On Fri, 2010-01-08 at 20:29 -0500, Marcel Rieux wrote: > Because of DRM, it even seems unsure the BBC itself will use it: > > <http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/dec/22/bbc-drm-cory-doctorow> Interesting, but the usual journalistic hyperbole. "the BBC is trying to leverage its broadcast licence into control over the devices that can receive broadcasts. That is, in addition to deciding what shows to put on the air, the Beeb wants the power to decide what kinds of tellies and set-top boxes will be able to display and record those shows – and it wants the power to control the design of all the devices that might be plugged into a TV or set-top box. This is an unprecedented amount of power for a broadcaster to have." Um, no, that's not unprecedented. It was how television was invented. I'm not saying that it's necessarily a good or bad thing that the BBC might try to mandate a specific design, now. Though it might well be a good thing if one organisation, a broadcaster rather than electronics manufacturer, sets the pace. "DTLA licenses a wide variety of devices to move, display, record, and make limited copies of video. Which programmes can be recorded, how many copies, how long recordings can last and other restrictions are set within the system. To receive a licence, manufacturers must promise to honour these restrictions." No biggy, but it's always overlooked that you do have to restrict dissemination of your material. You make it, you sell it, you pay people and fund more productions with the profits. The restriction doesn't have to be absolute, though, merely reasonable. "Steps must be taken to ensure that the code running on the device isn't modified. Failure to take adequate protection against user modification will result in DTLA approval being withheld or revoked. "This is where the conflict with free/open source software arises. "Free/open source software, such as the GNU/Linux operating system that runs many set-top boxes, is created cooperatively among many programmers (thousands, in some cases). Unlike proprietary software, such as the Windows operating system or the iPhone's operating system, free software authors publish their code and allow any other programmer to examine it, make improvements to it, and publish those improvements. "... But free software is bad for DTLA compliance." But, bulldust... It's perfectly feasible to produce all that's required to receive and display the video in open source, and have the decryption managed by a standard closed source gadget somewhere in the appliance. We manage it with plenty of other things, including hardware devices for analog and digital television built from ordinary electronic parts, bar the special bits. -- [tim@localhost ~]$ uname -r 2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686 Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists. -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
