Evil Home Stereo

I took a mental note to write something on the topic ARD vs. BBC and Open Source and openness in general some time ago but never got around to actually do so. Until now. Why now? Because of BBC’s attendance at linux.conf.au. Why in English? Well, on the one hand because I can. On the other because I’m an attention whore and want it to appear on the Planet

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, ARD is the joint organization (most of) of German broadcasters under public law. As always, Wikipedia can tell you more. It’s financed by fees collected from anybody who owns a radio or a tv. All in all, it’s similar to the BBC. The main difference being that it’s not a single company but rather a federation of more-or-less independent entities. The main similarity? Same as between Germany and the UK I guess, both are rather conservative and slow in adopting changes. Especially in technology and transparency.

Both are taking first steps in the right (as defined by me) direction: The iPlayer might be a Windows-centric mess, but it’s a start. The ARD is working on a similar thing, called the Mediathek. I hope it will be better than the one the ZDF (the other German broadcaster under public law) opened to the public. (I just noticed that you can search it now, that’s a new feature.) Oh, and the ARD got a bunch of podcasts plus some kind of software called Podcast Mixer.

And there my praise stops and the complaints start (I wouldn’t be German if I didn’t find something to complain about, right?).

Don’t get me started that only a handful of radio programs are available as podcasts, everything else is just streamed (at least not in RealMedia anymore, but in MP3 and sometimes even Ogg). The really interesting stuff often isn’t available for download. Like the N-Joy Soundfiles and the full Zündfunk shows. (Hmm… seems like radioeins has a nice archive though.) Ok, most of the other stuff isn’t worth it anyway. But I’ve paid for it, so it would be nice if it was available. And don’t tell me about broadcasting rights, not in times where Amazon sells MP3s without copy protection and you can listen to full songs on Last.fm. If the podcast is interesting I’d even listen to the commercials on my MP3-player!

At least the people at ARD and ZDF think about releasing content as “Open Source”; whatever they mean with that, I hope they have a look how the BBC did it.

But, back to technology, the stuff which got me started. Remember that software Podcast Mixer? Well, obviously the ARD paid somebody to create it. Wouldn’t it be just fair if the source was available then? Maybe I could even port it to Linux and use it then. Ok, bad example, there’s a lot of better software freely available already. But there’s also a lot of other software created at the ARD as well.

I once worked for the NDR (the northern member of the ARD) and had to write a tool to implement access control for USB-devices under Windows. The team I worked at created a really easy-to-use tool to create, install, and auto-configure Windows images, all based on some Linux distro and Partimage. I had loved to use it at some other places I worked since then. And somebody else was working on an administration tool all the time, can’t remember what it was supposed to do. But all those people (including me) were payed by a public entity. By people’s money.

The same is actually true for government-created stuff as well, projects like LiMux are a start but definitely not enough. But I’ll stick with broadcasting for now.

In contrast, look at the BBC. On their website they’ve got their own Open Source area. And don’t be surprised if you search CPAN and stumble upon a Perl module created by a user called BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation). Well, I was, but I’d be even more surprised if there was one called ARD.

And have you ever heard about a blog called ARD Radio Labs? Nope, me neither, but BBC Radio Labs. (Hmm… seems like they’re still streaming with RealMedia, point for the ARD here.) blog.tagesschau.de is a start, but not comparable to a whole, well, let’s call it a Planet.

What else is there?

I heard the BBC managed to make DAB quite popular in the UK, by broadcasting some programmes digital-only. The ARD was just cut short of funds for digital radio by the KEF, the committee responsible for the ARD’s finances.

I read that 80% of the tv programmes of the BBC are already subtitled, they are aiming for 100% by April. ZDF is aiming for 25%, ZDF for 12% or less.

And I don’t know if the numbers have changed in the last few years, but at least in 2002 the BBC had more programs, more employees, but needed less funds.