Open Source at the
BBC
Michael Sparks
BBC Research and Development
michaels@rd.bbc.co.uk
I work on scaling online delivery of BBC
content to as wide an audience as possible
Presented at Open Source Forum Russia, April 2005
BBC 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/ BBC R&D michael@rd.bbc.co.uk

Proprietary Systems
For balance...
• The BBC...
• Is a creator of proprietary systems
• Is a user of open proprietary systems
• Why?
• Good business reasons
• Good public service reasons
©2005 BBC. Part of the Kamaelia project, http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/ BBC R&D michael@rd.bbc.co.uk

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/ BBC R&D michael@rd.bbc.co.uk

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/ BBC R&D michael@rd.bbc.co.uk

What Open Source Software
does 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/ BBC R&D michael@rd.bbc.co.uk

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/ BBC R&D michael@rd.bbc.co.uk

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/ BBC R&D michael@rd.bbc.co.uk

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/ BBC R&D michael@rd.bbc.co.uk

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/ BBC R&D michael@rd.bbc.co.uk

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/ BBC R&D michael@rd.bbc.co.uk

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/ BBC R&D michael@rd.bbc.co.uk

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/ BBC R&D michael@rd.bbc.co.uk

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/ BBC R&D michael@rd.bbc.co.uk

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/ BBC R&D michael@rd.bbc.co.uk

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/ BBC R&D michael@rd.bbc.co.uk

Case Study: Kamaelia
“камилия”
• 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.
©2005 BBC. Part of the Kamaelia project, http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/ BBC R&D michael@rd.bbc.co.uk

Thank you!
• Any questions?
• michael@rd.bbc.co.uk
©2005 BBC. Part of the Kamaelia project, http://kamaelia.sourceforge.net/ BBC R&D michael@rd.bbc.co.uk