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issue within Xchange but is not a focus for debate. Some members post news articles or links about the topic but it does not turn into a thread. Adam Hyde: “I think this is a very embryonic debate everywhere. The whole MP3 phenomenon as highlighted by Napster did not settle into debates on how the Frauenhofer Institute and Thompson (who own the MP3 standard) could close down anyone using an unlicensed MP3 algorithm; instead the hot ticket was how wonderful peer-to-peer technologies are. Proprietary media technologies (MP4/Ogg Vorbis/DivX) are just about to heat up and then it will be interesting to see if this groundswell will prompt Xchange into more political discourse.”50 After the introduction of Microsoft’s MediaPlayer, Real gradually lost ground, though not as severe as the demise of Netscape in the face of the near-monopoly of Microsoft Explorer. Apple’s QuickTime (mainly installed on Apple’s own machines) is a viable third player.51 The role of open source players is so far almost zero.52 Open-Source Streaming In mid-2001 the Open Streaming Alliance (OSA) was announced. If Xchange had failed to set up a common portal/weblog or proper NGO, perhaps it could at least contribute to streaming software and test alternative network architectures. This shift in emphasis from collaborative webcasting towards software, driven by initiatives such as Radioqualia, had become visible during the Net.Congestion conference in Amsterdam in October 2000. In an e-mail Drazen Pantic mentioned scalability of capacity and platform independence as the two main aims of the alliance. From the beginning the proprietary nature of Real software had been a problem. There was little to say about the rise of Microsoft’s MediaPlayer. The monopolistic marketing policies of Bill Gates were well known. But what about alleged alternatives such as Real and QuickTime? By 2000, open-source streaming software started to become available but wasn’t widely used. Although Linux had gained a strong position in the server sector, desktop open-source software had not (yet) managed to reach the average consumer – not even avant-garde early-adopter Xchange artists. OSA planned to enable free and open-source tools for encoding and serving QuickTime, Real Media and Mbone streams, producing streaming content in one run, through just one encoding process, which obviously would save time, equipment and resources. Drazen Pantic: “Corporate software vendors try to monopolize streaming-media standards, using proprietary and closed code for encoders, players and servers. RealMedia, for example, started its operation with a noble idea to help independent broadcasters, but in the course of corporate battle – mostly with Microsoft – they sealed their code and became an opponent of creativity and innovation themselves. Closed code, and especially proprietary codecs, alienate content from the producers and enable control over distribution.”53 Simultaneously, progress was made on the archiving front. With the motto “You don’t have to know everything, you just have to know the reference,” Berlin-based Orang Orang (Thomax Kaulmann and Frank Kunkel) launched its Open Meta Archive software. This open-source “context management system” was able to “categorize and publish rich media documents including text, photo, audio and video in RealMedia, QuickTime and MP3.” Finally a variety of multimedia content could be stored on one database.54 The future of community networks would be “hardwired” or, to be more precise, “softcoded” in software that would define decentralized (peer-to-peer) network architecture. The openness of software and the ability to use a variety of standards was going to be decisive.