For those living in the UK, the BBC is....

[easuter]

...planning to provide on-demand TV service, but only for Windows users.
There is a petition you can sign that may help prevent that from happening, here:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/iplayer/?showall=1

The BBC plans to launch an on-demand tv service which uses software that will only be available to Windows users. The BBC should not be allowed to show commercial bias in this way, or to exclude certain groups of the population from using its services. The BBC say that they provide 'services for everyone, free of commercial interests and political bias'. Locking the new service's users into Microsoft Windows whilst ignoring those members of society who use other operating systems should does not fit in with the BBC's ethos and should not be allowed.

And at the end of the page:

Because there are so many signatories, only the most recent 500 are shown on this page.

[Triarius Fidelis]

A damn shame they limited the petition only to British citizens.

[carsten]

A damn shame they limited the petition only to British citizens.

S much for the United European Community 

[Triarius Fidelis]

Not to mention Americans. Unless the service is limited to British citizens, they should have opened it up to everyone, like the Sveriges Radio Ogg Vorbis petition. Actually, it should be open either way.

(If you haven't signed the latter, please do. It has only reached 393 signatures thus far. )

[Colonel Panic]

I've signed I recommend that not only Vectorites, but users of all other non-Windows OSes, do the same.

[Lyn]

A damn shame they limited the petition only to British citizens.

Its a Downing Street thing.  This is how it is designed by No 10.

[tomh38]

So ... the iPlayer is a Windows proggie and you can only watch these BBC shows if you have it installed?  What format are they using?  I wonder if anybody will get this thing to work under Wine?  I know that's not an ideal solution, especially considering the BBC's mandate, but it might be a decent stop-gap.

[wcs]

I'm wondering about the format as well...

Their current video streams in BBC news are available in wma and real formats if I'm not mistaken. That has been great to watch in VL 5.8, though I remember having to install Real Player (Helix) in VL SOHO 5.0.1, because the mplayer plugin wouldn't do it. That already pissed me off: given that I paid £130/year for the TV license and that money goes to the BBC, it would certainly be nice of them to use non-proprietary formats...

[Lyn]

You will get no disagreement from me on that!  Its a publicly funded body that has a brief to be inpartial.  That should also go with not having a lock in to any one other company in providing services.   I have signed the petition and urge all others in the UK to do likewise.  I suspect for people abroad it may be a bit more complex as the BBC is looking for ways to make money from non license payers. 

[wcs]

Those that signed the petition must have received the government's reply by now.

The Government set up the BBC Trust to represent the interests of licence fee payers, and to ensure good governance of the BBC. The BBC Trust has responsibility for ensuring that the correct degree of scrutiny is given to all proposals from the BBC Executive for new services (such as the iPlayer) and any significant changes to existing services. To fulfill this duty, the Trust conducted a Public Value Test on the BBC Executive's proposals to launch new on-demand services, including BBC iPlayer. This included a public consultation and a market impact assessment by Ofcom. In the case of the iPlayer, following the consultation, the Trust noted the strong public demand for the service to be available on a variety of operating systems. The BBC Trust made it a condition of approval for the BBC's on-demand services that the iPlayer is available to users of a range of operating systems, and has given a commitment that it will ensure that the BBC meets this demand as soon as possible. They will measure the BBC's progress on this every six months and publish the findings.

That's GOOD! If it's true.

[saulgoode]

The BBC Trust made it a condition of approval for the BBC's on-demand services that the iPlayer is available to users of a range of operating systems, and has given a commitment that it will ensure that the BBC meets this demand as soon as possible.

The question remains: how long is 'as soon as possible'? The original BBC proposal suggested a two-year 'grace period' for the Windows-only format -- the government's response doesn't even commit to that.

I hope that the government takes cross-platform compatibility seriously, it would be even better if they endorsed/supported open formats such as Theora and the BBC's own Dirac.

[wcs]

The question remains: how long is 'as soon as possible'?

True... I guess I shouldn't be overly optimistic about this.

To be fair, I don't even know if I would use it as much. It's just a matter of principle.