[ Thanks to steve
hill for this link. ]
“It’s never nice to hear about the demise of a
piece of simply brilliant software. when I discovered that
get_iplayer was being pulled by its developer I was, to use a
cliche, gutted. The potential loss of a piece of software that did
just what it said on the tin is bad enough but it was impeccably
free and open. What’s more, it was an example to the BBC
about how things should be done. It was the work of one lone,
unpaid developer, not the product of professional developers
subsidised by the BBC licence. What happened exemplifies everything
that is wrong with proprietary software.“For the benefit on non-British readers I should explain that
the BBC has an excellent website and it includes the iPlayer which
allows visitors to view BBC audo and video content in their
browser. When it was launched it was, surprise, Windows only. As
many licence fee payers were also GNU/Linux users, they were
enraged that they had effectively been excluded from the
experience. BBC FUD ensued. Eventually though, lobbying and
petitioning paid off and the BBC enabled the iPlayer for platforms
other than Windows. You needed (and still need) (Adobe) Flash to
view the video content and the content was encumbered with DRM and
was not yours for keeps. It was only a thirty-day visitor to your
hard drive.”