I was just reading an article about a possible holt to the iPlayer application being launched by the BBC to enable licence payers to access BBC TV programs online.

The OSC has complained that the BBC should launch this service on an open source platform and not lock people into a Windows only platform and would therefor want to holt its launch if it continues on a Windows only platform.

What gets me a bit angry even though I can understand the point of the OSC is that a hell of a lot of money (licence payers money) has been spent on this player. To holt a version that would target most of the BBC's viewers anyway because a few people are a bit unhappy that it won't work on Linux or the Mac is a bit over the top. The BBC does have a plan in place to release a Mac version of the player later on. I can understand why the BBC has taken this approach it makes more sense to target the biggest users of a platform first then move to the second biggest platform and so on.

While I also understand that "The BBC has a mandate to provide equal access to content " regardless of platform, as long as the BBC has a roadmap for this to happen, this should fulfil this need, however it should not require the ripping out of something that has taken time and money to create. The point that the BBC is planning a Mac version is quite clear that a user is not being locked into a platform. While I like Linux as a server product (and use it as such) I am not a big fan of it as a desktop product.