First forcing Microsoft to remove their media playing functionality, then forcing people to use the exact program you just "banned". It's nice not to be in the EU.
In fact, as things are now, it would have to be considered illegal watching those streams from my linux box with proprietary codecs enabled. Dimwits. And as of 2007 there's a freaking radio tax on all computers here in Germany. Germany is head of EU in 2007. Go figure. Happy New Year. =(
I hope this is just an error of some low level IT guy.
(BTW could the webmaster of this petition site please solve that irritating 'disappearing space' bug in the 'Supporter Comments'?)
This is just a nonsensical reply made as an excuse to not have to look into the issue. I pay my taxes, I support the principals of the EU, I don't expect to be told No! to such a simple request. Get on with it.
It is ridiculous that a free available solution to a problem is side stepped in favour of a proprietary solution that has to be paid for. Regardless of the reason that this solution has been chosen (be it time constraints, ignorance, convienence, etc.) there is no excuse, the profesionals behind this should know what's available, or they're not really professionals just ignorant novices that should be paid accordingly! Even if the proprietrary solution is free, the fact that the average user will have to have a proprietary product to play it means a gain for the corporation(s) involved. The EU should be actively involved in promoting the open source alternatives to all properitary products where they are available. In this case an advertisment and a link to Mplayer or other such free open source media player which can be used on any platform. This would educate users and allow them to make true informed decisions on the software they use on their systems.
The "Streaming Service of the Council of the European Union" should be available for everybody and not only for Mac and MS Windows users.
Change the service in that way, that also linux/bsd/.. user can use it.
One Solution would be to use the free theora codec for the videos.
I don't get the point of using closed format which excludes some european citizens from accessing the content of your sites. How can you expect your citizens to feel european and implied while on the other hand you expell them from your informations sites ...
Plus EU is suing MS on one hand while making MS stronger on the other hand, forcing any citizen that wants to access your content to play the rules imposed by MS.
