Yesterday the BBC Trust met with the UK's Open Source Consortium to discuss issues raised by the iPlayer, a BBC content streaming program that is only compatible with Windows XP.

The BBC Trust, which oversees the BBC, expressed surprise by the passion behind platform neutrality demands made by a seething public, and repeated its assurance that "the BBC provides high quality output and good value for all UK citizens."

Mark Taylor, president of the Open Source Consortium, told The Register the meeting was "very positive," having walked away with a commitment from the BBC to "making the iPlayer equally platform neutral. But," he hastened to add, "they were unable to explain how this was going to happen."

Another meeting is being arranged to discuss the possibilities of opening the iPlayer to Linux and Mac operating systems. In the meantime, the Trust said it would audit the BBC's progress toward platform neutrality every six months, then publish the findings.

The iPlayer will launch in an XP-only beta on July 27.