Official Statement Objecting BBC/OFCOM Proposal

“The Linux Foundation, on behalf of its members, would like to
register its serious objections to the current BBC/OFCOM proposal,
which would impose content management controls on new free-to-air
high definition channels. The plan, which involves restrictively
licensing the Huffman codes used in the electronic programme guide,
would have a negative effect on open source applications and would
distort the markets which have built up around those
applications.

“The treatment of Open Source in the BBC document is incorrect
and ignores the severe market distortions that this content
management scheme would produce in open platforms. The use of Open
Source within the market segments that would be affected by the BBC
proposal can be divided into two business models: Proprietary but
built on Open Source and fully open platforms. The HD Freesat
system the BBC used to characterise Open Source falls into the
Proprietary but open category; no analysis at all was attempted of
the fully open category. The failure to look at fully open
platforms leads to an important segment of the market being
ignored.”

Complete Story