The NYT's OS-Restrictive Video Policies 223
ro1 writes to mention a story on Linux.com about the NYT's confusing video policies. Essentially, if you're running Linux you can only see videos running on the front page of the site; videos elsewhere on the site require Windows or OSX. Roblimo has a video tour of the NYT site to explain the issue in detail. (Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.)
Funny! (Score:5, Insightful)
*snort* Production? Using vnc2swf does not make you a producer
Seriously tho' - roblimo's correct. It's an utterly absurd situation. A linux user should not have to change their UA string (illegal in some jurisdictions) just to watch videos. Why the hell isn't the NYT checking flash versions rather than OS anyway?
Nicely done anyway - and using flash a little flash presentation is a good way to get your point across to the non-techies around (I imagine even a senior editor at the NYT could understand the problem after watching that video).
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Re:Funny! (Score:5, Informative)
Yes. However, I think I should have qualified it. I wrote that due to something in the wget man page [linuxselfhelp.com]:
However - that item is not in the current version of wget, so who knows.
Interesting hoever, that netscape at least at one point in time claimed copyright on "Mozilla" in a UA string.
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That's total bullshit. You can't copyright a single word. (Trademark is another thing; but many browsers say "Mozilla compatible" and that can't be illegal as there is no attempt to say that it actually IS Mozilla.)
Re:Funny! (Score:4, Funny)
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User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1;
So you are saying that they could be prosecuted in some jurisdictions?
Erwin
Re:Funny! (Score:5, Funny)
I thought if something ever runs on Linux without additional configuration, compilation and hacketry, the universe would implode from the created paradox.
Au contraire (Score:3, Insightful)
The point of TFA is that their site works fine on Linux. They don't have to include Linux in their list of supported systems (requirements) if they don't want to "support" it. "If you are having trouble, please be sure to use a supported browser & media player..."
But what NYT has done here is to make sure that you are having trouble if you use Linux.
It's hard to come up with an analogy here, but what the hell I'll try: A movie theater exhibits 3-D films, and there's a station outside to buy the "appro
Flash Versions (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Flash Versions (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:What's with. . . (Score:4, Funny)
Seems to be standard here, too.
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-1: Off-topic :)
A big, fat, so what. (Score:3, Interesting)
*BugMeNot for example.
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Karma Whoring (Score:4, Informative)
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PrefBar (Score:2)
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If you use that extension, clueless webmaster wins!
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Just about all companies exist to make money. For whatever reason the NYT (and many others) have left out non MS users here. But a few friendly emails and calls can often get that issue reso
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Videos "further down" the site... (Score:2, Funny)
ahem (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but what? All I can see is that their current online video authoring package isn't very good, and they don't want to have people who's OS doesn't support it thinking that there's a bug with their site.
Ok, it's not a good plan to not have it working in linux, but lets be honest, how many of the people working at nyt have anything but windows at their desk? I'm guessing none, with possibly a few macs about the place.
For that matter, how many users will be on linux? Not many I'll wager. Sad, but almost certainly true. Therefore this problem will effect only a very small minority of their readers.
The chances are that most people here use linux (me included). However, we are still in the minority, and we don't have persuasive reps loaded with free pens going round selling authoring packages and other web software to newspapers.
While that's the case, linux will get the short straw.
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Secondly, Linux is Free Software. Not just the operating system core, but graphics applications, an office suite, and so on. Don't underestimate the ability of Free Software to spread once people start to find out about it. See Firefox as an example. I predict that Ubuntu is about to become "cool" and take off in the same way Firefox did. It will happen sooner or later.
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Don't like it? Make your own and set your own restrictions.
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The New York Times does get to decide what goes on their site, but should they be allowed to purposely discriminate against users based on what software they use? I'm not convinced that they should be allowed to.
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Frankly with all the antidiscrimination laws being passed right and left (at least in my country), I am worried that soon there will be special "marriage quotas" or something similar,
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In this case, I'm suggesting that the NY Times has a moral responsibility to treat everyone THE SAME way, though! You're confusing two separate issues.
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Whatever the reasons, this is discrimination. Their intent does matter, but the results of their actions matter more. The discrimination should be pointed out to them, and they sho
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could they discriminate against black people ? against white poeple ?
against homosexuals ? against lesbians ?
against christians ? against muslims ?
it's their site, right ? for a taxi driver, it's his taxi. for a restourant owner it's his restoran. and so on.
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As a matter of fact, a restaurant owner can (and soetimes will) throw out obnoxious patrons or refuse access to street bums. Do you have a problem letting people do what they like with their own property?
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second, throwing out somebody from a restaurant usually is based on behaviour. i'd like to see you throwing out people based on their skin colour or religious beliefs. or try throwing out disabled people. as, you know, it's your property.
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Anyways, I would probably not discriminate against people based on the
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BTW stake burning is so demodé... I like a clean, quick kill, preferably involving the usage of snipers.
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Firefox is a web browser, which requires minimal upheaval to change on a normal person's system. You run the installer, you can import your bookmarks and history over with another click. Done.
Ubuntu is a whole operating system, which requires backing up data, repartitioning data and various other tasks which the average home user would have a ridiculously hard time doing. Not gonna happen
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From TFA..and yes, even from TFS, videos on the NYT's site's front page work just fine under GNU/Linux/Firefox/Macromedia Flashplayer Plugin. If they have a current online video authoring package that is good enough to produce videos for all on the front page, why not use it on the rest of the site?
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By not supporting standards and by intentionally crippling operating systems that can deal with their site, I'm fully convinced there is a bug with their site. Can't they just stop putting energy into doing this crap?
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I'm sorry, but what? All I can see is that their current online video authoring package isn't very good, and they don't want to have people who's OS doesn't support it thinking that there's a bug with their site.
Did you even watch the video? The whole point of it is that the video player does work on Linux, since the videos on the NYT front page work. There are no technical reasons why the videos are not displayed to Linux users, only (one has to assume) political.
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It will be their package of web services/application that has that message. I imagine that it isn't certain to work on linux, so they just said it won't ever. Then they won't (or rather hope they won't) have problems when it doesn't work.
They have a subscriber service too. So if the subscribers didn't get such a warning, they might get all legal if stuff doesn't work.
America is the land of improbable warnings after al
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That is how that pathetic format without multi layered files, auto speed negotiation etc. is still relevant to people.
OS X people are somehow forced to use a third party plugin these days, Flip4Mac WMV. While it is coded much better than that carbon monster having Tiger issues and PPC only (wmedia player for mac) you can't expec
realmedia (Score:2)
Realmedia works in linux and windows, with no problems at all. I don't get the hatred of it at all.
Ok, there was a time when Real were awful, and their programs were intrusive and horrible. I bought realjukebox once, which I rather liked, and that freed me from advert land, but they renaged on their contract/cha
That's not surprising. (Score:2)
NYT's target audience... (Score:5, Funny)
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Apparently this is NYT's way of saying that if you're smart enough to be using Linux, and diligent enough to go beyond the front page, then New York Times isn't meant for you! It could be their strategy to cater to only the dumber sections of the poulace, perhaps?
Hell, I'm surprised to hear that they even have video content. They are a newspaper, after all.
And I don't care because I don't want to waste my time with video news content even where I expect it, like cnn.com.
Effort & Priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems as though they have their priorities a little backwards.
Stupid f**king people these days.
Re:Effort & Priorities (Score:3, Insightful)
Just to quash any rumors to the contrary... (Score:5, Informative)
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The latest Internet Operating System Usage survey revealed yesterday was not without surprise: the Linux Operating System, a free project maintained by a community of volunteers around the world, saw its usage percentage drop from 1.5% to a stunning 0.0%. This is a unexpected turn-around for the open-source community and a severe blow to what was previously considered an increasingly popular product.
The survey also showed an increase in popularity of the Opera bro
Why do this? Let them know! (Score:2)
If you don't like their policy, don't work around it. Let them know their policy stinks and should be corrected.
I personally hate the NYTimes. I don't want to register and log in to see a new web page, so I don't go there. They don't get my eyeballs for their ads, and google news almost always has the same story somewhere else.
They have a ton of email addresses listed at:
http://nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/infoservd irectory.html [nytimes.com]
Some include:
publisher@nytimes.com
managing-editor@nytime
Yes it's all annoying, very annoying (Score:2)
we can see videos on the front page blah blah blah blah blah
now we go in the video section *rants*
now we go to the front page: we can watch videos blah blah blah
now we go in the video section *rants*
but we go on the front page: we can watch videos blah blah blah
now we go in the columnist's video section *rants*
repeat for more fun.
or you could've just took that smug toned video of
I too am getting sick of this (Score:2)
It is very aggravating to try to watch some flash video and only see parts of it because whomever created it did so using Flash player 8 or 9. Flash player 8 has been out for at least a year now, and Flash 9 has subsequently been released for windows and osx. Why no new Linux Flash player?
Now, after visiting this site with and without the "Switch User Agent" and being blocked when it was set to Firefox and allowed when set to IE6, I too can see that there seems to be no technical reason for blocking Linux
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On the other hand, "they are a service", not a right. They can configure and handle their site as they see fit. If t
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I agree with the parent, that, while it's obviously rediculous to compare Walmart+birth contr
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Walmart doesn't sell the after morning pill, Preven. They do sell normal pre conception birth control pills.
Don't know about you, but my HMO (HealthNet) lets you order Rx though the mail, often giving you 3 refills for the cost of 2 and ship it for free. Most of these sites give the same discount if you don't have perscription coverage.
They are currently selling it in any state with a law saying they have to and do not sue for relief from those laws. Illinios and Mass have such laws.
Why do they do this... (Score:3, Interesting)
The answer is: They are assholes, idiots, lazy, in bed with Microsoft, or some combination thereof.
Personally I get left out of video sites all the time because I choose to use an older version of Windows (because I can). These sites will kindly tell me that they only "support" running on a PC with Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Yet sites like Google Video work perfectly for me.
What really blows my mind are old sites that check your UA to make sure you are running "Netscape", although spoofing the UA in Firefox usually lets it work fine.
I follow the Firefox bad site reporter data at http://reporter.mozilla.org/app/ [mozilla.org] and it boggles my mind how many sites are like this.
Every site has a personality (Score:4, Insightful)
But is it shrewd? A radio station wouldn't make it _hard_ to tune in their broadcast because that would be counterproductive to the value of their station for ad revenue, right?
Yet internet streamers often act like every copyrighted word from their announcers is archive gold to be sold and resold for decades and they would be insane to allow access to a program like mplayer where the savvy user knows how to save their invaluable content. Well, I've got a shock for them. What they often stream is no more valuable than what is being broadcast on the radio or TV and people are no more likely to save every byte than people are to tape radio or TV all day. And, sadly, it may be that if ad revenue can't pay for stream, perhaps stream isn't a useful medium?
Now that I've got my MythTV setup running and MythStream compiled in, I can see that proprietary embedded streaming isn't going to cut it for me. EVEN IF they accommodate something like linux RealPlayer, in the living room I'm going to be listening to stations where I can add a static URL to my MythStream page and click on it with a remote.
What about this (Score:2)
That said, does it make sense that they do the check in one place but not the other? I mean, why do what a lot of other people do and certify against a
Other figures in the art project (Score:2)
Lee DeForest created the triode, for which he deserves credit. However as an inventor, he was a fiddler and a bit of a hack. His strength was in using the patent system and legal system to crush his competitors.
DeForest filed a patent that infringed on Armstrong's superheterodyne receiver patent, which made high quality long distance audio transmission possible. The courts, unable to understand the engineering involved, were unable to render a def
Re:NY Times, or Linux? (Score:5, Insightful)
How does any client side bug set their policy. Their policy clearly leaves out Linux users, and I am refering to their system requirements page. Also, how would they go about detecting a bug with the clients Linux/Flash player in the first place. This seems like an if-else where Linux falls into the else.
The only real question is if this was purposely done or not. I myself have seen my fair share of website that simply do not combinations of Linux and non-IE browsers for no obvious technical reason.
In the NY Times defense however, it's their site, they can do what they want, provided they give their Linux using subscribers a refund on their subscription fee.
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I'm not convinced that's the case. If I own a carpark, should I be allowed to turn away people based on what car they drive? If I own a hotel, should I be allowed to turn away people based on their religion? I don't think so.
The NYT website is a website being made available to the general public. Is there a reason why they should be allowed to discriminate against certain people based on something irrelevant?
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Why not? If you think you can make more money by only letting people driving Lexus, Beamers, and Mercedes in and charging $10/hr since you keep the riff-raff out, I'd say go for it.
If I own a hotel, should I be allowed to turn away people based on their religion? I don't think so.
You *should* be allowed to. That you're not is just one more example of a bad law.
The NYT website is a webs
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If I own a carpark, should I be allowed to turn away people based on what car they drive?
Yes. You have the right to run your business however you want, given that:
If I own a hotel, should I be allowed to turn away people based on their religion?
Generally, no. There's areas you aren't allowed to discriminate, and religion is one of them. There's exceptions, of course - the boy scouts at least used to require faith in a monotheistic religion, for example - but it's best to stay away from it unles
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The Boy Scouts are not a commercial entity. That's why they can "get away" with it.
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The point is that videos from the front page do work fine under Linux. So there is no reason to prevent other videos from working.
Re:NY Times, or Linux? (Score:4, Insightful)
I recommend letting the NYTimes know you're not happy about them not supporting Linux (and preferably Ogg Vorbis/Theora) in a language that everyone can understand...
president@nytimes.com; publisher@nytimes.com; public@nytimes.com; feedback@nytimes.com; clarosa@nytimes.com; schools@nytimes.com; wedinfo@nytimes.com; society@nytimes.com; nytnews@nytimes.com; executive-editor@nytimes.com; managing-editor@nytimes.com; news-tips@nytimes.com; the-arts@nytimes.com; bizday@nytimes.com; foreign@nytimes.com; metro@nytimes.com; national@nytimes.com; sports@nytimes.com; washington@nytimes.com; editorial@nytimes.com; oped@nytimes.com; circulation@nytimes.com
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Whereas using Ogg would be discriminating against the majority of people that have no idea what an Ogg is, let alone a Vorbis or a Theora, or how to play it. It's not nice, but the NYT have to make some tradeoffs when implementing video. I'd reckon that giving the tiny percentage of users using Linux and its horribly horribly broken Flash plugin the finger is wor
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resident@nytimes.com; publisher@nytimes.com; public@nytimes.com; feedback@nytimes.com; clarosa@nytimes.com; schools@nytimes.com; wedinfo@nytimes.com; society@nytimes.com; nytnews@nytimes.com; executive-editor@nytimes.com; managing-editor@nytimes.com; news-tips@nytimes.com; the-arts@nytimes.com; bizday@nytimes.com; foreign@nytimes.com; metro@nytimes.com; national@nytimes.com; sports@nytimes.com; washington@nytimes.com; editorial@nytimes.com; oped@nytimes.com; circulation@nytimes.com
Uh, HUH. Because spammi
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Rich
Re:Wow. (Score:5, Interesting)
I call shenanigans!
Re:Wow. (Score:5, Insightful)
What does it tell you when your bank only supports the least secure browser and won't do business with people who prefer more security?
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Why should everyone just meekly accept everything that is thrust upon them?
Re:Wow. (Score:4, Insightful)
So obviously it is such a common problem that it is one of the first things they say. Hopefully this message will filter through to the higher-ups there and they are (considering?) working on a solution.
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they do that anyway... credit scoring... "no, you can't have an account with us... you're too poor... you don't borrow enough... you pay off your credit cards in full every month... you defaulted on a loan six years ago..."
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I Kid You Not (Score:2, Interesting)
"Yes," I admit quietly, just in case some hicks are listening and might want to drag me behind their pick-up truck or otherwise hassle me for my alternative lifestyle choice.
"The thing is," the personal banking unit explained, "the Apple computers have such a small
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Well, here's the problem. What she really meant was "it seems like every third person who wants to do online banking and has an online banking problem that causes them to come in here and complain has an Apple."
In which case, the group she's talking about is a non-representative sample, because it's oversampling Apple users and undersampling Windows users.
vote with your wallet (Score:2)
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Most service websites that are not f
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Both of those would depress the number of alternative OS and browser users. You also have to factor in the number
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Situation if they didn't block linux: only people with bad or esoteric configurations whine.
Please advice how the first option is better? Remember that NYT is not obligated to "support" anyone any more than they do now (do you think they don't get calls from windows users with fucked computers all the time?)
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That might make sense, but there's just one problem: they did invest extra time on Linux. It's not like some whiney bitch is crying "waaah, they don't suppport my OS." If they had not spent extra time, it would have worked and there would be no story. They went to extra trouble to check the User Agent string. Get it?
BTW, it's amusing that you link to a UA "statistics" page on a story about how people h
Re:Big deal (Score:4, Insightful)
IT'S THAT SIMPLE!
Uhh... yeah, thanks, but it's not really THAT simple.
Are you religious? Yes, no? How would you feel if you got barred from a restaurant based on whether or not you're religious?
What sort of car do you drive? How would you feel if you paid for a carpark but then got turned away because they don't accept your type of car, despite the fact that you could easily have fit into one of the parking spaces?
Re:Big deal (Score:4, Funny)
So then just put "I'm a catholic" (or whatever your religion is...) into your user-agent, and when NYT's videobot refuses you, sue away!
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You said that you don't mind a restaurant requiring a jacket. What if they required a jacket, but if you're wearing a particular brand of jacket, and they decide to exclude that one? That's a more accurate analogy, in this case.
Gettin
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You prevent some Linux users from complaining about videos not working by making videos not work for ALL Linux users? That doesn't really make sense.