"No taxation without iPlayer representation" ?
Hate to point it out but several points being missed here - especially by David Webb on this page, but also by FSF and others.
1) The BBC has a duty of care to license-fee payers - all of them, not just those who have chosen to use Windows XP and Internet Explorer. Imagine the brouhaha if only Sony televisions could receive BBC1, only Samsung panels could show BBC 3 content (ok, so very few would notice that .. )
2) The point about keeping content within the licence-fee domain is a valid one, Mr Webb, but not in the way you made it: within the license-fee paying community there is an obvious, clear and undeniable requirement to have access to BBC content made equally available to all license paying households. Those who do not pay the license fee could be offered a purchasing option per programme / series / month (whatever .. ) but those within that community should ALL be able to access ALL content that anyone else within that community can access. It is not for the BBC to choose what operating system or what browser the UK population should use because of market forces - to which it is exemplt, otherwise one cannot justify the license fee. If a license fee rebate were available for those who do not fall within a very prescriptive technical specification.
3) If the BBC forces users to accept Windows XP and Internet Explorer to view iPlayer, then I hope their helpdesk is up to supporting the entire UK, free of charge, when IE breaks other things on the PCs because of the updates required to install iPlayer. (a) It breaks LOTS of things - several video playback formats, all perfectly legal, now complain about Windows Media Player versions; lots of websites no longer appear properly as Internet Explorer can't understand W3C standards. (b) If the BBC insists on IE and WinXP and WMP upgrades in order to view taxpayer funded content then there is a clear and undeniable moral obligation on them to either (i) fix ALL of the problems that this combination causes for ANYONE who is a license payer, or (ii) stop with the BS about it only working on those platforms.
4) Mr. Toner;s comments about being in testing and so on are all very well, but I do not recall the prime time news coverage of the launch mentioning "this is a beta product and will probably break more than it fixes". It does, by the way; four separate security products moaned like whatever at the installation. One said spyware, one said virus, other two said "suspicious". That is just downright careless - both lazy testing and bad project management by the commercial team looking after iPlayer; that team should've ensured before launching even a beta that it did not have characteristics that would lead it to be classified as a threat.
5) Mr Toner again - thankyou for adding to the anti-freedom ( and I mean that in an Amnesty sense, not an FSF one) suspicion that is so easily levelled at big business (not just Microsoft, but why keep being such an easy target!). "few geeky conspiracy theorists" is a perfect example of slander the opponent when not having a logical response to the argument. This is not about Linux vs Mac vs Windows vs Solaris vs BSD vs whatever, it is about those who pay for programmes being able to watch them, rather than middle management at the BBC choosing what segment of their audience should watch them. To continue the Sony / Samsung analogy and take it to where you have taken it: those who are ABC1C2 can watch all of the channels but those who are C2DE can't get BBC4 "because we don't support your environment".
6) To Mr Edwards:
Get a grip. Do you only pay road tax if you drive a Ford or a Vauxhall, no - everyone pays. So what if motorways were declared to be only open to Fords and Vauxhalls? That's what is happening here; this is not a debate about operating systems - which would be a perfectly valid debate and does not benefit from abusive comments - but a debate about the use of taxpayer's money and about the correct behaviour of a publicly funded, tax-levying organisation that has decided - WITHOUT public debate of any note - to choose to close it's motorways to anyone who doesn't drive a Ford or Vauxhall.
NB: To Ford, Vauxhall and to anyone who drives either they were the first examples that came to mind, sorry!
PS £10 says iPlayer's DRM will not last the summer. Then again, neither will the sunshine probably .....
PPS if it does, and it is proved a success and i still can't watch stuff without my security software moaning about threats and suspicious programs, can I have my license fee back please.