Should there be a law that ensures paid services on websites work on all OS

[ade234uk]

Do you think there should be some sort of organisation that ensures that paid services on websites work for all operating systems.

My case in point here is FL Interactive (FLi) who supply live streaming to football matches in the UK, for Premiership, Championship, DIV 1, DIV 2.

It only works on Windows Operating System due to the stupid DRM. But when I am away from home this is my only way of listening to live matches.

Now I pay £26 a year for this service and find this totally unacceptable. Not only this but all clubs have the same template structure, and is just replaced with clubs colours, which means they can shove as much advertising down our throats as possible.

Now considering the commentrary used to be provided free of charge by the BBC, I think it is a very poor and disgusting service. Take a look the following club sites below, you will see the template structure.

Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club http://www.seagulls.co.uk
Bristol Rovers Football Club http://www.bristolrovers.co.uk
Carlisle United Football Club http://www.carlisleunited.co.uk
Cheltenham Town Football Club http://www.ctfc.com
Colchester United Football Club http://www.cu-fc.com
Crewe Alexandra Football Club http://www.crewealex.net
Hartlepool United Football Club http://www.hartlepoolunited.co.uk
Huddersfield Town Football Club http://www.htafc.com
Leicester City Football Club http://www.lcfc.co.uk

Many people have asked why they cannot support Linux, Mac owners and its the usual story, which is complete BS. Remember the BBC landed themself in hot water, because they first went for a Windows only platform, and due to public pressure made IPlayer available to all, which in the end got more people viewing.

I wish there was some sort of authority that could fine organisations that make over (x) amount of money a year, that do not make their websites compatable for Linux, Mac Users.

[omar8]

No, there are enough laws in the world as it is, the fact that they are missing out on revenue should be enough for paid services to make their websites work on all OS's.

[3rdalbum]

I disagree, there shouldn't be a law about this. But there should be a law that online government services be usable on free operating systems to avoid penalising those who can't afford a Microsoft Windows license.

Currently, the Australian government would fail - its eTax software has always been Windows-only, and their technical support page advises Linux and Macintosh users to install Windows!

[Carl Hamlin]

Should there be a law that ensures paid services on websites work on all OS?

No.

Instead the userbase should take it's business elsewhere if the service is unavailable on their installed system.

[=^,^=]

Have you tried complaining directly to them?

[gnomeuser]

Such a law of non-discrimination would have to be carefully worded at least, it depends on where you draw the line, all OSes would force upcoming businesses to legally be required to support Haiku, Windows XP pre SP3, Contiki and so on. It is a dangerous road to walk down as you may create a legal foundation to crush startups with support demands they cannot yet fulfill.

I think the easiest way to get Linux support is to ask for it, if they refuse then you should cancel your subscription and tell them. We can arrange a PR campaign, that is one thing Linux users traditionally are good at. Once they see that they are cutting off a significant portion of users, especially on the high growth netbook market they might start to listen.

Another thing would be to encourage them to use cross platform standaridzed technology like Silverlight to do the content distribution, then all the major OSes today would be able to gain entry on a level playing field.

The closest one might come to a presidence for this would be anti discrimination laws for handicapped people. There are certain requirements put in play to ensure that websites are usable by users with a wide array of disabilities. This however I think is a good thing, we should have a legal ground to ensure that these people have equal access. In some ways I am not convinced that equal access based on platform is much different from this.

I am conflicted there are good arguments to be made for both sides, but for now I think it would be worthwhile to show them the business reasons for expanding support. Most companies will listen to arguments that directly affect their buttomline, upsetting a sizable amount of users will force them to form a public policy. If that involves not supporting us then we can decide on a course of action.

[infinitejones]

If every new website/webservice was required by some kind of law to work on every OS, there would be a lot fewer new webservices, full stop.

The extra overhead in terms of the time and cost of designing and building the services and the sites themselves would be a huge barrier to entry, and in the long run we'd all suffer. There would be a lot less incentive for clever individuals with a good idea to bother even trying to get it online and make money out of it, because they would know they'd have to go through the whole process of making sure they don't break that law!

I can't think of any specific examples right now, but there must be some services that used to work only on Windows but over time, following their success on Windows, now work on Linux, Mac, etc. That's got to be good for all of us.

I don't know FLi (who the OP referred to), so I don't know if they're part of a massive media conglomerate or some guy doing it from his garage, but either way, if there was a legal requirement to work with every OS, I can pretty much guarantee the service wouldn't exist at all. The reasons why would be different but the result would be the same.

(As a side note, how can we define "every OS"? Windows, Linux, Mac... what about Symbian? OS/2? AmigaOS? The web browser on a Wii, or my phone? See where I'm going here...?)

I guess the only consolation to the OP is that if they don't (or didn't) make it clear that it only works on Windows when you signed up and paid your money, you might have a case for a refund. I can see why you'd be angry. However, it has to be a case of buyer beware... I bet if you read the small (or not-so-small) print on their website somewhere, it makes it clear that it's Windows only...

[=^,^=]

Or they could just use streaming adobe flash like other video things. drm has little effect anyway.

[gnomeuser]

No.

Instead the userbase should take it's business elsewhere if the service is unavailable on their installed system.

The problem in cases like this may be that this company has exclusive rights to broadcasting a certain bit of content. If we have no option to take our business else where this become a feable threat.

In that case I would argue that the party with whom they are writing the contract for the rights to the content should be contacted. If we can get it made a part of the contract for the next term that access must be granted on a nondiscriminatory fashion then they will be forced to do so or lose the rights to a company that will.

One should also remember that such a discriminating monopoly is harmful to adoption of Linux and thus direct will affect the buttomline of commercial Linux vendors. We may be able to get their backing to such a plan.

[Giant Speck]

As well-intentioned as that suggestion is, there are simply too many operating systems out there for it to be feasible.

Say for example, I were to create a new operating system today. Under the law, my bank would have to ensure that its website works on my operating system. What if my bank's website is flash-based and my operating system has no support for flash? What if it doesn't even have support for a web browser? How would my bank be able to stay within the law and provide me with the services I need?

Most businesses that provide paid services online already ensure that their services work on Windows and OS X. That is roughly 95% of all computer users. And even if they do not officially support other operating systems, the online services of many businesses are still accessible to those operating systems. For example, the online services of both of my banks, my credit card company, and my wireless company all work fine in Linux running Firefox 3.5b4pre. They may warn me that my operating system and browser are not supported, but they still allow me to try at my own risk.

[gn2]

Presumably before you signed up for the service, you would have accepted the terms and conditions....?


In order to protect our content from piracy we use Windows Digital Rights Management.Therefore this service will only work on Windows machines using Internet Explorer and is not compatible with any other browser or operating system.

Source (http://www.cafctv.co.uk/page/TsAndCs)

Nobody forced you to sign up, you did so by your own free will, therefore it's your responsibility to check the suitability of the service.