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Council of the European Union confused about how to provide streaming video
The Council of the European Union has gotten confused about how to reach all of its constituency with streaming video sessions of public Council events. For the time being the Council seems to be trying to use a vendor specific codec as well as create a distraction from the issue at hand which is one of open standards not of software platforms or open source. MPEG, for example, would reach 100% of the constituency.
In the current situation, citizens must play ball with a specific vendor to access the public records. In contrast, Open codecs for the video streaming make these records available to the entire computer-using population, not just a subset. At the same time open standards keep the council independent from any specific vendor, giving them freedom of choice in both access and maintenance. Likewise, for the web pages the issue is not a question of web browsers but again a matter of supporting open standards.
Write to encourage the Council of the European Union to wise up and use open standards. Contact can be made via snail mail (risking delay) or via e-mail (risking the bit bucket). Or contact your own local or national representatives on the European Parliament.
A second complaint should go to Neelie Kroes of the monopoly commission as the Council's current choice of codec for video streaming appears to contradict and weaken the monopoly commission's position.
[ed: Fixed Neelie Kroes name. 2 Jan 2007]