“… and the solution is to go buy a cheap off the shelf desktop (or laptop) with Windows installed and magically, the problem is solved.”

British residents who fund the BBC through a mandatory (if you own any hardware capable of receiving TV) Television License should not have to fork out for a Windows XP license or forget the whole thing. The point is that people who pay the license fee and use a Mac, Linux or Vista cannot (at present) use the iPlayer. This isn’t just about ‘I don’t use Windows’, this is about a publicly funded corporation ignoring 15% (author’s figure) of the people funding it!

NOTE: no, I don’t have a problem with people outside the UK using the iPlayer when I cannot, just making a point.

No. That is not the point. I suggest you find out what the point is. You could start with checking out the BBCs mandate. Besides, 15% is a lot of people.

“… and the solution is to go buy a cheap off the shelf desktop (or laptop) with Windows installed and magically, the problem is solved.”

That, sir, is just plain insulting. Not everybody has lots of money and not everybody wants to send money to a foreign company. Nor does everyone have the technical know how to do this for cheap. Some, like me, can find a free computer at the dump, but still we need you to send us a pirated copy of XP ….