BBC opens up its code
Published: 13 Jul 2005 17:35 BST
The BBC has created an open source section on its web site, bringing together all of its publicly available code for the first time. The software was created by the BBC's R&D department, based at Kingswood Warren in Surrey. Most of the code has been available from individual project pages, but this is the first time you've been able to see it all in one place.
The projects that have been released are, unsurprisingly, mostly concerned with the production and delivery of video content, although some Apache modules from the BBC are ones used in its own web sites.
The BBC has already made a few tentative steps into open source software, most recently with its Kamaelia network testbed framework. The corporation's interest in open source is partly altruistic, partly practical — some of the work is trying to promote new standards, which the BBC needs to be widely adopted to meet its public service requirements. There are some software projects that the corporation won't be releasing as open source, since they have a commercial value.
The collection of software includes some Perl modules, Apache modules, the Dirac video codec and Kamaelia. Languages used include C++, Perl, Python and Java. Some of the projects are still work in progress, but some are complete and BBC staff won't be performing any maintenance on the code.
Much of the software is actually hosted on Sourceforge, since the process of open sourcing the BBC's software began before there was a central list on the BBC site. The BBC also feels that a popular community site like Sourceforge is a better place to bring its software to the attention of developers.
A variety of licences is used, although most of the code is available under the GPL or LGPL. Some of the code isn't licensed for commercial use.
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