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Streaming Media - Can Linux Keep Up?
raphinou asks: "I am really worried because Microsoft is making serious progress on streaming media fields. Realplayer is available to Linux users. Windows Media isn't. How do you want Linux to succeed on the desktop if there aren't any streaming players for it? If Microsoft can convince broacasters to use Windows Media, they'll again control the desktop. It really makes me think about the Netscape thing. And I'm afraid we'll have the same end: RealNetworks dead. This is really the same thing: Microsoft is giving away for free what RealNetworks has to sell." What do you think? Have the BrowserWars become the StreamingMedia wars?
xanim supports at least one variant of H.263, but I think that right now there are a couple of variants on the file format. There's also H.263+.
.avi, I think (but won't swear to it!) that vic (one of the mbone tools) supports it also.
As far as using H.263 in a streaming context rather than in an
You're right that rhe API needs to be in place before we can expect CODECs, whether binary or open source, to become available.
However, there *is* already a standard emerging for Linux - the "Video for Linux 2" (V4L2) API. This isn't in the release kernels yet (V4L is), but it is available, and there are drivers for it for most cards including the popular Bt848 based ones.
V4L2
One of the significant improvements in V4L2 is that it does support a CODEC API.
Mark Podlipec had had some success in getting companies to release propietary CODECs for xanim, given the standard he has established there, and I expect that an OS level API like V4L2 would with a bit of encouragement get a fuller set of CODECs released. Don't expect open source though, since the better CODECs represent significant intellectual property value for the commercial companties that developed them. But with the infrastructure in place, it'll be possible for an open source CODEC to emerge if people are interested in working on it.
Is there a standard for streaming media? If not, then one should be made, or followed. If MicroSofts format is good enough, let's use it. Let's make a Linux player for the same format. If its not good enough, let's make a windows-media-player thingie that can take care of Micro$ofts standard, and let's make our own in addition.
Personally I think that we should follow the already established standards - instead of reinventing the wheel time after time again. There is no need for a new standard, if the current is good enough.
--
"Rune Kristian Viken" - arcade@kvine-nospam.sdal.com - arcade@efnet
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
Have you tried compiling Apple's Darwin Streaming Server under Linux? It's open source, easily configurable, and Apple doesn't charge by the stream.
True, people are still waiting for a Linux QT client, but your fears about Micro$oft domination of streaming may be premature.
There are some IT types who will adopt MS streaming just because it comes from Redmond, but these folks are no different than the IT types who used to grasp at any solution IBM offered, because it came from IBM. We used to call them dinosaurs.
-Dave
It's an open standard, there are at least two open source implementations that I know of, and the quality/compression appears to be about the same as MPEG-4.
IMHO, there are only two solutions:
Each of these has their difficulties.
The free world has lots of brilliant people but...it is unfocused. To create a true interactive, streamming real-time audio/video experience is going to require some major work. Focused billiance.
Linux may manage to start getting to the level of Mac (at its highest) where most companies had to make a verions for it. Linux is getting closer but it still needs some muscle behind it. RH and the rest of the Linux IPO gang could be that muscle but they havn't doen anything yet. Those companies are the key to getting the big coroporations to do the dirty work for us. The same group holds the key to projects like Wine. They fight a battle with a closed stanard. After writing and maintaining device drivers for Win2k ever since it was called NT5, I can tell you that writing to a moving target is TOUGH. Some big money LinuxIPO companies could help these causes
-- soldack
That comment on the original posting rang a bell.
The author said that he was afraid that RN
will suffer the same 'death' destiny of Netscape
because Microsoft is giving away what Real
Networks is trying to sell.
In my many years using and promoting Linux
(and I have converted several people) I feel
the same about Linux. Whenever one thinks of
something that could generate some cash
(a program to sell) to subsidize one's
free projects (I have several myself) then
someone comes with a free alternative. So _we_
are doing the same and can't blame MS for
being evil because of this behaviour.
For many years, doing free software has been
a passion that I am sure many share. But the
fact is that at some point we all have to
put the bread on the table and that is nearly
impossible with Linux programming unless you
get a contract to do it.
Anyway that's my $0.04 (inflation, another
reason to earn money!). Flames will be
ignored.
There is an Open standard for Streaming available for linux...both the specs and the server.
It's called Quicktime.
Don't start on the 'we don't have Soreneson thing either...because you don't need it.
What is needed is an open source *hinter* to avoid having to use Apple software if you don't want to.
Lemme elaborate:
For video, quicktime supports the following codecs, at various speeds/bandwidth:
Animation, BMP, Cinepak, Component Video, DV (NTSC & PAL), Graphics, H.261, H.263, Indeo 5 & 3.2, Indeo Raw, Motion JPEG A & B, Photo Jpeg, PNG Sorenson, TGA, Tiff and Video.
Now, out of that list, I know that either the source to these is available, or binary codecs for Xanim.
Sorenson, btw, is not the greatest codec for streaming in all cases. In fact, the final output is sometimes larger than Indeo 5.
Quicktime streams also support the following audio codecs:
IMA 4:1, 24bit Integer, 32 Bit Float & Integer,64 bit Float, ALaw 2:1, IMA 4:1, MACE 3:1 & 6:1, Meta Sound, Meta Voice, QDesign2, Qualcomm PureVoice and muLaw 2:1
Again, Linux support is there.
BTW, in case you didn't know, the audio eats up more Bandwith that the videostream...but I digress.
The Quicktime library needed for acutally reading tracks properly has been ported to linux an BSD already:; the source is available as well.
The Quicktime streaming sever has a tremendous advantage over all of the other competing technology here that a lot of folks (here and elsewhere) seem to miss:
There is no charge for streaming. You can serve as much as you want, as long as you want, to as many clients as you wish, for no charge.
MS doesn't (and won't) offer this and Real certainly will not as that is where their revenue stream lies.
Also of note: QTSS/DSS use open standard protocols for streaming...no funny stuff. RTP/RTSP over UDP and via HTTP. It also uses standard Session Description Files. It supports relaying as well.
What I suggest is that folks that are looking for a solution not recreate the wheel.
The combination of Indeo5 and IMA4:1 works *quite* well for streaming, assuming the peson putting the stream together knows what they are doing and is supported by Linux. The server is there as well.
What's missing is streaming support for a player, and a non-apple Hinter for encapsulating the stream.
Sorenson and QDesign is more hype than help...trust me on this. It really doesn't help 56kps modem connections (what does?) and for ISDN/Dual ISDN and better connections, the differnce between that combo and a Linux supported one becomes less of a big deal.
Where I work, we've spent a lot of time looking at this, as we build a Linux-based product that relies on Multimedia, and honestly, nothing out there is better than Quicktime.
The pieces are in place for streaming on Linux...they just need to be fitted together.
An Aside:
Believe it or not folks, Apple is more your friend than your enemy.
Why/how can I say this? Simple.
For anyone industrious enough to dive in, Apple is giving Unix-oriented coders a huge earning opportunity, as they will effectively be the first company in the World of History to bring Unix to the Desktop.
Read that again. Let me help. They will be the first company in the World of History to bring Unix to the Desktop.
What's worse, is they will be bringing to to what most of you seem to consider the most (ahem) stupid computer users on the planet.
Now that's a feat.
Anyway, like I said, the stuff is out there for supported cross platform streaming video...
-K
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
The answer is: it depends.
Working against us:
Working for us:
What will decide this battle:
Summary: streaming media is an *extremely* young technology. Of the 10% or so of the population with net access, probably only 5% (the DSL/Cable/University crowd) or so of those can even use streaming media effectively. (Most people can't deal with static images very well.) We have some time before streaming media becomes the 'killer app'. Even if we don't win on streaming media, we're the 'small, nimble competitor'. Microsoft is the 'large, entrenched industry leader'. Call it manifest destiny, if you like. We're bound to win one of these days. :)
I'm going to risk (some) karma here, and say you're wrong about Wine.
"The Win32 API is a moving target."
Sure. Each time they release it, though, it does not change. How much "spontaneous evolution" does Win98 do once installed?
"Microsoft will attempt to break WINE compatibility with every new release of Windows."
People have started to realise there's no reason to upgrade. Why use Office 2k, when Office 97 works fine? Why get Windows "Millennium" when Win98 works fine? And once thet break the Win32 API again, they have a whole slew of apps that no longer work.
Here's what Wine should do -- allow you to run different Win32 APIs in emulation. Want to run Win 3.1 apps? Use the Win16 emulation layer. Gaming, and general apps? The Win98 with DirectX 6.1 or 7.0 emulation layer would likely be fine -- as long that they don't mix Win16 code in.. But the tricky thunking could be setup with the two emulation layers cooperating. Win NT 4.0? Heck, it'd be easier than Win98 as NT assumes the Win16 stuff will be emulated in its own VDM. Emulating the NT 4.0 API for apps that need NT, the Win98 API for normal apps, and the Win16 API for Win3.1 apps would work fine.
Yet they still continue to make a huge, combined Win32 API emulator that must act differently depending on a huge list of variables. That's why they have failed.
---
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Which is why there are now an awful lot of people streaming mp3 with Icecast and shoutcast.
;-)
... that's right - it's Mpeg2 video .... a universally accepted format
If you're interested in audio then there's one very persuasive argument to *not* got for Windows Media. A case of market penetration. Real Will argue that they have the largest potential listener base out there - after all their clients are available for an awful lot of platforms. Windows Media if of course only available for Windows and Mac.... no unix clients.
But... Icecast offers even more... because Icecast is as open as possible we can boast a wider potential audience than either WMP or Real.
So if you're going for audio then why bother with Real or WMP....
Well there is the bandwidth argument.... but at the rate badwidth is now increasing that's only going to be important for a couple of years - mp3 is more then Good enough to be usuable at modem speeds and excellent at DSL speeds. Why bother developing proprietory codecs?
OK... we're still working on Live Video, - but we can do static video in many formats (we can even stream windows media video files via icecast
Perhpas people should look back at the technologies which have made the wired world what it is.... all the bits that make up a streaming technology. Lets go right to the place where traditional media is still holding out against the internet.
Digital TV in europe has been one of the most successful hardware launches
ever, people talk about DVD being an example of a great hardware launch but
this is eclipsed by Digital TV, either satellite or terrestrial.
Now.... I should maybe ask everyone who is promoting Microsoft's media server
as being the technology of the future to tell me which video codec is being
used
which has implementations available for any platform.
What about proprietory streaming technologies which have been launched in the
past... after all this is a streaming media list.
What's the most popular audio format available on the internet, do people go
searching for Real Audio? Asf? Wma? All of these formats have hyp machines
telling us that they are the next generation - in fact they;ve been telling us
this for a while. And yet in the past few years it's been Mpeg Layer 3 that's
taken off - the VHS of audio formats. It may not be patent free, but it's free
enough that every platform has players and encoders...
What about the actual method of delivery?
Remember 5 or six years ago, Microsoft was launching windows 95, and at the
same time decided that they needed an 'online' serivce, something like AOL or
Compuserve. Everyone else at the time was talking about the Internet as being
the future, but MS wanted to have the Microsoft Network. A closed system
available to the users of Windows, using it's own networks, its own protocols
- after all - the internet was based on 25 year old technology - why would
users upgrading to windows 95 want to use something so outdated? We all know
that microsoft got the whole network thing waaaaay wrong.
5 years on... what's teh standard medium for the exchange of computer data? Is
it's AOL's network? Compuserve? Or MSN.... nope, nope, nope.... It's the
internet - if you don't speak TCP/IP then you're not in the party. Plus
there's all the protocols and formats which form the backbone of internet
content - HTTP, FTP, NNTP, HTML, JPEG, GIF.
I could continue to cite other computer technologies which have gone the same
way - the IBM PC - technologicall inferior to other systems at the time - but
it was easy to copy and so the clone industry was born and created the
standard PC that can run Windows95/98/NT, Linux, Beos, Gnu HURD and several
varieties of BSD.
The technologies which are successful and end up winning are all either open
technologies, or technologies which are open enough that anyone can get in.
And the same will likely be true in the next few years as bandwidth continues
to rise and streaming media applications *really* get going.
(So - if anyone wants to help me write a live video encoder/streamer for iceast we'll have a complete package....)
The trouble here is that tech. developments come from hardcore reaserch into signal analysis. OSS imho (please give counterexamples!) most often suceeds in making widely understood technology stable and full of features.
Even if we have the Norwegians on our side, MS is pushing its money into research to stay ahead. If you check our Microsoft Research, specifically the internet media section (http://research.microsoft.com/research/china/imed ia/) you'll see what they're up to.
MP3 codecs rely as far as i know on Fourier analysis and, while encoding hard to do well, there are a few open source MPG decoder implementation.
The next version of the MPEG codecs, much like the new JPG2000, is going to be relying on wavelet technology. MPEG-4 uses things like 'shape-adaptive wavelet transforms and scalable shape coding'. Now this stuff is outside the realm of comprehension of a self net-taught hacker like myself (for now! i got me some books to read!), and i suspect it will be a while before this latest research gets implemented in OSS.
Which brings another interesting question: how is the opensource community going to lead in scientific research? Perhaps some notion of open knowledge community, where the knowledge is published, documented and organized for most efficient absorbtion into the neural tissue of the crowds of OSS coders that make this all possible.
meanwhile i'll be getting friendly with Dr.Daubechies and her orthogonal bases.
flip -out.
This type of market domination killed the browser market, as it raised the barrier to entry so high that competition was impossible. Now MS is threatening domination of the streaming market as well. With the recent explosion of broadband access, streaming media is going to become increasingly pervasive. Allowing any one company to dominate the field would be a disaster.
I can't help but wonder what would happen to MS Media Technologies if the whole division split off and became their own corporate entity. Instinct tells me that it would be in the best interests of this new corporation to offer media products and technologies across all platforms. There might be some bias to remain tied to Windows (after all, the programmers in the group probably know Windows best, and like developing for it.) However, their market share could only grow by moving on to more diverse platforms; thus, I believe that eventually we would see compatible products on all platforms. This would in turn create pressure for Apple to embrace a truly cross-platform solution, further improving the quality of product available to the consumer.
It seems as if the only barrier to this happening is the fact that the media group is still a part of Microsoft. If the group were separated, the technology would be free to grow, as the incentive/limitation to work only on Windows would be lessened, if not altogether removed.
THIS is why the DOJ needs to act.
I personally use windows media player because it's small, un-obtrusive, and more flexible than the others. Apple's quicktime 4 player is a great example of bad design, and real-player is quite simply a bloated, ugly, advertisement ridden, difficult to use pig. Of course, Windows Media player can (and does) support Quicktime, MP3, etc... (but not RealNetworks, at least on my setup). It doesn't really matter what player people are using, as long as the player supports different media drivers. I think it is useful to avoid players that aren't extensible (only support 1 format). If people only use easily extensible players, the most successful streaming format will hopefully be the best one. I am also somewhat biased agains Real Networks - their codecs look and sound awful, their player is ugly and obtrusive. What less could you want?
why not use a modified version of MPEG-2 for streaming with Linux. MPEG is good because surrent video cards have hardware support for the format and more of those card vendors are opening specs on their cards. Not only that but the compression is great, it would beat the pants off .rm and .asf movies for streaming purposes. It could be coupled with a streaming server and software encoder available in any flavour you wanted. Such a project would convince big name websites to produce their content in the format so everyone could watch it. Remember, the content people are in it for the eyeballs, not the codecs.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
At the risk of being a heretic, I would like to say that this is a symptom of a much larger problem than whether Linux users can play some streaming media or not. Basically, the whole key to the freedom and success of the Internet has been that the protocols, which date back to the pre-billion-dollar-dot-com-marketcap days, have been open and standardized. It is very concerning that this is not the case for many of the protocols that will be important on the Internet of tomorrow.
Streaming media may or may not be a big deal (on the one hand Real Networks and Microsoft are both evil as sin, on the other, how long until we can just stream with the semi-open mpeg standard instead?) but there are certainly other protocols that are. Is there any standard for Voice over IP? Are these open? Or just look at instant messaging. Flash. Secure communications.
Sooner or later the services that make up the Internet today are going to fade into obscurity and be replaced by whatever comes next. However, it seems that ever since commercial interest came to the Internet, they have not been able to agree on one single standard. Is the future of the Internet going to be one perpetual standards war because everyone believes that a monopoly is the only way to do bussiness?
I believe very firmly that this has already hurt the Internet and it's developement. Why has there not been a single new standard service since the WWW? Why has the last ten years seen the least developement of new innovations on the Internet although more money has been spent on it then every before?
Of course, as always our hope lies in that the Open Source revolution can convince companies that terms like "proprietary" and "patented" are everything but marketing catch phrases, and that fostering freedom is the only way to be successful on the Internet. But as long as Steve Case is looked up to as the archetype Internet executive, I wouldn't hold my breath.
-
We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
Open systems and the open Internet don't have anything to fear from commercial products, in my opinion, but only from commercially imposed lock-ins of various types, like patent restrictions and trade secrets.
The most dangerous thing that's been happening in recent years is probably the development of proprietary "standards" which are then imposed on the world by the power of cartel. We've seen lots of examples of this highlighted here right from the earliest days of Slashdot, but of course it's been happening forever. The difference is that before there wasn't really a single world for most people, whereas now there is, and it's a world that's held together by open communication and open information. Tie it up in the red tape of proprietary restrictions and we've got problems.
Some might call for enforcement to ensure that world-adopted standards are never proprietary, but that is easier said than done. The main problem is that the world's most obvious enforcers (governments) are in the hands and pockets of the big corporations that are of course creating the standards to their own advantage. I doubt if the IETF, EFF and others could get themselves onto the relevant forums even if they wanted to. In any event, they wouldn't be welcome even if the show weren't effectively invite-only, because corporations focus on control and profits, not openness.
Where does this leave us? Probably in a perpetual war against oppression by the corporate machine, but that isn't as bad as it sounds. Remember that they need us since we're the source of their profits, so there is a limit to how nasty they can be without losing money. To put it in other terms (control theory?), their success is dampened by negative feedback, whereas the growth and chaotic direction of the Internet is very much in the exponential grip of positive feedback as everyone builds on the work of everyone else. It'll be a bumpy ride, but I reckon we'll come out on top.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
I have done a little bit of reading about video standards and codecs. It seems there are several issues here.
1.) Windows media is centered around the ASF file format. The documents I have read at Microsoft's web site give lip service to ASF being a new, open standard. There certainly seems to be an oppurtunity to pressure Microsoft, and see just how open they are willing to be. Maybe they would be willing to hand over the specs and not sue the daylights out of the open source/Linux community (hold on... gotta stop laughing). Personally I don't like ASF. It embeds a GUID into all ASF files. The GUID contains the MAC address and other information about the PC creating the files. Maybe open source tools would give back privacy.
2.) Codecs. Even if Microsoft allowed open development of the ASF format, that really solves very little. ASF is just a wrapper. The appropriate codecs will need to be available in order to play any given ASF file. The most popular video codec seems to be the three versions of Microsoft's MPEG 4 codec. According to Microsoft the codec is based on the proposed MPEG 4 standard. That could be bad news. That sounds like MS Speak for "proprietary". It may be difficult, costly or impossible to make a legal codec. Such a codec would threaten MS dominance.
3.) Workstation apps and streaming media server apps are needed to support the ASF/ASX pseudo standard. I don't know what exists in the Linux world, but it may have to be updated to support windows media. Workstations require the codec to view streams. Does a streaming server app need to actually have the codec to transmit the data, or is understanding the ASF format sufficient?
MP3 seems to be a seperate issue. Real and MS have the streaming video/audio market locked up for now. I think MS could take over, and it is forward planning on there part. It seems that nothing exists to threaten MP3, the cat is out of the bag on that one. Perhaps something similar would happen if a high performance, open source, free MPEG4 codec existed.
The current state of streaming media seems to be a joke. I have found some radio programs I would like to listen to, but the "high speed" feeds are for 28.8 modems and stream at 16kbps. The quality is horrid. Its a shame, considering I have ADSL. I want a 128kbps feed for audio, until then I think it is just a novelty and to painful to listen to. I wonder if the broadcasting industry will legally prevent high quality streaming media.
I have a very fast cable connection at home, and I have a very fast T3 line at work. Streaming Media doesn't work so well at either place. Its frustrating, tedious and annoying. I haven't clicked on a media clip in at least 6 months. I cant even imagine how bad it is for folks using analog modems.
The bigger issue is, IMHO, the issue of focus. To beat Microsoft, IMHO, don't get into a war over features. They can churn out features faster than anyone. Look at the software we have as a result. What Linux should be concerning itself with is superior stability with less features...initially. Tackle the features that actually have to get done later, after a need has been established, relying on your reputation as superior software craftpeople. Nobody has ever beat Microsoft going toe to to on features. Its a a distraction at best.
I'm still working on a clever footer.
Accidentally, we're three Computer Science students working on what we think will be an intuitive and flexiable Streaming Media API. In fact, it's the final project in our education.
We know codecs are evolving. The codecs are not really the issue, the programming interface to the codecs is. What we need to do is to establish an Open Source alternative to the Win32 Streaming Media API. Our project is still in the planning period but we've already decided to work with the Open Source community.
Check out my URL or search for streaming on SourceForge if you want to help out with the API design or have other ideas for the future of streaming media! Think C++/Java classes, well-defined objects and so on.
Yes, that's right. Their license agreement specifically states that redistribution is not permitted, only end users are permitted to download and install their player. There is nothing on their web site stating of a way this restriction can be removed either.
Somehow they got it in their mind that corporate business users are permitted to freely download and install apps on their managed PCs. Plus, as a college, we have to keep lab PCs orderly by locking down permissions so students can install stuff on the computers either.
(Yes, they all run NT, not Linux).
I wrote to Real and complained and they told me to send my request to client_redistribution@real.com but they never respond to my e-mails. (My latest attempt to contact them was the middle of January 2000)
So -- flock() 'em. I installed WMP along with IE, which is permitted (license wise) if done via the IEAK.
Free is useless to me if I am forbidden by license to freely copy the software onto the client machines I maintain. If Real thinks all users manage their own PCs, they are horribly out of touch with reality.
You may hate Microsoft, but at least they understand the business environment. Real can shrivel up and die for all I care.
BTW, did we all forget already Real's huge intentional privacy violation regarding their players sending player listening info back to Real?
I don't mean to get off on a rant here, but Microsoft bashing is getting old. Yeah, I love Linux. Where I control the decisions (my home network of 6 machines), I have everything run by Linux clients and servers and use UNIX on servers at work to run everything from Apache to Samba. But the desktop corporate world still revolves around Microsoft and I can make no sane business case to have students to use anything other than that.
If you read my post history, you can see me ranting about the often horrible cruft Microsoft shovels out too. But in this case, WMP beats Real in the Windows world and beyond that, there are no other viable alternatives (Quicktime install methods and redistribution crap deserves a separate rant...)
There already is a set of standards!
l e /.
Check out the homepage of the AVT working group of the IETF at http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/avt-charter.htm
and also check out the set of tools (video conferencing, audio etc.) already available on
http://www-mice.cs.ucl.ac.uk/multimedia/softwar
We already do have streaming video and audio on UNIX.
This smacks of a double standard to me by slashdot readers (similar to the how slashdotters agree with the sale of the linux.net sale but railed against the seriousdomains.com auction) For a a forum that is constantly complaining about government intrusion into our lives, slashdotters seem to see nothing wrong with using the government as a personal attack dog when the mood suits them.
The reason the DOJ got involved in the browser wars is because MSFT used their position as the maker of Windows(tm) to force OEMs to preload Internet Explorer and charged higher licensing fees to those that disagreed until they toed the line. I have not seen or heard of any OEM being forced not to preload Real Player by MSFT and thus I cannot see how the browser wars are a good precedent for involving the DOJ. The giving away of IE is also different from the distribution of Windows(tm) Media player for free because besides the fact that they gave away IE to undercut Netscape, it can be argued rightly that in the industry today it is regular practice to give away content viewers to gather eyeballs so as to charge an arm and a leg for content creators/server software. This seems to be the business model of Real and Apple...should we launch a class action lawsuit against them for giving away software and thus stopping me from charging for my Carnage Player, I hope the answer is no.
Secondly involving the government in every little tiff in the software industry can only be a bad thing. The animosity of Sun reached distasteful levels during the MS-DOJ case and several statements made by Scott McNealy during the case are clearly products of envy. It would be sad indeed if the software industry is reduced to calling on the government for help every time a market leader emerges like angry school children paying the school bully to beat up the smartest kids in class.
I also dislike the premptive strike nature of the above post as displayed by this line.. With the recent explosion of broadband access, streaming media is going to become increasingly pervasive. Allowing any one company to dominate the field would be a disaster. This seems to indicate that it is OK for the DOJ to punish MSFT for having better technology technology than the rest of the current industry. Streaming media support is NOT an issue to anyone I have ever spoken to about a computer purchase and I am very sure that the current industry landscape will change before it ever does. Asking for an attack on MSFT now by the DOJ is premature and is only justifiable by twisted anti-MSFt logic. Why not ask the DOJ to sue Winamp or ICQ (wow just realized AOL owns both of them) since once computers become cheap enough and high bandwith is ubiquitous they are set to dominate their fields also?
Finally the entire above post smacks of an intense feeling of sour grapes and misconceptions. It seems that the poster is implying that Windows Media is so good that MSFT should be forced to share... (I'd rather they shared IE first, because I'm tired of Netscape's bugginess) but does not realize this has never been a reason for the DOJ to get involved in an issue. MSFT is allowed to develop cool software for Windows after all Windows is their principal product and they should make it as attractive as possible by writing cool apps for it. What is illegal is forcing people to use their product or else. Instead of bitching to the DOJ about issues that do not concern them maybe the richer Linux community (VA, Andover, Redhat) can fund research into open codecs or work on free (as in beer and speech) media players, servers and file formats. Instead of bitching to the government maybe the answer lies within us as a community.
It's a nice little server, easy configuration, seems to work quite well. It's also an RTSP server, so I would guess it is independant of media and players, right?
Everyone go try it out: http://www.apple.com/publicsource