[ubuntu-uk] BBC won't support Linux

[Alan Pope]

2009/3/15 Matthew Macdonald-Wallace <matthew at truthisfreedom.org.uk>:
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/10/highfield_quits_kangaroo/
>
> Ashley Highfield (Ex-BBC Iplayer boss) now works for MS.  I seem to
> recall that the latest appointee of the BBC's media division is an ex
> MS UK employee.
>

I wonder how many potential recruits to that role, at that level, with
the necessary experience would also fall into the group "have once
worked at Microsoft".

> If you use Flash (or AIR which seems to run perfectly on Ubuntu for
> iPlayer and Google Analytics) then cross-platform gaming should be easy.
>

As a parent I can testify that the _vast_ majority of kids content on
the BBC website is indeed already in various versions of flash. Some
older video is real format but that's gone out of fashion of late.

Of course neither of those platforms are open, but then if you're
downloading a closed source game from bbc.co.uk, all bets are off in
terms of 'I only want free software on my computers'. Fail at multiple
levels there.

What the BBC _should_ be doing of course is commissioning new Free
software projects. Rather than having great swathes of code on their
site that nobody can improve upon, and will eventually die off and
become unusable when the various versions of flash, air, real (and so
on) are no longer supported by the vendors.

Even if the games were developed as closed source but cross platform
that would be a step in the right direction, although not far enough.
Games such as "World of Goo", "Darwinia", "DEFCON: Everybody Dies" and
simpler games such as "Neverball" show that it is possible to create
compelling cross platform games which don't require the budget of
EA/Warner/Sony etc to do it.

Cheers,
Al.