The much talked about, Windows XP-only, Internet Explorer 6 or later, BBC iPlayer finally launched today.

The iPlayer gives viewers the chance to download the last seven days of BBC television programmes. They can then, at a time of their choosing, delight in the likes of Eastenders and Neighbours for up to 30 days afterwards.

However, much controversy has surrounded the iPlayer launch, with both the open source crowd and licence-paying viewers kicking up a stink about the Beeb's lack of foresight over its decision to make the service only available to Windows XP users.

This week, even the BBC Trust added its voice to the debate and called for the Beeb to give a little love to the open source community by making iPlayer available via Linux.

Anyway, for those of you out there not sat reading this on an Apple Mac Powerbook with Firefox as your browser, you can go here to play with iPlayer - oddly still in beta - to your heart's content.

But for the rest of us, it seems, we'll just have to continue to squabble over the remote control or get our square eye fix elsewhere. ®

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