The 2012 Libre Software Meeting, an international gathering dedicated to the discussion and promotion of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), took place in Geneva this week. The EBU supported the event, programming two days of presentations and workshops on the growing role of FOSS in Media, TV and Radio.

The event, better known as RMLL in the French-speaking world, turned out to be a good setting to have open discussions on the relevance of FOSS for broadcasters and the role the EBU could play in stimulating product innovation. Though the media market is relatively small and closed, several examples presented at the event showed that the open approach can nevertheless provide products with rich feature sets, professional support and viable business models. Examples include the CasparCG graphics and video play-out software, and the Airtime radio software, which both are free, open, and offer a professional grade feature set. Both are also supported by companies that earn money through product support, tailor made solutions and/or hosting.

So what can the EBU do to allow broadcasters to take advantage of the benefits of FOSS? According to those attending RMLL 2012, the priorties are to make sure that technical specifications are openly accessible and sharing practical Members' experience with FOSS. Another may be to unite EBU Members toward specific technical problems being solved in open software, which can then be used by each of the individual Members as fits them best.

Main Image: Tux the Linux penguin kept a watchful eye on proceedings; Left: Workshops were offered in addition to presentations;
Right: Use more bandwidth!

A selection of the media-related presentations are available for download here.