:They said what? (Score:2)
Checks Moon - Not Blue Yet.... (Score:2)
Hehe...
Actually, I did smile at this bit from the article:
"Intel, IBM, Sun and Microsoft all seem to agree that FOSS is a welcome presence in computer software."
Oh, how loaded can a statement be?
Re:BBC promoting communism on it's propaganda outl (Score:1)
Long overdue and bloody obvious! (Score:1, Informative)
"Much of the role of open source in the development of the Internet is well known: The most widely used TCP/IP protocol implementation was developed as part of Berkeley networking; Bind runs the DNS, without which none of the web sites we depend on would be reachable; sendmail is the heart of the Internet email backbone; Apache is the dominant web server; Perl the dominant language for creating dynamic sites; etc."
--Open Source Paradigm Shift
by Tim O'Reilly
June 2004
Alright la
Sendmail (Score:2)
Personally I dumped it for Postfix at the first opportunity, as did most other people I know. It just seems so much more painful to use.
I guess migrating a large enterprise from one to the other could be quite a bitch, so there's a lot of inertia to keep with what you know, but I'm just curious if Sendmail's time as one of the "killer apps" that drives the internet is waning.
My apologies if I start a flamewar here...
UK don't get BBC World?... (Score:5, Interesting)
A little ironic don't you think... Kind of like the yanks not getting something created by ABC or Fox but letting the rest of the world have it.
Re:UK don't get BBC World?... (Score:1)
Re:UK don't get BBC World?... (Score:2)
No, BBC World is a commercial TV channel broadcast mainly from Television Centre in West London. BBC World Service Radio is funded by the foreign office, and is broadcast mainly from Bush House in the centre of London.
Re:UK don't get BBC World?... (Score:1)
Re:UK don't get BBC World?... (Score:2)
BBC World is not available there.
But this is not all that unusual. Here in the Netherlands there is a similar channel (BVN) that is available on Astra, Hotbird and other satellites all over the world but cannot be received on cable or terrestrial DVB.
About the only difference is that satellite dish owners here usually have their dish pointed at Astra1 at 19.2 East so they can receive BVN.
Re:UK don't get BBC World?... (Score:1)
BBC World is a commercial channel and receives no license fee money. Many programs are broadcast on World and on normal BBC Channels (Top Gear, Click, joint overnights when maintenence is going on in either N24 or Worlds studios), appropiate finance arragements are made.
Re:UK don't get BBC World?... (Score:2)
Re:UK don't get BBC World?... (Score:1)
Re:UK don't get BBC World?... (Score:1)
Re:UK don't get BBC World?... (Score:2, Interesting)
BBC World is a commercial channel, funded and run completely seperatly from the normal BBC news (although staff are shared, BBC World pay for this). The BBC charter doesn't allow it to be broadcast in the UK.
Of course the competition argue that the license fee subsidises BBC World, which it arguably does.
You're not missing much, besides it is available in the UK, point you sat dish to an appropiate satelite.
Re:UK don't get BBC World?... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:UK don't get BBC World?... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm absolutely certain of it. The first three Web sites I hit for international news are:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/ [bbc.co.uk]
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/ [timesonline.co.uk]
http://news.google.com/ [google.com]
Tremendously different slant on many issues than staying with US domestic news. Also some very clearcut cases of biased reporting in US media (not just the horrible Fox News). In f
Re:UK don't get BBC World?... (Score:1)
Well, International became European (UK based), then Nordic, and now, since recently, it's national. With a healthy dose of guaranteed-to-sell US/international artists, obviously. And of course it's 50% "Pimp my ride" and "Cribs" now... International doesn't seem to even be on cable networks. MTV2 is, though.
Re:UK don't get BBC World?... (Score:1)
The US doesn't get it either... officially. (Score:1)
1. Have a C-band (big) dish and a FTA digital receiver.
(Currently. It's only non-scrambled by the grace of their hearts.)
2. Have a grey market Canadian satellite subscription.
3. Pirate the Canadian or Central American satellite services.
BBC World is apparently available for US carriers to offer, but
as with most stuff from abroad with actual thought-stimulating
content, US carriers "don't see a market" here for it. Shovel me
some more
Free documentary? Can someone put up a Torrent? (Score:2)
Anyone putting up a torrent, or know where a torrent is available?
Re:UK don't get BBC World?... (Score:1)
that title is awful! (Score:2, Insightful)
The Code Breakers
I could scream in agony! this sounds like it was about crackers, thieves, reverse software engineers that break the law and infringe patents!
lets say tv-magazines write this title and the word "FOSS" - then people who read this, but don't watch the ducumentary will think FOSS was something criminal!
thank you very much for this FUD, BBC a.k.a. broadcasters of copyrighted media
Re:that title is awful! (Score:1)
Re:that title is awful! (Score:2)
Re:that title is awful! (Score:2)
Re:that title is awful! (Score:1)
Of course you can't quite put MS in the title without getting a lot of heat.
Normal disclaimer, these views are personal and not that of IOSN or UNDP-APDIP.
Re: (Score:1)
Microsoft Windows Free in Poor Countries (Score:1)
Go to any market in the third world and you can buy these software products for about $1 a CD.
It's not the software you buy in poor countries as much as it is the CD. The software on the CD doesn't matter.
BBC America? (Score:2)
Download Available? (Score:1)