   In post-Hutton 2004, startup investor and former BBC strategy
manager Azeem Azhar proposed a "BBC Public Licence" that would
allow both the public and business to use BBC content and code
to build on, play with and share. It seems his vision is finally
coming to life. "Four years on, the BBC is in a much stronger
position to do this," says Azhar. "It has the opportunity to
create a new ecosystem, just as MySQL [the open source database
system], as a platform, created an ecosystem around itself."
Steve Bowbrick, recently commissioned to initiate a public
debate about openness at the corporation, thinks empowerment
could be as important as the traditional Reithian mantra,
"Educate, inform and entertain."  "The broadcast era is
finished," he says. "The BBC needs to provide web tools and a
new generation of methods and resources that will boost [its]
capital, but that will also use the BBC as a platform for
promoting the individuals, organisations and businesses that
make up UK plc."  What could the BBC creat