[oclug] Another "sorry, we don't support linux" story

[Trevor Curtis]

Hey,

I've stumbled on a situation that I think many here have seen before
so I thought I would bounce this off and see if you guys have any
suggestions.

I'm a drummer and have had a subscription to a drumming magazine on
and off for several years. In this issue, I read about a online radio
service at the magazine's webpage. Excited to here the songs that were
mentioned in the articles, I tried to tune in. My excitement met with
disappointment however as I found that the service used a *.asx format
(?) which, upon looking at the html of the page, seemed to be a
proprietary M$ format.

I figured I would take a proactive approach to my problem instead of
the "ah screw it then" approach.  I emailed the lead web-guy, politely
explaining my situation, and problems listening to their service.

This morning I received a reply to my email. Apparently, they had been
having problems with the service and had only just got it back
online. He said that they were planning on working on a their
Realaudio sever for "the mac users". This is a little better I thought
because, though proprietary, there is a realplayer for Linux. But he
didn't seem to be aware of this as in his next paragraph he explained
that Linux users comprise 1/10 of one percent of people who visit
their homepage, and that Linux was of no great concern to them. This
was disappointing to say the least.

I replied to his email. First stating that real supported Linux. And
secondly explaining, again very politely, that if they perhaps used a
non-proprietary format, they would allow all users of all platforms a
chance to use the service, as well as increase the overall quality of
the service (having tried the service at my girlfriend's I noticed
that asx sounds really tinny and tunnel-like similar to realaudio).

So that is were I am now. As I said, I have a feeling that there are many
with similar stories (I seem to recall a tax webpage thread a while
ago). Any advice if he replies? Is there anything more I could have
perhaps said? Any thoughts otherwise?

thanks, (BTW, I omitted my sig when emailing the web-guy :)  )
-- 
Trevor Curtis
http://www.scs.carleton.ca/~tcurtis
--------------------------------------------------------------
"The only people who have anything to fear from free software,
are those whose products are worth even less."  --David Emery.