Council of the EU Says "We Cannot Support Linux"

An anonymous reader writes "The Council of the EU has a streaming service so that we can watch its meetings — but the service can only be accessed by Mac or MS Windows users. This is because they employ WMV format for the videos. In the FAQ they express a really strange opinion about this: 'The live streaming media service of the Council of the European Union can be viewed on Microsoft Windows and Macintosh platforms. We cannot support Linux in a legal way. So the answer is: No support for Linux.' An online petition has been set up to create pressure to convince the EU council to change its service to one that is platform independent."

Ogg Theora?

Ogg Theora?

And even if you think it is illegal to watch MPEG on Linux in the EU, the crime would be committed by the veiwer, not the broadcaster.

Re:

Why limit yourself to just one format? Offer both WMV *AND* Ogg Theora!

Re:Ogg Theora?

Why limit yourself to just one format? Offer both WMV *AND* Ogg Theora!

Or, to put it another way: "Why limit yourself to just one set of problems! You could deal with the problems of both WMV *AND* Ogg Theora!"

Re:

Seen decent resolution (1024x600) ogg-theora clips being decoded without a dropped frame on my humble 667mhz powerpc laptop. Ogg was conceived with streaming in mind. Server software runs well under linux. I see no reason why an organization like the frigg

Re:Forget it

You forget that the geeks have nothing to say about this. This is a result of a patent and IP war. Video encoding is one of the most locked down areas of IT. So, no "gathering" of geeks will change anything.

Please don't do this

When people recommend half-assed or not ready OSS solutions, it hurts the OSS cause. Theora isn't ready to go, it's not even remotely ready. There's a reason why it's still an alpha whereas Vorbis is a full release. It is in no way shape or form a ready competitor to WMV at this time.

It's much better to admit there's nothing that works out there that's OSS than to recommend a poor OSS solution. The reason is that the number one justification against OSS is shoddy quality. You talk to J. Random PHB and the reason they don't want to use OSS is because it's poor quality/not supported. Well, advocating things that are, in fact, poor quality just provides them with ammo for their argument.

Also it can hurt a format to get lots of exposure before it's ready. If everyone's first exposure to Theora is when it's buggy, that idea will form in their minds and later when it's stable, they will still associate Theora = buggy and thus give it a pass.

At this point, we just need to wait on Theora. Vorbis is great, I've no doubt in time Theroa will be its match, however it's not the kind of thing that will happen in a day.

Re:Please don't do this

Theora isn't ready to go, it's not even remotely ready.

Really? Why?

There's a reason why it's still an alpha whereas Vorbis is a full release.

And that reason is???

It's much better to admit there's nothing that works out there that's OSS than to recommend a poor OSS solution.

That wouldn't be true, of course.

The patents on MPEG-1 have long ago expired. It has pretty good quality (better than Theora/VP3) when encoded with a recent implimentation (ie. libavcodec for video, twolame for audio). And more than that, it is by far the most widely compatible format around, supported by just about every video player made in the past several years, on just about every single platform around.

I've no doubt in time Theroa will be its match,

I, however, do. The VP3 codec is hated by just about everyone who knows anything about video.

It has really poor video quality, compared to even much older video codecs.

It is very CPU-intensive to encode.

It's playback performance is horrible. Once you reach resolutions where a full frame can't fit in your CPU cache, you get performance worse than codecs like h.264.

In some 4 years of Theora's development, Xiph hasn't removed any of VP3's limitations, nor added any advantages over the original VP3 codec. Since they've frozen the bitstream, even the potential for them to do any of that has passed...

I was somewhat active in the Theora development process some time ago, but I've long since given it up for dead.

Re:What is wrong with QuickTime, its open

Why dont people just use the quicktime package format,

Because Quicktime is despised just slightly less than Ogg.

Off the top of my head:

Significant overhead.
Metadata at the end of files (like AVI).
This precluding good playback of partial files, and causes really terrible problems with partially damaged MOV files.
Unbelivably large number of different ways to do anything.
An unbelivably huge and complex standard that probably nobody on earth understands entirely.
14 different versions of the standard, and a field in the MOV header to dictate which version of the standard the player should use to read the file.
And finally: patents

If quicktime wasn't so horrible, you certainly wouldn't have ever seen formats like Ogg or MKV.

What happened to more eyes, shallow bugs?

I guess we're supposed to ignore all the people who have been using Ogg Vorbis+Theora feeds for years (many listed on the Ogg Theora website [theora.org] and instead give in to an argument based on a version name and vague goals of "readiness", or for another overmoderated post in this thread, market presence built on violating the law. We're not supposed to advocate for people using unencumbered FLOSS software to do this job across platforms in a non-discriminatory way. Even according to the open source argument which dismisses social solidarity out of hand (something governments ought not do), discouraging use seems particularly unwise.

Re:Please don't do this

Theora isn't ready to go, it's not even remotely ready.

Since when did this exact reason stop Microsoft or other software solution providers from pushing their products?

Sorry, just had to say - this is a chicken and the egg problem. Reminds me of Linux "not being ready for the desktop." If no one picked it up to use on the desktop when it wasn't ready, it will likely never be ready. OTOH, the more people use an open piece of software, the more development it attracts.

Re:

Ogg Theora?

No. The goal here is to make these videos accessible to as many people as possible, ideally, everyone. While switching to Ogg Theora would help Linux users out because they would be able to watch the video legally, it would ultimately make the v

Re:Ogg Theora?

WMV is far from ideal, but it's better than switching to a format which almost nobody can play without installing additional software.

No, it's not. Using a codec that everyone can play after installing the additional software is better than using one that some people can't play at all.

Besides, it's not as if the Windows users would have to fend for themselves -- all the EU has to do is pick a player for Windows and link to it from their site (maybe write something like "can't see the video? click here"). It's Not That Hard!

Re:Ogg Theora?

My biggest problem with this was the line 'it is impossible for us to legally support Linux.' This is clear FUD; it is only impossible in jurisdictions where software patents are legal. This is not the case in the EU, and having an EU body imply strongly that software patents are legally enforceable is a very, very bad thing.

I pointed out in the letter I wrote to my MEP that people in France have reverse-engineered the format, so the only barrier to legally supporting it is belief that software patents are valid. I have some hope that she will address this, since she is a member of the FFII and has actively campaigned against software patents in the past.

No codecs required, either

If you use Cortado [flumotion.net] as the player. It's a java applet that will play Theora+Vorbis files in a way similar to YouTube/Google Video/etc. All the client needs is Java.

Going straight Theora+Vorbis wouldn't work that well, since the user would have the install the codecs first and Vorbis/Theora support is severely lacking on OS X.

Quoting the site:

In order to make your streams as widely available as possible, we provide the Cortado Java applet as free software under the GPL. By embedding this applet in your website, you can give viewers access to streams from either the Flumotion streaming server or play a local file from your server without the need for a locally installed media player supporting the correct formats on the visitori's computer.

Cortado currently include Java decoders for Ogg Theora, Ogg Vorbis, Mulaw audio, MJPEG and our own Smoke codec. You can find examples of Cortado in use on the Fluendo demo site.

Someone's fired

First off, they didn't hire an interpreter (come on, you going to tell me there isn't a properly-qualified English-language interpreter to fix that garbage? Second, whichever Microsoft zealot wrote that page really needs to expatiate on his reasoning. From where I sit, it looks like a blatant lie to cover up for laziness.

A blatant lie to cover up for laziness...

From where I sit, it looks like a blatant lie to cover up for laziness.

<complete_nonsense>
You don't know the EU very well do you? You see this has nothing to do with laziness. If the EU replaces it's WMV streaming systems with a competing product it will result in 68 shirt and tie wearing MCSEs with nice conservative Bill Gates haircuts being replaced by a couple of hairy bucktoothed nerds with a nasty armpit malodor problem and the fashions sense of a Portuguese donkey wrangler. So this whole mess is really all about French objections because of the effect such a change would have on the already low fashion standards of EU employees and all the other EU member countries fears that it might make the unemployment situation in the European MCSE community any worse since the job security of the European MCSE community is already badly threatened by the way Linux looks set to exterminate Windows from the EU's desktop computer market.
</complete_nonsense>

Re:Having said that...

While I agree with your comments re: the suckiness of English (I speak five modern languages, including a couple of the "hard" ones), my comment in this regard wasn't that English should be forced upon anyone - if that page were in Dutch, French, or German, I'd shrug and figure that's where the website is, so the choice of language makes sense. But the fact that these conferences are streamed in wmv-only format and then the entire website is in broken English - that just looks bad. Really, unprofessionally, and given the number of interpreters/translators available to the EU, inexcusably bad. Moral of the story is: if you can't find a good translator for your webpage, write it in your native tongue.

Re:Having said that...

all languages of EU countries have equal rights.

And yet it seems that some operating systems are more equal than others. I'll take a guess there's a bigger percentage of linux users in the EU than people who speak Irish fluently.

Where's the illegal?

"We cannot support Linux in a legal way."

What's so illegal about a Flash-based streaming player?

Re:Where's the illegal?

What's so illegal about a Flash-based streaming player?

Flash embedded video is not a bad idea, but currently the latest version of flash available for Linux is Flash Player 7 which doesn't have support for all the video features added in Flash 8 and Flash 9. They could do it, they would just have to be mindful of the limitations of Flash 7 when they were setting it up. Either that or set it up as flash video and hope that Adobe releases Flash 9 for Linux soon (they've already got a prerelease available here: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer9/ [adobe.com])

Not much to be said here

I would guess they can't support GNU/Linux in a legal way because they can't offer the codecs. Only parties that have an agreement of sorts or have paid M$ royalties can use it. GNU/Linux doesn't, though distributions like that one that used to be known as Lindows (can't remember the name) comes with closed-source ones.

The petition to urge them to use a platform-independent format is a good answer.

Open Government

Same arguement applies here as it does with any other form of computerized documentation. All forms of government computerized documention should be done to open standards so it won't become unreadable when the license is no longer supported by the compan/

Hello, there are open-source players for WMV3

WMV3 has been opened. MPlayer / FFMPEG support it natively now. Google Summer of Code had a project to make an optimized player for it.

Yes I think it still has patent issues or something but in Europe I don't think that matters.

Youtube!!!

Or should I say Eutube!

*ducks*

Needs rewording

That should be "We're too ignorant to support Linux in a legal way."

realplayer

yes yes, i know. Put the burning torches down :) - Still if the BBC can offer their video services in both WMV and Realmedia formats, why cant the EU? Its certainly supported on linux after all

Re:

There's no point in offering video in just another proprietary format. The idea is that *everyone* should have access to this. Not just Linux, Windows, and Mac.

How can that be done? Pick a format that doesn't require royalties.

Interpretation

The "legal way" thing probably refers to the inability to provide a legal WMV player for Linux, not that it isn't legal for the EU to stream in another format. I don't think anyone there is trying to say that it's illegal to stream in a different format. Rather, they are saying that since WMV is what they use (for whatever reason - political, economic, or simply fiat), Linux users can't be supported.

Realplayer?

What about Realplayer exactly is illegal? I know it won't solve *BSDs and other *Nix users' problems, but Linux has a realplayer version.
So why again is it illegal to run something that is not MS specific?
Hello, welcome to the new year, we're in the 21st century, not in the early 90s, there's something called "interoperability" that has been growing in the tech world... Time for reality to harvest!

Re:Realplayer?

It's morally illegal.

IT'S OK

We don't support the EU either.

Compatibility is Illegal Now?

There's always been a lot of FUD regarding Linux and legality, but this is absurd. Since when does producing media that can be viewed on a Linux machine violate the law? By this argument, that FAQ is illegal since a Linux user is able to read it. Unless they mean that in order to verify that the Linux service works, they would need to install Linux on one of their own systems, which they view as being illegal. But of course anyone knows all you have to do to be legal under Linux is: -buy a license from SCO -only use Novell's Suse Linux -buy a couple copies of Windows just in case Right? Right!?

looking at it from their perspecive

"The live streaming media service of the Council of the European Union supports Internet Explorer 5 and higher, Netscape Navigator 6 and higher. If you encounter problems with a lower version of your browser, the browser should be updated to facilitate the live streaming media service. Firefox and Opera will be supported with a minimal of functionalities."

This is the market share for browsers as of Nov 2006:

Microsoft Internet Explorer, 80.56%
Firefox, 13.50%
Safari, 4.03%
Netscape, 0.83%
Opera, 0.67%

This is the market share for Operating Systems as of Nov 2006:

Windows XP, 84.95%
Windows 2000, 5.46%
Mac OS, 4.10%
Windows 98, 1.90%
MacIntel, 1.29%
Windows ME, 0.91%
Windows NT, 0.76%
Linux, 0.37%

You could argue for better firefox support, but as much as we love linux, I suppose they have no obligation to make it work for something that is that small minority among desktop users.

Re:

Here's an equivalent argument.

90% of a country's population is caucasian, 6% is black, 3% is oriental and 1% is of other racial groups. The EU suddenly decides that it can only offer services to the majority, how fast do you think people's asses would be n

Re:

That's an unbelievably bizarre metaphor - equating operating system support as anything like racial discrimination.

Wait a sec...!

90% of a country's population is caucasian, 6% is black, 3% is oriental and 1% is of other racial groups. The EU suddenly decides that it can only offer services to the majority, how fast do you think people's asses would be nailed to the wall?

Not so fast dude! The last time I checked, no body has ever chosen to be born caucasian, black, oriental or otherwise...on the other hand, there is likely a huge probability that all these folks that do not belong to the "chosen" platform to support actually chose to use the platform. And now, they are clamoring for support! Jeez!

Sorry in advance in case you made an application to whoever created you, to create you the way you are.

Re:Wait a sec...!

Not so fast dude! The last time I checked, no body has ever chosen to be born caucasian, black, oriental or otherwise...on the other hand, there is likely a huge probability that all these folks that do not belong to the "chosen" platform to support actually chose to use the platform. And now, they are clamoring for support! Jeez!

Nah, that misses the point. Just take the original analogy about "operating systems vs. race" and switch it to "operating systems vs. religion". Religion is something that is a choice - you want to leave yours and join another, you are free to do so - but if the EU would suddenly only 'support' 95% of religions, there would be a heck of an outrage. In modern civilization, it is legitimate to choose your religion. Is the EU saying that the only legitimate choice of operating system is Windows (or Mac)? That's quite a big commercial endorsement there.

The original analogy/argument is valid, the EU is in the wrong on this one. (Although to be fair it's probably only a few EU computer techs and their managers who even know about this decision.)

Re:looking at it from their perspecive

They are a government agency. A business can decide to ignore some potential customers, but a government cannot decide to ignore citizens.

Re:looking at it from their perspecive

This is the market share for browsers as of Nov 2006:

Microsoft Internet Explorer, 80.56%
Firefox, 13.50%
Safari, 4.03%
Netscape, 0.83%
Opera, 0.67%

Yeah?

Where did you get your numbers?

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.a sp [w3schools.com]

Aggregate IE: 59.9
Firefox: 29.9
Mozilla: 2.5
Netscape 7/8 .2
Opera 1.5

Which one of those doesn't pass the Acid2? Only IE. 40 percent of the world uses a browser that supports standards enough to render Acid2, and IE's numbers have declined while the rest have only gained.

"You could argue for better firefox support, but as much as we love linux, I suppose they have no obligation to make it work for something that is that small minority among desktop users."

If you scroll down to the OS stats:

XP: 71.6
Win2K 13.6
Win98 2.6
WinNT .3
W2k3 1.7
Linux 3.2
Mac 3.3

But then it's not about "supporting linux" it's about using _standard_ codecs and standard files. Wmv is "Windows Only" and not a standard where other codecs are actual standards and are cross platform as a _result_ of being standards.

But hey, you're here to troll for Microsoft instead of contribute any facts to the discussion.

By the way, even though it has the least market share, Opera kicks all other browsers.

--
BMO

Re:looking at it from their perspecive

Where did you get your numbers?

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.a [w3schools.com] sp [w3schools.com]

Aggregate IE: 59.9

Firefox: 29.9

Mozilla: 2.5

Netscape 7/8 .2

Opera 1.5

The stats at www.w3schools.com are not representative of what most people are using, they represent what Web developers and other technically inclined people are using. Think about who visits www.w3schools.com.

Re:looking at it from their perspecive

Linux, 0.37%

Your numbers are suspect. According to the market research company IDC, 25% of servers and 2.8% of desktop computers ran Linux as of 2004. [wikipedia.org] This is consistent with the 3.3% share of web hits that w3schools measures as of last month.

Re:

...as much as we love linux, I suppose they have no obligation to make it work for something that is that small minority among desktop users.

Honestly, that's a strawman argument. It doesn't matter to anyone at all whether linux is supported.

What we want s

Will not stand in the EU

Obvoiusly soneone has wanted to point this out, if it's explicitly written on the EU site. At the risk of sounding trollish:

We will not have our legislation locked down in ways that force EU citicens to buy software from one specific vendor. FUCK YOU.

We like to think we're better than the US. Apperarently our legislators are also bought off. If you as an elected politician get your salary from Microsoft Corporation or Apple Computer inc, please report directly to me for your ticket to Baghdad and the Saddam Hussein rope massage. Thank you for your incompetent attempt at running a democracy, please don't come again.

Haha

The really funny part of this story is you also can't watch those videos if you've got the version of Windows Vista with media player ripped out due to the EU's antitrust rulings (unless you download media player or some other WMV-capable player, of course). Hah hah.

Great work...

First they (the EU) force MS to marked a version of Windows without media-player... and then they release content that needs that very media player...

I'm watching wmv video right now...

From the linked site. It has been relatively easy to get .wmv, .mov, etc. working in Linux for quite some time now. Check out the MPlayer plugin [sourceforge.net] for Firefox. For K/X/Ubuntu or other Debian-based distro users, "apt-get install mozilla-mplayer". I do agree, however, that all government websites should make their content available platform-independent. But then, that would require common-sense, now wouldn't it?

Is watching it online a Privilege or a Right?

Many people are throwing around OS usage statistics, like from www.w3schools.com. These statistics are worldwide, and do not reflect the [potential] visitors to this geographically-specific site.

Nevertheless, the number of people using Linux--and probably MacOS as well--pales in comparison to those who do not have a computer at all. (or hispeed internet, or a fast enough machine, etc.)

Assuming the CotEU is required to provide streaing video for those without Windows or MacOS, then who's to say they shouldn't have to make it available to those without a computer at all?

In my city (Ottawa, Canada), City Council meetings are open to the public. Anyone can go. Can't participate, but you can watch. You can also watch Council meetings on the local Cable channel (which means you have to purchase cable from Rogers--and this has been the case for decades without public outcry) You can also watch online. I think they use a RealMedia format.

If you don't have a computer (or cable TV) at home, there are computer terminals at all the public library branches and at many community centres. Assuming the City has a right to make these meetings available for live viewing to all citizens (which, really, is covered by letting any citizen attend meetings in person) then they have done so by making these computer terminals available at local libraries. Not incidentally, this would also cover off the Linux-using population in the case of the CotEU.

If your computer cannot access the stream (because it can't run on Linux, or is too old, or your internet connection isn't fast enough), then you can go to one of these places to view it. Or, if you want equality, the Council can stop streaming online, and everyone will be unable to watch it.

- RG>

We need to get our story straight...

Numerous times, I've seen people who were considering Linux ask whether they would still be able to play their media files from Windows or Mac. And they are usually told "Yes! Linux can handle them! It's easy...just get mplayer and install the right codecs...they are easy to find, and you'll be watching your video in no time".

But whenever we see some site choose to make new content available in those very same Windows formats, many of the same people who were telling potential new users that all these things were easy on Linux suddenly switch and say that Linux users are locked out.

If we want to get people to use Linux, we have to get our story straight as to what Linux can do!

Re:

"Why don't we just create a world wide class action law suit against companies or organizations that do not support independent OS architecture?"

The community is not even really asking for *support*; merely to not be explicitly suppressed.

I have a banking

Re:Why is WMV so popular anyways?

I recently had to organise a live webcast for a large (thousands) audience. What I found was that just about every company I approached pushed me into using WMV due to the following reasons,

1) Also encoding for Real Player means extra encoding fees,

2) Although Flash claims to support live streaming, the license fees for it's servers to make a viable live streaming infrastructure are completely ridiculous so it is only good for progressive download.

3) No one offered any other format,

4) One of the largest networks in the world, Akamai, only has a small number of Real Server licenses left and they are dwindling due to lack of demand,

5) Live streaming from a whole network is a different ballgame to streaming from one server. Only Real and WMS can handle it properly. I know Icecast probably /could/ but no one was offering any format it supports.

From my own experience in smaller scale streaming I have not had much success using a Theroa/Icecast solution because there is no basic application just to grab V4L and convert it to a stream (I even tried coding one myself before running out of time and getting stumped since I lack the skills), though you can use ffmpeg2theroa to grab from a DV CAM. I tried Flumotion but it only seems to work with the latest and greatest version of Fedora at any given time. It's also way to complicated. Exactly what is all this "planet", "atmosphere", "streams" stuff about? I got nowhere fast trying to install it on CentOS4 which is what the enocding box runs (and I am not in a position to suddenly change OS since it does lots of other functions).