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BBC R&D
Open Source at the BBC
Michael SparksBBC Research and Development
I work on scaling online delivery of BBCcontent to as wide an audience as possible
Presented at Open Source Forum Russia, April 2005
©2005 BBC. Part of the Kamaelia project, http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/ [email protected] R&D
Open Source
• The BBC...
• Is a creator of open source software
• Is a user of open source software
• Why?
• Good business reasons
• Good public service reasons
©2005 BBC. Part of the Kamaelia project, http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/ [email protected] R&D
Proprietary Systems
• The BBC...
• Is a creator of proprietary systems
• Is a user of open proprietary systems
• Why?
• Good business reasons
• Good public service reasons
For balance...
©2005 BBC. Part of the Kamaelia project, http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/ [email protected] R&D
Terminology
• Free/Libre, Open Source Software
• Terms often used interchangeably
• BBC tends to use latter term, since it focusses on approach, not politics
©2005 BBC. Part of the Kamaelia project, http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/ [email protected] R&D
Why use Open Source?
• Why does the BBC use Open Source
• Open source software is not special, per se
• Open Source software represents solutions
• No specific policy for or against:
• Solutions, proprietary and open source are all evaluated on their merits
• However open source is itself often a extra merit
©2005 BBC. Part of the Kamaelia project, http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/ [email protected] R&D
What Open Source Softwaredoes the BBC use?
• Lots, more than could be listed. A subset:
• Running the business
• Network infrastructure - Apache, Perl
• Desktop Applications - Open Office, Firefox
• Desktops - Mac OS X
• Building the Business
• Standards development
• Video codecs, file formats, network systems, ...
©2005 BBC. Part of the Kamaelia project, http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/ [email protected] R&D
The real question
• Why would the BBC NOT use Open Source?
• Would you ask about proprietary?
• It would prevent the use of useful technologies:
• It would isolate us from community developments
• It would limit the BBC’s choices
• It would mean, for example, no Apple based systems
• It is difficult to avoid open source software
©2005 BBC. Part of the Kamaelia project, http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/ [email protected] R&D
The Real question (2)
• Why would the BBC NOT use Open Source?
• ... or open source derived systems?
• We would not be able to use - the internet, email, the web
• If would mean no Microsoft based systems:
• Even Microsoft produce products containing or as open source - “One of the great things about IronPython is it’s open source”
• If you use the internet, you cannot avoid open source, even if you tried.
©2005 BBC. Part of the Kamaelia project, http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/ [email protected] R&D
BBC R&D Open Source
• Projects available as open source:
• Kamaelia - Network streaming research platform
• Dirac - Wavelet based video codec
• AAF - Professional video/audio authoring and storage format
• ... and others
©2005 BBC. Part of the Kamaelia project, http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/ [email protected] R&D
Why release X as Open Source?
• Variety of business reasons.
• A selection:
• Not your core business, not a saleable product
• Will be in development anyway.
• No feedback is no loss, any feedback or patches back is a benefit to the business
• Standardisation development
• Collaboration
• Validation of theories and peer review
©2005 BBC. Part of the Kamaelia project, http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/ [email protected] R&D
Open Source vs Open Standards
• Open source and Open Standards are NOT the same thing.
• Open standards allow any interested party who is able to participate to join the process
• Often hardware systems result in a paid membership to run the standards body
• Open Source allows any interested party to fork the software given a need.
• This may be because of a narrow minded developer/group choosing to exclude a section of the possible community, through licemsing or arrogance.
©2005 BBC. Part of the Kamaelia project, http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/ [email protected] R&D
Open Source vs Open Standards
• Good Open source based Open Standards...
• Have a good means of dealing with conflict
• Good examples:
• Internet RFCs, and associated processes
• Python PEPs, and associated processes
©2005 BBC. Part of the Kamaelia project, http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/ [email protected] R&D
Benefits of Open Source
• People who need problems solved work together to get them solved
• Feedback on your solution
• Suggestions of better approaches
• Validation of approach
• It provides a lever to boost the brainpower of your organisation
©2005 BBC. Part of the Kamaelia project, http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/ [email protected] R&D
Experience• Real Benefits to BBC R&D projects:
• Dirac:
• Community stepped forward to assist and direct development
• Performance boosts
• Kamaelia:
• Validation of ideas
• “This framework looks like it has a real chance of making a complex problem simple”
• Opened doors to collaboration with partners
©2005 BBC. Part of the Kamaelia project, http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/ [email protected] R&D
Biggest Benefits
• The biggest benefits the BBC gains from releasing in-house code as open source:
• We maximise the benefit to the BBC and the BBC’s community of users from the investment the BBC makes in R&D.
• The biggest benefit the BBC gains from using open source software:
• We are using code developed by people with similar uses to use, and who will therefore fix the biggest pain points first.
©2005 BBC. Part of the Kamaelia project, http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/ [email protected] R&D
Software Licensing
• The BBC seeks to safeguard its investment in development.
• Various options: (simplified)
• You only have the right to use
• You can do anything, as long as you allow others the same with your code, and credit all authors
• You can do anything, so long as you credit authors
• You may do anything you like
©2005 BBC. Part of the Kamaelia project, http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/ [email protected] R&D
Case Study: Kamaelia• Scalable media distribution experimentation
platform.
• Released December 2004
• Licensing allows proprietary applications to use the toolkit, but changes to the toolkit must be shared. Also includes patent pooling style protection.
• Has allowed public discussion, with a variety of benefits
• System has been ported to mobile phones; validation of approach; architectural improvements; cross linkage to other projects.
“камилия”
©2005 BBC. Part of the Kamaelia project, http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/ [email protected] R&D
Thank you!
• Any questions?