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You didn't look very hard. It's been widely reported (widely enough for someone who actually searches for a solution or asks his Linux distributor) that Fluendo sells some codecs (and DVD player) along with the patent licenses.

You can buy them here: Fluendo. They do a lot of work based around GStreamer. If you don't want to buy any you can still get a legal MP3 codec for free.

Fluendo currently sells MPEG2, MPEG4, Dolby AC3 and Windows Media codecs legally. They also give you the MP3 codec free of charge.

If you want peace of mind and avoid being a criminal in countries with silly laws, then these may be something for you.

Ubuntu is also working on a Media Center based on Elisa

I decided that seeing as I didn't record much TV, I'd change to running Xbox Media Centre, and use its MythTV scripts to control another backend if ever I needed. Today, it seems they've announced a Linux port, which might be an excellent way for all the people who want a Linux media centre, but just don't like MythTV for one reason or another, to contribute.

Fluendo are also working on a media centre called Elisa, built on their GTK/Gstreamer platform.

Things are looking up overall on the Linux media centre front.

Exclusion at all costs?

Here's the legal Windows Media codec bundle for Linux & Solaris.

Fluendo is developing/selling (has to sell them due to royalties) MS codecs for Linux. Also they are working on legal DVD player. Morever gstreamer has DRM stack in it, for HD/BlueRay protection schemes. If any distribution put money to pay for licence fees for codecs, they can release those codecs bundled. There's nothing to stop them, however nobody would like to use DRM unless it's enforced, and with a typical Linux distribution you can't enforce that.

In past it was not possible for computer manufacturers to offer Linux because they were not enough consumers to choose Linux over Windows and Windows might charge them with higher oem licenses. However today they see that people would like to buy pre-installed Linux boxes, and computer manufacturers yet see that they can support them as well. Dell will soon bundle his own build of Fedora if I'm not mistaken. Maybe they will offer other distros as well. Then we'll see if Linux is already lost, or you're talking non-sense.

This post would be in respect to Dennis Barr's comment (Page 2 of the article):

"Linux still has a way to go, unfortunately, because its ease of use and application support, despite the words of its partisans, still is not what it is under Windows. For instance, under OpenSUSE, there's no directly supported way to play back DVD movies."

Actually, if you pay for Suse (not OpenSUSE) you get codecs to play videos. Also; if those aren't enough you can buy additinal codecs from a company known as Fluendo. They support a couple of platforms with their codecs. Here is their press release.

http://www.fluendo.com/press/releases/PR-2007-01.h tml

Now with respect to the statement:

"I've found involve a wink-wink-nudge-nudge disregard for legality"

Now you have support; no "wink-wink-nudge-nudge" needed.
Judging all Linux users by what you found in a forum isn't acceptable. I could send you to tens of thousand windows sites that do more than a wink and a nudge. Actually they break out sledge hammers.

To point out:

"Linux still has a way to go, unfortunately, because its ease of use and application support, despite the words of its partisans"

Application support? Linux / *BSD's and Solaris run all my applications just fine. If you are referring to commercial support; they you might have a point. There could be more commercial applications. But temper that with the fact that there are thousand of existing open source applications that cover many desktop users need.

So, to sum it up: Don't judge all Linux users by what you have found in a forum. I could send you more windows crack forums than you could ever find in the *nix universe. When talking about application support; be specific about the topic. Throwing out generalities like Linux isn't ready for the desktop isn't exactly appropriate. I will ask: who's desktop? Not all desktop users are created with the same needs. Please be fair and objective.

Java applets get back in the game. All someone (Sun? Fluendo?) needs to do is provide a (good) replacement for the myriad of atrocious, platform dependent, Flash video players. Surely Java applets can provide something better? Provide the server-side stuff, and the basic streaming/decoding base for the client, abstract the away the player interface (GUI, controls... etc) so people can customize the look+feel (they love to do that for some reason, even if they are shit at it) and make it relatively efficient (You couldn't do worse than Flash in performance if you tried). If the competition is Flash the goal is so low you can't help but succeed. Flumotion is on their way: http://stream.fluendo.com/demos.php

I'm guessing it would be a hell of a lot slower in Java than it is in Flash/ActiveX

found this one on Google pretty quickly and it works just as well as YouTube's and Google Video's Flash apps do for me.

Yea, that's actually really shitty. If your numbers are accurate, I wouldn't be surprised if we end up seeing better performance out of the Fluendo Applet than Flash Video.

I tried to understand the Conditions of Use but I have questions that should be in a FAQ on your site:

1) The license seems to say "per computer". Does that mean it's OK to install the same software in two versions of Linux on the same (dual-boot) computer?

2) Is there a process for me to legally move the software to a different computer (deleting it on the old one, of course).

3) Does the software "phone home" in any way?

4) The Indemnity clause demands that the buyer (licensee) indemnify you against anything. Where's the part where you promise that you have legally licensed the patents that you are implementing, thus indemnifying *us*?

5) Is the software distro-aware? If I install it on Fedora, will I know if some livna RPM tries to blow away a library?

Thanks in advance for any information.

If you have read Christian (Fluendo most visible VP) blog post, they plan to provide upgrades via distribution upgrade/installation system (apt-get, yum, etc.)

How would this work? Does APT or YUM work via authenticated HTTP connections? They'd obviously need some way to keep just anyone from sticking "apt http://fluendo.com/updates nonfree" into their sources.list and grabbing their software -- and I don't think their business model is going to fly if they attempt to do shareware.

Maybe they could sell people digital certificates which were used in the authentication process, allowing them to access the repositories; that seems like it might be viable. Not perfect (because you'd need to keep people from sharing the certificates, but at the same time you wouldn't want to tie them to IP addresses, because that would impact traveling people or those on dynamic IPs), but I could at least see it being possible.

Linux, 0.37%

You could argue for better firefox support, but as much as we love linux, I suppose they have no obligation to make it work for something that is that small minority among desktop users.

As someone always comments on Fedora's (and by proxy, Red Hat's) multimedia support, here it is from the horse's mouth:

15.3. MP3, DVD, and Other Excluded Multimedia Formats
Fedora Core and Fedora Extras software repositories cannot include support for MP3 or DVD video playback or recording. The MP3 formats are patented, and the patent holders have not provided the necessary patent licenses. DVD video formats are patented and equipped with an encryption scheme. The patent holders have not provided the necessary patent licenses, and the code needed to decrypt CSS-encrypted discs may violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a copyright law of the United States. Fedora also excludes other multimedia software due to patent, copyright or license restrictions, including Adobe's Flash Player and and Real Media's Real Player. For more on this subject, please refer to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ForbiddenItems.

While other MP3 options may be available for Fedora, Fluendo now offers a free MP3 plugin for GStreamer that has the necessary patent license for end users. This plugin enables MP3 support in applications that use the GStreamer framework as a backend. Fedora does not include this plugin since we prefer to support and encourage the use of patent unrestricted open formats instead. For more information about the MP3 plugin, visit Fluendo's website at http://www.fluendo.com/.

"If you choose a free format such as Ogg Vorbis+Theora, then again you force the user to waste their time hunting for the plugin software, but in addition there are about five hundred sites that all distribute slightly different versions; the correct (blessed?) site is impossible to find unless the user is a computer expert."

This is why the existence of Cortado would be such a great thing, if anybody actually used it. It's still Java, but at least it lets people view Ogg without having to dig around looking for an Ogg codec. And with Java on the road toward freedom, this may eventually become an all-free option.

Fluendo has done exactly that for mp3 playback.

http://www.fluendo.com/resources/fluendo_mp3.php

It is an odd situation because the source is open, but in patent-aware countries, you need to have paid fluendo, who in turn have paid Fraunhofer and Thomson.

can you tell me the easiest method of getting Ubuntu up to speed with all the codecs, DVD-playback, flash, et cetera... LEGALLY?

Keep an eye on here:

http://www.fluendo.com/products.php?product=plugin s

They are currently only available to OEMs, but the plan (as stated in the link) is to make them available to end users via a webshop.

The schedule is in GMT+1. The streams have been unreliable all day, apparently due to a poor network connection out from the event. Archives of talks should be available in the near future though (at http://stream.fluendo.com/archive/guadec/2006/)

The fundamnetal problem is that MP3s are patented. As long as Ubuntu is dedicated to giving out free and liberated software, they'll be at odds with the patent holders who hold the right ensure that neither of those goals is possible. Recently there have been attempts to work within the patent holder's framework to provide something legal and acceptable, but the closest we have is Fluendo's licencing program, which explicitly doesn't allow for redistribution, one of the key things in the GPL's operation. For example, Ubuntu can mail you a 6.06 CD containing the mp3 plugin, but it's legally questionable for you to redistribute those CDs to your friends. And MEPIS would certainly be in trouble, unless they also secured such a contract. Ubuntu represents it's distro as a "people should be able to modify and share changes" aka a Free Software distro. This contract goes against this ideal, and if MEPIS isn't aware of this contract, and chooses to modify Ubuntu in other ways, then Ubuntu's exposed the people they told could modify the software, people like they guy behind MEPIS, to hidden legal liabilities.

Is this a new attempt at including Digital Restrictions Management in Linux? I've read posts on here that have discussed the DRM inclusions in GNOME's GStreamer. Could KDE be next? Real, Fluendo, and other copyright trolls are a threat to watch out for, similar to the looming threat of binary kernel modules. We as Linux users must be on guard against the copyright mafia's incessant attempts to neuter our computers.

Fluendo has released a licensed MP3 plugin for the GStreamer framework. It's already in Debian unstable, and I'd say Ubuntu probably will include it.

I wish. The closest thing I've found is the Fluendo MP3 decoder for gstreamer 0.10. It's a fully licensed, free MP3 decoder that you just unzip and drop into your gstreamer plugins directory.

Not much use at the moment, but gstreamer 0.10.0 distros should be coming out soon.

Word has it they're planning on more of those, plus a DVD player sometime soon.

MP3 is now (more) available: http://www.fluendo.com/resources/fluendo_mp3.php

However, since it *is* a patented format I don't really think anyone should promote it.

Hopefully, MP3 support will soon not be an issue: http://www.fluendo.com/press/releases/PR-2005-05.h tml

or get the plugins from http://www.fluendo.com/ who have paid for the patent

Both of the posts you replied to clearly stated that there is a JAVA APPLET

Both of the posts you replied to clearly stated that there is a JAVA APPLET

..I assume he's putting on the show because he wants people to, you know, actually watch it. ;)

Additionally, you can just use the free free Java applet and the end-users need not download anything [it does Vorbis+Theora already!]. (well, honestly, I don't know if they need to download Sun's Java; if it works with MS-Java (i.e. JRE 1.1), then nobody on the mainstream platforms needs to download anything.)

So you have several different ways you can do it for free and reach everybody (possibly with a free download, like QuickTime), and several different ways you can do it for not-free with no downloads necessary, reaching all users both ways. Sounds like a good deal to me.

you didn't read the parent, the parent says that you pay a license to stream using MPEG4 and co or get a free license to stream in Ogg/theora.

Note that if you opt for Ogg/theora, there exist plugin for WindowsMedia player here
http://www.illiminable.com/ogg/

Mplayer and vlc played them too.

If you don't want your user to download any player, they can use that java applet:
http://www.fluendo.com/products.php?product=applet

The basic server product is free software, distributed under the GPL. If you want to stream content to your customers using unemcumbered royalty-free media formats (for example, Ogg/Vorbis and Ogg/Theora), you can easily do so without having to take out any license or support contract with us.

On the other hand, if you do license the Advanced Streaming Server, you get the additional features of our commercial server version. This includes professional GUI administration tools, access to proprietary formats for streaming such as MPEG, and access to our support engineers.

The basic server product is free software, distributed under the GPL. If you want to stream content to your customers using unemcumbered royalty-free media formats (for example, Ogg/Vorbis and Ogg/Theora), you can easily do so without having to take out any license or support contract with us.

On the other hand, if you do license the Advanced Streaming Server, you get the additional features of our commercial server version. This includes professional GUI administration tools, access to proprietary formats for streaming such as MPEG, and access to our support engineers.

I wasn't refering to your example specifically, merely disagreeing with your assertion that Gnome is slow because of demands on the CPU. This is not the case. It is slow because it is heavily IO bound.

Robert Love - Optimizing Gnome

Here's a link to the mentioned talk: Optimizing GNOME

There was a talk on Dirac at GUADEC, which you can watch at the bottom of this page. (Ogg Theora video)

Ahhhhh! Where did the link go. Try this...
http://stream.fluendo.com/archive/6uadec/Thomas_Da vies_And_Anuradha_Suraparaju_-_Dirac.ogg

An interesting reference to back this up: I believe at GUADEC 6 one of the speakers asked the audience what the last version of Windows they used: most of them last touched Windows 1995. :(

Memory fragmentation is a big issue for modern desktop systems as the heap used by programs written in C/C++ can't be compacted, and most memory allocation systems weren't necessarily designed to support programs that would be continually allocating and deallocating memory for days on end. Robert Love gave a (fairly detailed and technical) talk on it at while back, with some suggestions for combating it on the Linux desktop, which I recommend to anyone who is interested. It's about 126MB, Ogg format.

http://stream.fluendo.com/archive/6uadec/Robert_Lo ve_-_Optimizing_GNOME.ogg

Memory fragmentation is a big issue for modern desktop systems as the heap used by programs written in C/C++ can't be compacted, and most memory allocation systems weren't necessarily designed to support programs that would be continually allocating and deallocating memory for days on end. Robert Love gave a (fairly detailed and technical) talk on it at while back, with some suggestions for combating it on the Linux desktop, which I recommend to anyone who is interested. It's about 126MB, Ogg format.

http://stream.fluendo.com/archive/6uadec/Robert_Lo ve_-_Optimizing_GNOME.ogg

That ogg file crashes Winamp. Anybody have another copy?

Memory fragmentation is a big issue for modern desktop systems as the heap used by programs written in C/C++ can't be compacted, and most memory allocation systems weren't necessarily designed to support programs that would be continually allocating and deallocating memory for days on end. Robert Love gave a (fairly detailed and technical) talk on it at while back, with some suggestions for combating it on the Linux desktop, which I recommend to anyone who is interested. It's about 126MB, Ogg format.

http://stream.fluendo.com/archive/6uadec/Robert_Lo ve_-_Optimizing_GNOME.ogg

Memory fragmentation is a big issue for modern desktop systems as the heap used by programs written in C/C++ can't be compacted, and most memory allocation systems weren't necessarily designed to support programs that would be continually allocating and deallocating memory for days on end. Robert Love gave a (fairly detailed and technical) talk on it at while back, with some suggestions for combating it on the Linux desktop, which I recommend to anyone who is interested. It's about 126MB, Ogg format.

http://stream.fluendo.com/archive/6uadec/Robert_Lo ve_-_Optimizing_GNOME.ogg

Memory fragmentation is a big issue for modern desktop systems as the heap used by programs written in C/C++ can't be compacted, and most memory allocation systems weren't necessarily designed to support programs that would be continually allocating and deallocating memory for days on end. Robert Love gave a (fairly detailed and technical) talk on it at while back, with some suggestions for combating it on the Linux desktop, which I recommend to anyone who is interested. It's about 126MB, Ogg format.

http://stream.fluendo.com/archive/6uadec/Robert_Lo ve_-_Optimizing_GNOME.ogg

Memory fragmentation is a big issue for modern desktop systems as the heap used by programs written in C/C++ can't be compacted, and most memory allocation systems weren't necessarily designed to support programs that would be continually allocating and deallocating memory for days on end. Robert Love gave a (fairly detailed and technical) talk on it at while back, with some suggestions for combating it on the Linux desktop, which I recommend to anyone who is interested. It's about 126MB, Ogg format.

http://stream.fluendo.com/archive/6uadec/Robert_Lo ve_-_Optimizing_GNOME.ogg

Memory fragmentation is a big issue for modern desktop systems as the heap used by programs written in C/C++ can't be compacted, and most memory allocation systems weren't necessarily designed to support programs that would be continually allocating and deallocating memory for days on end. Robert Love gave a (fairly detailed and technical) talk on it at while back, with some suggestions for combating it on the Linux desktop, which I recommend to anyone who is interested. It's about 126MB, Ogg format.

http://stream.fluendo.com/archive/6uadec/Robert_Lo ve_-_Optimizing_GNOME.ogg

He forgot this [java] technology. I consider it a serious contender based on Java. Slashdotters, point your browsers to http://stream.fluendo.com/demo/office/audiovideo/j ava.php to see what I am talking about.

Overall, I was impressed. Technical slashdotters, please elaborate. Thanx.

Here is a corrected link to the Fluendo press release...

Why ? Because GStreamer was designed *from the start* to be pluggable. The whole patent issue is one of the main reasons why GStreamer is designed the way it is. Sure, it took a lot longer to get to a point where stuff starts to Just Work, because we wanted to make sure we would be around when the shit hits the fan.

So while a lot of other projects chose to ignore the whole patent problem, and a lot of projects used the GPL as a license (which indeed is not compatible with patents), making it possible for any distro to ship them, we had the focus of making sure that the GStreamer platform is pluggable to the point where the libraries can be put in or taken out without breaking the applications. It's also one of the reasons why GStreamer, from the start, has been LGPL - because that allows distributors to ship a complete stack of GStreamer applications legally in places where software patents apply (like, say, the whole US). Fighting software patents is a great idea. Waving the problem away as if it's not there is not.

Also, with the arrival of Fluendo, a company building stuff on top of GStreamer, (and also a company I happily work for :)), people will be able to get codecs for the patented formats in a legal way, if they chose not to run the risk, or if they want to be legally safe.

What does this mean in the end ?

• Distributions can finally ship a multimedia platform in a legal way; see the up-take on Totem and RhythmBox for example. Flumotion, Fluendo's streaming server with support for royalty-free codecs, is a new project and already it is gaining quite an uptake.

  Very few distros have taken the risk to ship one of the other projects, for legal reasons. (Apparently the mighty Debian ships Xine, and while on any other non-free subject lots of noise is made, this one seems to be left alone because it's a big deal).

  It is no coincidence that projects like mplayer, vlc, and xine do not get shipped by most distributions. In fact, coincidentally, Fluendo did a press release on this very issue yesterday.

• Source does not have to be "crippled" to be shippable. Other projects get their tarball mangled to remove all questionable code, causing lots of bug reports, ... Take XMMS in Fedora as an example - people complained loudly about the removal of MP3. Actually, Red Hat had the guts to make a stand and decide "we can't legally ship this, and we should stop pretending it's not a problem."
• GStreamer had some discussions with the FSF (here's the result. In a nutshell, it is vital for a complete framework (ie, all parts of its stack) to not be GPL (or GPL, with an exception clause for GStreamer - see our licensing advisory for more info). The GPL is not compatible with patents. A distro can not risk shipping a stack of libs/plugins/applications where one of these is GPL.
• "For sale" distributions will finally be able to ship proprietary plugins for these patented codecs, as well as playback applications, and DVD playback, *and it will finally be legal* on Linux.
• Apart from Sorenson (who outright refuse - or are not allowed - to license code to anyone but Apple), codec companies are turning around, taking note of Linux, and Fluendo is stepping up to make sure that those who really want these proprietary codecs can buy them.
• Here is what you can do. People need to realize that, jus