On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 10:32 PM, Tim Dobson <li...@tdobson.net> wrote: > Alan Pope wrote: >> 2009/3/15 Matthew Macdonald-Wallace <matt...@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. > > Sorry but I have to defend the bbc here. > > firstly bbc.co.uk/opensource - dirac video codec is free software at > the beebs hands as is kamelia - the python framework and other things. > > There are people in the BBC who are doing amazing work promoting free > software and open standards within the organisation - this needs to be > recognised in discussions like this. > > One example that springs particularly in my mind: > http://welcomebackstage.com/2008/11/george-wright-responds-to-backstage-questions/ > > There are policy makers and content producers who cause big problems for > free software advocates in the beeb - these are the people who writing > to people get to (also write to content producers association who are > equally to blame for DRM and subsequently Adobe Air etc.) > > If you have some cool technical ideas though, you might be interested in > the BBC Backstage mailing list or the Backstage Idea thingy: > > http://ideas.welcomebackstage.com/mailinglists > http://ideas.welcomebackstage.com/ > > There are good people in the BBC, lets try and work with them rather > than flaming the organisation... :) > > <teflon suit> :) > > Cheers > > Tim > > -- > www.tdobson.net > ---- > If each of us have one object, and we exchange them, then each of us > still has one object. > If each of us have one idea, and we exchange them, then each of us now > has two ideas. - George Bernard Shaw > > -- > ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/ > Yes, I don't think all of the flaming towards the BBC is entirely justifyable in the case of the Adventure Rock game/virtual world. Yes, it is proprietary, that's bad. Also, it isn't multiplatform, that's bad. However, would it have been possible to create such a thing in an entirely FOSS manner? For a start you couldn't use Directx, which many games are built upon. From looking around a bit it appears to use an engine shared with a belgian game of a similar style, written by Larian studios. Now presumably this was used as a basis for the Adventure Rock game, it certainly looks similar and Wikipedia claims they were developed in collaboration. How much would it have cost to write from scratch in a FOSS manner, or using an existing FOSS engine? There is project darkstar, but that isn't really a complete solution, and doesn't appear to be ready for primetime. According to various sources, the cost of the game is £250,000, which is a splash in the BBC's budget. It is also not that expensive in game terms.
Additionally, according to the BBC, the project seems to be part of a trial, so spending a large amount of time writing their own would have been too expensive/difficult. Mj -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
