The Register is reporting today that the BBC Trust has asked to meet with the Open Source Consortium (OSC) to discuss the group’s concerns with the forthcoming iPlayer application (see our previous post for details).

Sources at [Ofcom] told The Register that although its formal role in the process was completed when it delivered its market impact assessment in January, it felt the OSC’s concerns that Mac and Linux users will not have access to iPlayer demanded a hearing.

Before the trust got in touch on Wednesday, OSC CEO Rick Timmis said: “Everything we’ve done in the trust’s direction has fallen on deaf ears. They’ve completely ignored us.”

I’m not sure what the meeting will accomplish, as the BBC seems pretty set on the Windows Media DRM-based iPlayer moving ahead with a launch later this month, but it’s good that they are at least going to talk.

A somewhat related article in The Guardian today suggests that Silverlight (and the open source Moonlight) could be a solution to the cross platform compatability problem:

Many media companies, including the BBC, have been using WMV (Windows Media Video) because Microsoft’s DRM is openly licensed and lets them control how content is used. Videos can, for example, be time-limited. But they have also been attacked because the protected videos don’t run on Macs or Linux boxes. Silverlight could be a solution.

Who knows, maybe the BBC’s iPlayer will be replaced before long with a Silverlight-based alternative.