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Intervideo LinDVD 'To Be Released'
A lot of people have e-mailed and submitted about the folks at Intervideo and their LinDVD project. This press release was issued by the company, stating that they will "release it soon." It is, of course, a binary software-DVD player for Linux. The company is a CSS license, so it's legal by the MPAA. Still, the product has not yet been shipped, despite much hoopla over the last six months. We'll see what happens.
NOW QUIT FLAMING PEOPLE.
IF YOU CAUGHT A CLUE, YOU WOULD KNOW THAT MOST OF US ARE LINUX ENTHUSIASTS, AND DON'T EVEN HAVE A MONITOR CONNECTED TO OUR COMPUTERS.
EVER SINCE SERIAL PORT SUPPORT WAS ADDED TO LINUX WE ALL PULLED OUR TELETYPE ASR-33 TERMINALS OUT OF THE CLOSET, GAVE THEM THE REQULAR SEMI-ANNUAL LUBRICATION JOB THEY NEED, AND ARE READING SLASHDOT ON CHEAP YELLOW TELETYPE PAPER.
AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON HOW UGLY MOST WEBSITES LOOK ON ASR-33 TELETYPES, OR WHAT A TREMENDOUS WASTE OF PAPER ANIMATED GIFS REPRESENT.
It's easy to see they are using GPLed LiViD code in their bin.
Their responce: The code wasn't really GPLed because it does patent covered stuff and since they are patent licenced, they can do what they want with the code. Including closing it.
Yes, it's terribly unfair, wholly undemocratic and rides roughshod over the sovereign nations. I think everyone should get together and have a riot about it, in Seattle, or something.
John Montoya, the street lawyer
Here's a some not so obvious limitations to the WinDVD software installation if you purchase WinDVD from their Website.
1) You can only reinstall the product 5 times before you cannot reinstall it anymore.
2) You HAVE to have Internet access on the system you're trying to re-install the product on at the time you're rei-nstalling it or you cannot activate your key and you're left with a trial copy that only works for 5 minutes.
3) You CANNOT download your key and save it somewhere to unlock the trial copy when you need to because the key must be regenerated for every single install and this happens on their server(s).
These three points alone are enough to keep me from ever purchasing LinDVD if they attempt to use the same tactics. Issue #1 might not be so bad on a Linux box, but on a Windows system where you frequently need to reinstall its rediculous.
The reason it is a copyright issue is because people forget that they are buying a license to use the material, not ownership thereof. If a company chooses to license content in certain ways, then they are quite right to be concerned about breaches of licencing schemes.
Of course, where the entertainmeent iondustry is lousy is that it treats items as licensed when it suits them, and physical objects when it doesn't. For example, if I buy a copy of Microsoft Office and the CD gets scratched, Microsoft will generally replace it for the cost of the media, since I've already paid for the license to use the software. A music seller, will, however, refuse to do the same, insisting you buy a new license to get new media.
>While the FSF appears more moderate than it is, don't pretend to think that free software is based
>in copyright law...the copyleft is an intentional, legalistic, snub of the copyright system.
There being no 'copyleft law,' the FSF's only actual legal coverage is in existing copyright law. They can call it whatever cute name they want, and couch it in other terms, but the body of copyright law is the ONLY thing that will stand behind the GPL.
The copyleft is all well and good and nice, but it only exists because the body of precedent surrounding copyright is compatible with its goals. Copyleft is not innately legal, it's just so far unchallenged, and its core assumptions are those that copyright law enables: that an author has the right to license work in any method he/she chooses.
--
from the LiViD project I've seen that the problem is not technological as far as DVDs - there is already a mechanism for the movies to be played. The problem has been in the video output. While the 'open' players out there are not completely optimized, their biggest problem comes from things like the video color-space conversion. If X servers do not have support for things like overlays for subtitles and blitting a non-RGB buffer to the screen, things will be very painful (I can't watch movies on my P3-500).
I don't see how a closed-source player, even with the 'technology' licensed from the DVD consortium, will be able to get around the lack of sufficient video support in XFree. Maybe this is why they haven't released yet?
You know, IANAL, but even I realize that 1) The copyright holder is allowed [...]
Perhaps, but one large part of the issue is what should be the default. If you want to make a contractual agreement with me that's one thing. However, DVD and similar sales are through commercial channels, which have an implicit contract as spelled out in the UCC (Uniform Commercial Code.) (Note that UCITA is a proposed change to the UCC.) So yes, a copyright holder could place some harsh restrictions, but if you want it sold on the shelves of Best Buy and Amazon, your ability to make such restrictions is removed.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Yea, they have a new product (the NetStream 2000) that is supposedly going to have Linux drivers at some point (yah, we'll see) - but not yet. Mind you, this is a $200 board, not a $50-$60 board like the H+ (aka Dxr3). I am NOT impressed, Sigma. I'm not going to spend 200 clams on a new board, only to wait (yet again) for Linux support.
They need to put up or shut up - they've been doing too much talking about Linux support, and (at least from my POV) not actually DOING enough about it. Too much talking makes me think "smokescreen", kids.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
>Reverse engineering might be tolerable to have a dvd-player run on
>some more platforms (as well as on other *nix-OSes).
>However, porting a dvd-player to the S/390 sounds rather absurd and
>funny to me:
>"Honestly, your honour, I just wanted to watch 'The Matrix' on my
>S/390!"
Well, since you can run 41,000 copies of linux on an S/390, why not have a couple of linux desktops running on the machine?
>This will be the end to all hopes for an open source player. Now they
>can say "but you have a player, you don't need to reverse-engineer
>it", and the decss will be buried.
Not if it's never released. This thing sounds more and more like vaporware. Even if it isn't vaporware it sound like it will only run on hardware from this particular company. Not much use if you have a DVD player from an diffrent manufacturer. Also doesn't adress the fact that linux runs on non-x86 processors.
>by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 31, @06:38AM EST (#17)
>One area where Linux falls down is its support for DirectX API. This
>is the de-facto standard for all 3d graphics work. Linux can never
>become the OS of choice for the hardcore gamer, until it has better
Who really gives a shit about you gamer losers? You want to play games, buy a Playstation.
>Too bad my video and sound cards don't have better support in Linux...
That's because most of us weren't *STUPID* enough to buy the cards you bought....
>If they are selling it for 'Linux' and we try an run it on something
>like ARM Linux - we could have a very good case.
Yes, because it'll bring the interoperbilty question bettween various versions of Linux (which should pretty much negate the piracy issue) into play. Remember unlike Windows, Linux actually is a operating system that runs on more than one type of computer hardware. And things like beowulf clusters and the IBM S/390 port of linux only serves to illustrate this point.
>Just to let you know there are those of us who have been using Linux
>as our only OS for years now. We don't go screaming around open source
>this and open source that, but we are pleased when things are open
>sourced. We would appreciate a dvd player for linxu so we don't need
>to buy a copy of another OS or a dvd player.
How much were you paid by the MPAA to plant your comments here?
>You really want to claim that ix86 Linux does not make up 95% of all
>Linux installations, possibly more?
For now, maybe ix86 Linux does make up 95% of Linux installations, but when Intel and the others release the non-ix86 processors? you're going to see these things get adopted by Linux and other non-Windows users at a much higher rate than by Windows users simply because people who create software under Windows won't have an OS that support these processors. Where is Microsoft support for the Alpha and Sparc platforms? Redhat and Mandrake will support them.
Everything is inherently analog.
It's just the way the physical universe works.
Digital systems are methods of interpreting analog data which have enough tolerance in their designs so that the inherently analog method in which they *must* store information can be accurately reinterpreted despite irregularities and distortions within the analog storage medium.
In order to interface with our brains (through eyes, ears, etc.), the information must eventually be represented in an analog format - there's no way of getting around that.
The question we should be asking is how faithful such a reproduction is without assuming that just because something is stored digitally it simply must be "better" than a fully analog representation. It just so happens that storing information (movies, etc.) in digital formats usually results in higher-fidelity reproduction.
Depending on the resolution of a digital storage system versus the quality of an analog storage system that assumption may not always be true.
OpenGL 1.2 includes support for 3d textures--essentially voxel rendering. Why isn't OGL 1.2 available for Windows?
int main(int argc, char *argv[]){return 0;}
which is more standard. After all, the free software community produced a 'true' command which responded to the --help flag. You can't add this sort of critical functionality with a simple void main(){}.
Its a proof of concept, you can't actually use it to watch and listen to movies.
Licensed, closed-source DVD players limit choice. They limit your fair use rights to their content. They support the MPAA. The MPAA threatens the right to reverse-engineer. Without this right, there would be no Linux.
A closed-source DVD player does not give you more choice.
If you're serious about choice, you should NOT support organizations that threaten your freedom. And buying stuff from them, or paying them license fees, means supporting them.
So there.
Also, I'm not a nazi. Not even a fscking one.
Nazis wouldn't like open source, for the same reason the MPAA doesn't like it - no central, iron-grip control!
I don't think anyone has a problem with content of games being copyright. Copyright is not evil, the implimentation is.
In your example of a game, imagine the longevity of said game with an OS engine and copyright content. Yes it would still sell and you would end up with an awesome community.
"Because we are not employing at entry level, offshoring will kill our industry stone dead."
I'm often told by my friends that I will argue about anything, and indeed I often do. But when I see people make statements that are blatantly incorrect I feel I must say something.
-- Some people say they can tell the time by looking at the Sun, but I have trouble seeing the numbers.
Currently I have a Voodoo Banshee, which is supported under XFree, and a sound card that works (had to go out and get another one after finding out that Creative has two versions of the PCI 128, the newer ones don't seem to be supported, If any know a way around this, email me, tjfriese@NoSpam.home.com).
Anyway, my question is, how is DVD support under Linux? If I go and buy one of those $300+ (Canadian) Creative DVD bundles off of the shelf, would this be a good purchase? Will this be able to play DVD's under Linux?
IANAL, but I'm fairly certain that playback and backup copies are covered under "fair use".
-matt
[In regards to making a CSS-protected movie, without a license.]
So that I would have an excuse to su-- um I mean -- to protect my intellectual property from pirates. Yeah, that's it.
So, the CSS trade secret is the only thing keeping me from using CSS? Hmm. Call me optimistic, but I have a hunch that it won't be too long before a judge admits that [De]CSS is no longer a secret.
DeCSS has been dispersed so widely and permanently, that the only "trade secret" status it has hangs by a thread from a judge's tongue. (The judge didn't want to admit that widespread proliferation of a document breaks it's secret status, becuase it would just encourage people to proliferate it further.) Nevertheless, it is now a "trade secret" that everybody knows, and it has even been published on the public record. And even that perverted trade secret status is incredibly weak: everyone knows that DeCSS was the result of Reverse Engineering. MPAA/DVD-CCA are going to look pretty silly if they really try to suggest that those kids learned the algorithm by breaking into someone's office safe. It's just a matter of time before the status crumbles.
Once DeCSS' status as a trade secret is blown away, CSS will follow. Just invert that function that's on the back of your Copyleft T-Shirt.
There's only one more thing I would like to see that would make things go a little quicker. Gimme an essay, maybe publish it in cold hard print (DDJ is still good for something, I hope?), that explains [De]CSS as well as Skala^H^H^H^H^HMattel's essay explained CyberPatrol. That would be an unparryable deathblow to the whole argument.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
No, you don't. You are allowed to perform maintenance on your car, or choose anyone else to do it for you. You can even open the hood and study it. You bought the car, not a license that says what you can or can't do with it.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I don't see mention of xmovie - the binary already plays dvd's. I have already bought Sigma Design's Netstream 2000, which they promise will have linux drivers soon.
tcboo
_I_ don't fscking care! As a dedicated Linux user what _I_ want is CHOICE
You are singing the same tune, only with different words. You don't mind closed source software, and will use it.
The OSN (Open Source Nazis) on the other hand only want to use open source software.
You both seem to think that the other is completely wrong, and are completely insane for thinking what they are thinking.
The OSN seem to want choice (in Open Source Software [or Free Software depending on which camp you are in]), you, and people like you, want choice in commercial closed source software, or in free/open [source] software.
thats all well and good, basically you both just want choice, but the way you speak is all the same, flame people who think differently from you.[usually becuase they flamed you first]
What I'm trying to say is that you should look at the meaning behind posts before you flame. Everyone wants the same thing. Choice.
The basic sleazeware produced in a drunken fury by a bunch of UCBerkeley grad students was still the core of BIND. --PV
This works "for now"
The next move should be to construct a NEW format. Not DVD or DVIX but one that is open source to start with.
We know how DVD works enough that we can create a NEW format. Make it a tad more flexable however.
Give it a streaming video codec for video content and a high quality movie format for CD.
And we could write an open format liccens that would be binding WITH OUT having to redefine the DMA to sute us.
In the mean time we can let the DVDCCS situation play itself out.
For those who are stuck on the copyright violation issue... This akin to clamming auto repair is a volation of the auto makers patents.
An issue of accessing data allready in our hands. Not of cracking into someones secret files.
An issue of viewing movies with out having an offical sanction of a corprate entity to do so with the operating system you chouse.
The computer can do it, the hardware is there the only thing standing in the way is the blessing of a corprate entity.
Once we have a compeating format it is a matter of getting movies into that format (No easy task) start small.. with indupendent film makers. Demonstrate the value of selling movies on the new format and push every inch. Eventually reaching the larg film companys.
At the start there would only be streamming media (the value of the streamming media version is to have a place to start).
Get people to sign an aggrement saying they will refuse to buy DVD movies ever again and await releases in the new format. Deliver this to the larg movie studios to show the strength behind the new format.
For now we don't have indupendent movies comming on a new format..
for now we don't have a new format...
For now we have this to play DVDs with.
This will do for the short term....
Whats the long term plan?
I don't actually exist.
But that's different.....
I <em>need</em> quake!!!
er, or something. Isn't it?
I think this is a good thing. This company took what was a wide-open market and got in first. The rest of you are just jealous. Closed source or not, it's one more application you DON'T need Windows to run, and that's GOOD.
Blech. Signatures.
You know, have a fully legal hardware DVD solution on my computer, and it works perfectly (and legally) under Linux. This is Creative's Dxr2, which, alas, they don't make anymore. Not only is it legal and works under Linux, the drivers and player software are GPL'd! How can they get away with this? Well, it's simple: the Dxr2 card does CSS authentication in hardware. This means the software never touches it. Everything works happy, and GPL'd to boot! Go Creative! Now, more people should have done this with their MPEG2 decoder cards. If they had, we wouldn't have this problem...
Supreme Lord High Commander of the Interstellar Task Force for the Eradication of Stupidity
What's so funny about laughing at a misused word by a foreigner?
Dunno, but UT looks hell better than Q3A. OpenGL was never meant to be gaming gfx platform from day one. DirectX was.
I don't know how theaters look around your place, but the ones I usually go to are pretty enjoyable.
Re analog video. So you have the $$ for a 30 inch plasma display with fully digital interfaces to the dvd-player? Does that even exist yet? If not, I've got some news for you. Your TV (remember, cathode ray) is as much analog as it ever gets.
And screen size matters to me.
I strongly believe that trying to be clever is detrimental to your health. -- Linus Torvalds
Thanks for the link. I knew about those sony glasses, but hadn't bothered to check them out. A wee bit on the expensive side but maybe they're worth it. I won't be able to invite friends with those tough ;)
Greetings from Cheeseland!
I strongly believe that trying to be clever is detrimental to your health. -- Linus Torvalds
Well, help out the Linux DVD folks, write your own player from scratch or live in a world without DVDs. Those are your options.
Well I for one will happily go along without DVDs and go watch movies in the theater. Better video, better sound, better experience. I'm certainly not going to buy myself a whole home theater solution just for the pleasure of watching movies. It's more expensive anyway.
In addition, I've never seen the point in owning a movie. I've got some on video, but it's been years since I've ever watched one of those tapes again (and yes, that includes Star Wars).
I strongly believe that trying to be clever is detrimental to your health. -- Linus Torvalds
Right on. Just a few minor points:
The main advantage of digital storage is lossless reproducability. But we achieve this by limiting the amount of data to discrete values (like for example audio CD: 16bit/44.1kHz sampling) in the first place. The question being, how much data do we have to collect for it to be "good enough".
Some would say that quantum mechanics is inherently digital tough, as particles can only have discrete energy states...
Of course I have no idea what I'm actually talking about here.
I strongly believe that trying to be clever is detrimental to your health. -- Linus Torvalds
Thanks for your very interesting reply.
.
;)
If you're not talking about doing this as a form of protest, though, feel free to disregard that
Well, yes, that was kind of my point, altough expressed poorly (englizh is nut me natif language) : I am, like most slashdotters, very opposed to the way content companies are trying to take away customers rights. It is a reason for me not to buy a DVD-player (the most important to me however, is that I refuse whenever possible to use any storage technology which isn't "two way", i.e. read/writeable, for ideological reasons). I would boycott hollywood movies, if I actually watched them in the first place (well I do see some, but the vast majority are independent films).
What I was trying to express however, is that I don't even see that much of an advantage to DVDs in opposition to the good old movie theaters (the quality and usefulness of the technology being the usual argument in favor of DVD). Your post intrigued me tough.
have to respectfully disagree. In the last year or so, theater experiences have been come near-intolerable. Cell phones, pagers, smoking-rights activists lighting up during the movie, etc. It's not worth the $7.50 to me anymore--particularly when I can rent all the DVDs I want from Netflix for $20.00/month.
Arrgh this sounds bad. Well you see I live in Switzerland, where people seem to still have some respect for the movie-going experience. I own a cell-phone, but I always turn it off for movies, since I'd rather not imagine what would happen to me if it rang during the movie (lynched at the very least)... I've never seen anyone light up a cigarette in a movie (well yes, a joint once, in spain during Lost Highway, which I found very justified
Chatting during the movie is not that much of a problem neither, since for action movies the volume is turned way up, and when it's a more intellectual one, most guys are sleeping anyway. We don't have that much of a "popcorn-coke" habit around here either.
I don't know about the quality of movie-theaters at your place, but I've been very satisfied by them so far. The single most convincing argument being the SIZE of the screen. I find it much more immersive. To match that I'd have to buy a giant TV, for which I (1) don't have the money (poor student) and (2) no place to store (everything filled up with computers).
You can get Dolby Digital decoders and home-theater quality speaker systems for $299 these days; perfect for the tech on a budget. It's also great for, say, living in an apartment.
This actually sounds interesting. I had never seriously looked into purchasing such a system. In my situation tough, it's still more expensive, since I only see a few carefully selected movies, about once a month. I'd have to get a bigger TV anyway, mine's too small.
However, with Netflix allowing you to rent as many DVDs as you want with no return dates, the rental industry is making a huge stride forward.
Renting movies at my place is unfortunately quite expensive, but well, you know we also pay metered rates for local phone calls around here, so...
In conclusion, I really think there's something great about going to the theater which DVDs won't top. After all, technically, theaters will go digital soon as well, and it's the best excuse to get off of my computer screen and meet friends.
I strongly believe that trying to be clever is detrimental to your health. -- Linus Torvalds
Would that be the Constitution of the Earth?
Or maybe they have one that applies to the known universe now.
I've been using this software for about 5 months now. The only thing it can't do is navigate menus, which is completely unnecessary for watching movies.
Let me tell you why nobody listens (besides the fact that it is for dxr2 only). We want a DVD player that is Free in every sense of the word. I can already play DVDs in Windows.
In what sense of the word is this not Free? You don't have to pay for it, and you get the source. Are you bitching about having to buy a decoder card? Unless you have a monstrously powerful system, hardware decoding is the only way to go.
THERE IS AN OPEN SOURCE DVD PLAYER THAT IT LEGAL TO USE
Go to:
Creative's opensource page
You'll an open source driver/player for creative dxr2 decoder cards. Even better, the player ignores region codes.
I have a RealMagic Hollywood+ DVD-Encoder. I asked Sigmadesign if there will be drivers for this (IMHO excellent card) for Linux.
I guess you know the answer already...
(No, there won't be any in the near future!)
So then, I still have to use Windows to watch the DVDs. Especially when I want to make VHS-copies of borrowed DVDs.
--- If OS were buildings, then the first woodpecker to come around would erase 95 % of civilization.
Reverse engineering might be tolerable to have a dvd-player run on some more platforms (as well as on other *nix-OSes).
However, porting a dvd-player to the S/390 sounds rather absurd and funny to me:
"Honestly, your honour, I just wanted to watch 'The Matrix' on my S/390!"
--- If OS were buildings, then the first woodpecker to come around would erase 95 % of civilization.
A point that many people seem to miss is that no company has an OBLIGATION to release stuff for linux. this attitude is absurd. no one has any such obligation...if it's not worth a company's time and resources to make linux stuff, they're not going to. companies are economic entities, and if they're not making money (or at least moving a lot of money around), they're not viable. I'm an avid linux user, but I don't expect any corporation to release linux drivers/devices because I think they have some sort of obligation to the linux community to do so.
Summary: Put up or shut up!
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
Why would they do that? The company paid buckets of money for a CSS license, and you want them to give it away in a library?
This announcement is important because it further increases the choice we have. Windows DVD players are for the most part pretty bad. A great Linux DVD player would be an important factor for some people in choice of platform.
Will the Linux community feel pleased at having more choice, or will it whine because someone is trying to make money? Will developers successfuly step into a new market or will they decide the Linux community (and by extension the platform) is not yet mature enough? Reality time: Linux will NEVER overcome the Windows hegemony until it makes economic sense for companies to support it. That means financial reward for those developers who currently make their financial rewards with Windows.
Fortunately, I believe the Linux community will speak, and will buy the product. For most people relaxing in front of a movie is not the time to be thinking about political ideals.
As for your boycott, do the MPAA care? Does it hurt them even a little bit? mmmm.... nope! If you want to make a difference you might need to take other action.
I drive a closed-source car running on petrol I bought with a closed-source credit/smart card. My VCR is closed-source, as is my oven/central heating system/washing machine/PC. I don't own a DVD player, but you can bet your bottom dollar it would be closed-source.
All of the above are "good enough". Closed source doesn't equal bad. Closed source is merely worse, by some criteria, than open source.
Rob. (happily mixing it in a open/closed source world)
Most computer games can not be replaced by OSS versions, even if the game engines could be replaced by OSS, the actual art and music is still held in copyright
Commercial games could absolutely be replaced by OSS versions. The art and music are copyrighted, yes, but that is not a problem as far as openness goes. It means that you DO have to pay for the artwork to play the game. Open source is about seeing how it works and being able to change it if you want to. There are no hidden inner 'workings' with bitmap graphics and music--they are already 'open' in that sense. If you wanted to change some of the artwork in a commercial open-source game, you would buy the game (thereby paying for the original artwork), and then 'patch' in your new graphics. You could distribute you patches freely if you chose to, but anyone using the original artwork would be morally obliged to pay for it.
1. It's not open-source. Who cares you might say? I do. Now, if this were for Winblows or MacOS I might take it, but, for an OS built on the open-source philosophy....no way I'm using a closed-source package.
2. Who cares if it's supported by the MPAA. That doesn't matter to me, does it to you? The MPAA lost my respect a _long_ time ago (did they ever have it anyway?).
3. It's legal. And DeCSS isn't? The only advantage is you don't have the MPAA breathing down your neck.... Sorry, but, I couldn't use a product from a company that doesn't respect my rights....
For the said reasons above, I am boycotting it. And, I invite anybody else who agrees with me to boycott it too.
Grades, Social Life, Sleep....Pick Two.
--Justin Mitchell
"2nd Place is a fancy word for losing" --Bender (Futurama)
Perhaps they're worried that certain regions known to be rife with industrial-scale piracy might have entrepreneurs who'd cheerfully export pirated DVDs if they could? Now, they'd at least need the additional players (for testing purposes) and versions, and that might make it easier for investigating and tracking...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Public libraries have specific exemptions for them under copyright law, and therefore you CANNOT use their behavior as an example unless you happen to be using this ONLY as a public library.
Use the US Code search engine; query for "libraries AND copyright"; and see 17 USC Sec. 108.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Specifically, circumventing copyright protection. If the MPAA argued that this does NOT necessarily require making a PERMANENT (i.e. not just passing-through-memory) copy, and the court accepted the concept that a copy in memory is still a copy that doesn't fall under anything like fair use, then you might still be up the creek w/o a paddle.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
i think the japanese have much worse things to worry about than a stupid dvd hack, what about that volcano? :P
-motardo
Lucent can make money by a) writing some damn Linux drivers and b) making hardware that works on ALL platforms.
The person you're responding to didn't whine and bitch about having to pay for software. NO... it's about being able to use the hardware that you get from the store on your platform of choice. Linux is not some obscure OS anymore.
I for one am really really glad that we'll be able to use our dvd players on Linux. If the companies are going to get into agreements with other companies the least they can do is make the software multiplatform.
Actually, this may give us a way to circumvent region codes.
It will depend how the program implements it.
One may need to install multiple copies of the program, or even reinstal it every time we need to change regions, but it may be doable.
Ken
Now THAT sounds like an entertaining project. And, since it's protected under the GPL, the authors would release those extensions...
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
This brings up a question in my mind. Is DeCSS illegal, or is it illegal to distribute it. Wasn't the injuction against distribution of DeCSS?
On a side note - What if all the sites that have DeCSS were to encrypt the source? Perhaps allowing some utility to decrypt the source for engineering or compile purposes? Then, if anyone were to use the source in any other manner, i.e. a lawsuit, it may be a violation of DMCA. I know there are details I am missing, but it would be fun to turn DCMA against those using it.
I have written Sigma Designs, the makers of the Hollywood Plus and they said that "no support for Linux will be available for the existing Hollywood Plus" citing CSS Protection. Tech support said that a new product will have Linux support.
I am responding. The injuction in the DeCSS case only prevents the defendants from distributing DeCSS, the judge did not rule DeCSS illegal. So, perhaps it could be used.
Or else that the DVD CCA are clueless about technical things (not necessarily a bad thing).
Well, they did design it with horrible crappily done crypto in the first place, so I suspect it wouldn't be too hard for a skilled kernel hacker to read it's core as it runs.
Really, the only way around it is to have a hardware decryptor, and at that point you might as well get a hardware MPEG decoder as well.
Personally, I don't care. I'll rent VHS until and open video format comes out. I don't really even care about OSS that much (I mean, I use NT, Solaris, BeOS, Quake II, and whatever, along with Linux, FreeBSD, Apache, and whatever), but I can't stand the control that the MPAA has over the DVD format. Well, whatever.
he's not moronic. he's right.
Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net) - AOL IM: MicroBerto
Berto
I did reformat my HDD. I run Win98se and Beos 5 now, no more Linux. Linux.. just isn't for me. I've tried it a few times, but I just don't like it. :)
Call on God, but row AWAY from the rocks!
Is a bug. When the thing is out, I'll try my best to workaround the bug or better yet debug it, even without the source. Enuf said.
I think disassembling for interoperability with discs from another region is explicitly allowed by laws.
If things were only that simple...
The regional codes you have access to are to my knowledge hardwired into each player as a long encryptet string or key (not just an integer mind you), necessary to gain permission to play the disc. Now, the chip/file containing these codes may be or may not be alterable, that depends upon implementation. But it's not easy to do this, and it costs extra money to do it "legally" (It still hasn't been tested properly in court). However, some player-manufacturers found out they could earn alot more money on including a few "hacks" so that people could choose their region by undocumented procedures.
If you don't have such a player however, you are out of luck. It doesn't matter if you move to another region and want to see the movie you rent there. Your player will simply refuse to play them! You are then at the mercy of the manufacturer.
Consumers who thinks this is stupid should quit buying DVD-players. I recently bought a new computer (1 month ago), but I refused to have a combined CD-ROM/DVD-player installed in it. I simply didn't want to support the MPAA. The only DVD player I have now is an unusable one in my laptop. It's unusable now because of regional encodings and since the DVD-format suddenly changed standards a dozen times.
It's time for consumers to become aware of where they want to be customers.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
You critizise idealism but fail to see that morals and principals ain't about "right" and "wrong". It's about standing up to what you believe in. Since that varies from person to person, right and wrong are just illusions. There are no definite right and wrong. It's like the universe has a HUGE disclaimer on it: AS IS.
However, we also have a choice NOT to stand up to what we believe in. Ie, not having any particular reason to do what we do. This leads on to a very dangerous road IMHO where people do what others tell them to, sheeps following the shepherds etc. This is not necessarily "wrong" mind you, but it _may_ have devastating results since the more people who think, the better result you usually get. Not in every situation though.
I prefer standing up for what I believe in, even if it means negative Karma and people ignoring what I say.
- Steeltoe
Spoooiing!!! (Shattering all the seriousness into oblivion)
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Ok, I think this is about a bit more than CSS, although that is understandably were most of the debate is. I also don't think there are enough Open source advocates to significantly hurt the DVDCCA financially with the boycot, so I plan to keep enjoying the improved picture and sound DVD offers.
Since I already own DVDs for my DVD player (for the TV, not computer), and purchased the player prior to the release of DeCSS, I want a way to play them on my Laptop when I am not home.
Now, the cost of producing a really good mpeg video and audio codec is substantial, and there are a lot of patents in these areas. I don't feel that many software patents are a good thing, but in the area of a new codec or something it really does make sense to me. I have read the arguments, and would plainly state that I take a middle ground on the issue, and don't want to further debate wether or not the patents in codecs are valid. To get an open source player is going to require a lot of very serious coding and optimizing.
I have yet to see an open source player that could handle MPEG files adequatly, so why am I to believe that their will be a player to handle DVDs as soon as we get the DeCSS software freed from the legal entanglements? I see the an Open Source DVD player to be a ways off even with DeCSS, and I don't want to wait. If a company that is already licenced to produce windows DVD players wants to release a Linux player, let them. I will buy it.
There is more here than just the CSS stuff.
So in short, if this player preforms well, I will buy it. I hope it plays mpeg files as well, we need a good player in Linux.
It was the OS war that caused the MPAA battle. DeCSS was for playing DVDs on linux... the MPAA battle is simply a RESULT of the battle for Linux DVD.
----
Don't underestimate the power of peanut brittle
ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
You really want to claim that ix86 Linux does not make up 95% of all Linux installations, possibly more?
and many people who do have Linux will know where to get DeCSS
DeCSS does not a DVD player make. If Lucent manages to make it comfortable to use and make use of hardware decoders and graphics cards, I see it as a very good thing. I'd buy it immediately if it supports my H+ card and comes ata reasonable price.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
It may never come, I personally won't believe it untill I see it. They could be using this as a legal ploy, to claim that there is a DVD player of alternative OSes, defeating one of the key points of the defense.
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
Technically, reading a book involves copying it (temporarily) to the retina, which may be covered by copyright.
I'm going to live forever or die trying.
Like when they help Real port Real Player 7? If a deep-pocketed Linux company (Red Hat, VA, anyone?) can license CSS and produce binary-only libraries that would be great. Of course, will they be allowed to give it away for free? like Microsoft did to Spyglass...
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
Ok, so I have a SoundBlaster Live, with digital speakers, and a Voodoo3 3500 with TV output, excellent DVD options, but will they be supported within the next year in linux? I doubt it. This is why I also have Windows.
Do I hear the distant sound of 'reverse engineering for purposes of interoperability' ? .. yummy.. borcusorcus likes them binary thingies ..
*borkborkbork*
Then why don't you write your own? Do something about it.
Contrary to what I'm sure is the norm, if given the choice between closed-source and none-at-all, (especially for DVD, man, I'd love to watch movies at home), I'll take the closed source at all times.
Note, this doesn't mean I don't think we shouldn't push in the right directions. But an interesting thought would be, if there was no unix/linux, would we all be using windows, or would we all be gardeners or accountants?
I also believe that you should do what you believe, which is the major reason I didn't simply say "Great, DVD for Linux, let's go get it." I have qualms about LinDVD because, as others have pointed out, it could do good for the MPAA, and I certainly don't think that is a positive thing at all.
Mostly, it is my distrust of the knee-jerk (on both sides -- `open-source nazi' seems a little much, eh?) reactions people had to the info about LinDVD.
Stand up for what you believe. I, personally, believe that Open Source is The Right Way and that, in the end, it will be The Only Way (go, idealism!). But, I also believe that in order for it to be completely accepted is if more people choose Linux or FreeBSD and demonstrate to the world in general that this is what they want. For the general public, this requires applications, whether they be closed or not.
Simply put, I fear the penguin going the way of the dodo for lack of (common) use. Linux is at an extremely important and dangerous crossroads and it makes me nervous :).
You see Linux/OSS as a product(s), whereas he and many others see it as a philosophy that has helped to produce some great software in a way that gives people more freedom rather than seeking to take away people's rights. Coming from that point of view, it's morally indefensible to take a course of action that reinforces the control of an industry group that seeks to take away the rights that OSS/free software propronents seeks to protect. Since you don't seem to hold those same beliefs, it's not a moral issue for you since, as you said, you just want to see more software out there for Linux.
Thanks for telling me what I think and believe. Wake up when you get a clue. you don't know me..you may know someone like me...but thats doesn't mean anything
I understand what you are saying. I am just not naive enough to believe that everything can make huge leaps and bounds. I take things in stride. and as I see it bringing DVD to Linux is one step towards the ultimate goal....free open source DVD players...I don't see it as a step back. I am sorry if we don't see the fututre in the same way...but that doesn't mean I don't understand or hold the same values that OSS/free software people do. So, I will ignore your assumptions...but thanks.
My major contention is that Linux distributions and services are gaining a lot of ground right now. And those distributions and services are bringing the OSS movement with it. I do NOT believe that Linux is the only player out there. I just believe Linux is opening the world's eyes to things other than Windows and Mac...and a lot of that has come about thanks to the wall street fellows. As for your scenario...
1. Adoption of LinDVD kills open source DVD development due to lack of interest and the fact that people don't want to take on scary lawyers to work on an open source product
That doesn't happen. VMWare is an awesome product..I bought it..use it..and so do many others. Now...has FMWare died because of it?
2. The MPAA decides to form a trust with Microsoft and Apple, and eliminate the license for LinDVD.
IF this happened the MPAA would lose most of their ground in law suits. This would be a stupid stupid move for them and they would not be able to easily win a law suit against an open source DVD package.
3. Linux is again left without a DVD player and no open source alternative.
And ya know what would happen if this happened? another open source project would come about. that is one of the beautiful things behind the open source movement. its everyone working together. How many hurdles have been dodges already? This would be another set back...yes...but I doubt this will happen.
-----
I don't ask you to agree...just think about it all.
In my opinion...the way these things often work...
1) People buy LinDVD...
2) People realize this a good thing and that it should be Open source. Otherwise they see the usefulness moreso than they do now.
3)People then support open source DVD projects.
And we all know that the more support the better the project goes. But see...I beleive that a lot of Linux users don't even bother having DVD-Roms while there is no way to play the DVDs. I never have bothered purchasing one. So, if this product came out and was relatively inexpensive I might buy a DVD player....spurring on to supporting the Open Source DVD software..because it should be free. that is what I believe. Hell..I might even try to get the guys at work into it...and I work with some pretty damn good programmers now. Pretty soon...it spreads like wildfire. And boom...it can work.
I guess the assumption that I make is that people will see LinDVD and support an open source similiar project. I guess thats how I work so I assume others do the same. I think Open source DVD would be cool right now...but its not something I am really into. However...if I used a program that wasn't open source regularly...I would be into finding an Open Source solution.
Your code is derived from void main(){} rather than the other way around. Therefore your code is automatically GPLed.
Wow! Good thing (or bad thing depending on how Open Source zealous you are) void main(){} isn't GPL'ed too, otherwise every C program ever would have to be GPL'ed
Linux need a DVD player that is not caught up in legal dificulties. The reason is not so that we can all watch movies on our PC, it is set top boxes. Linux is a very tempting OS to use in a set top box. It is open source, stable, and has no licencing fee. It does lack one important element that the upcoming consoles/settops have: DVD playback. The X-box and PS2 both have the ability to play DVDs and both are targeted for use as set top boxes for internet access, etc. Now idealy the player would be free and open sourced, but that is not likely any time soon.
Nah, that's no use either. What you do is monkey up something to run it in a linux system running inside VMWare or Bochs... the rest is left as an exercise for the reader. :)
"one treats others with courtesy not because they are gentlemen or gentlewomen, but because you are" --G. Henrichs
The rates are good but I'm not here to work I'm here to travel. Buying a DVD player would mean more time working and less time travelling. Besided when I'm staying in hostels (when I'm travelling not working) it's already bad enough trying to make sure that nobody steals a laptop. Add a DVD to that and you start to become a target.
I would suggest that if your Hotels in Europe don't have DVD players you are staying in the wrong places.
What hotels are you talking about? Hotels generally have cable TV but media players in rooms? I don't even know of hotels with private video players. Currently I am in a nice, ****, Best Western hotel in Helsinki. It has the Flat-Screen TV and the ISDN but no form of media player.
If you want to watch a movie you can, you just have to pay the hotel £8. I can rent a DVD for £3. It would be against their best interest to provide movie players.
"Do you think we could wipe out world hunger forever if scientists figured out how to make AOL's Free CD's edible?"-
Thanks for your very interesting reply.
;)
:)
Oh, thank you for the reasoned response. It's almost unheard of here on Slashdot, Land of Flames™.
Well, yes, that was kind of my point, altough expressed poorly (englizh is nut me natif language) : I am, like most slashdotters, very opposed to the way content companies are trying to take away customers rights. It is a reason for me not to buy a DVD-player (the most important to me however, is that I refuse whenever possible to use any storage technology which isn't "two way", i.e. read/writeable, for ideological reasons). I would boycott hollywood movies, if I actually watched them in the first place (well I do see some, but the vast majority are independent films).
I agree with all of those principles. Personally, though, if I were to boycott, I would go all out; no movies in theaters, no DVDs, et cetera. Even some of the independent companies (Artisan springs to mind) are in with the CCA, so I would have to opt for Total Abstinence™ if I were to boycott. Just my opinion, though.
What I was trying to express however, is that I don't even see that much of an advantage to DVDs in opposition to the good old movie theaters (the quality and usefulness of the technology being the usual argument in favor of DVD). Your post intrigued me tough.
I can see that. There is a local theater/bar here in Austin, TX that shows football on the big screen, and that is quite exhilarating (sp?).
Arrgh this sounds bad. Well you see I live in Switzerland, where people seem to still have some respect for the movie-going experience. I own a cell-phone, but I always turn it off for movies, since I'd rather not imagine what would happen to me if it rang during the movie (lynched at the very least)...
I was once drawn into a fight that broke out because of a woman who wouldn't turn off her phone, but left it in her purse so that it rang and rang and rang...
For every one person who turns their phone/pager/watch off, though, it seems like there are four who don't...
I've never seen anyone light up a cigarette in a movie (well yes, a joint once, in spain during Lost Highway, which I found very justified
LOL! I couldn't agree more...
Chatting during the movie is not that much of a problem neither, since for action movies the volume is turned way up, and when it's a more intellectual one, most guys are sleeping anyway.
My problem is that I like horror and suspense movies, and the entire picture can be ruined by one jerk placing a call during a scene, or some thoughtless couple bringing an infant who is rightly upset by what I call "Sound System Scares."
We don't have that much of a "popcorn-coke" habit around here either.
Well, no, you have access to the best chocolate in the world. I visited Geneva ten years ago, and I still feel it in my stomach
I don't know about the quality of movie-theaters at your place, but I've been very satisfied by them so far.
Oh, it's not the theaters, per se, that I object to...it's the people ruining the theater's features. Like an enduser abusing a nice computer...
The single most convincing argument being the SIZE of the screen. I find it much more immersive. To match that I'd have to buy a giant TV, for which I (1) don't have the money (poor student) and (2) no place to store (everything filled up with computers).
Oh, well then, here is your solution. Costs about as much as a nice TV, but less space.
This actually sounds interesting. I had never seriously looked into purchasing such a system. In my situation tough, it's still more expensive, since I only see a few carefully selected movies, about once a month. I'd have to get a bigger TV anyway, mine's too small.
Fair enough. I'm something of a movie junkie, though, as you've probably guessed from my rental habits. DVD makes it possible for me to rent movies that don't look/sound like garbage.
In conclusion, I really think there's something great about going to the theater which DVDs won't top. After all, technically, theaters will go digital soon as well, and it's the best excuse to get off of my computer screen and meet friends.
I don't dispute the social aspect of the theater experience. Comedies, in particular, are more fun to watch with a crowd. However, I will offer the counterpoint: ever since I started my home theater habit, many of my friends request a "movie night" at my place rather than going to the theater. I have often wondered what would happen to theaters if a cheap disk (i.e., the destructable DVD or DIVX or something) were to ship day-and-date with theater prints. Not that the movie companies would endanger their own theaters that way...
I doubled up on the boldface tag there. My apologies.
Well I for one will happily go along without DVDs and go watch movies in the theater.
.
I'm not sure that I follow you. This whole DVD issue is being caused by the very companies that put those movies in theaters. If you're not talking about doing this as a form of protest, though, feel free to disregard that
Better video, better sound, better experience.
I have to respectfully disagree. In the last year or so, theater experiences have been come near-intolerable. Cell phones, pagers, smoking-rights activists lighting up during the movie, etc. It's not worth the $7.50 to me anymore--particularly when I can rent all the DVDs I want from Netflix for $20.00/month. My home theater beats the crap out of sticking my feet to the floor while some baby screams at its parents for bringing it into an overpowered sound system.
I'm certainly not going to buy myself a whole home theater solution just for the pleasure of watching movies. It's more expensive anyway.
No, it isn't. I've hooked up several of my coworkers with PC-based home theaters that only cost about as much as, well, a PC. You can get Dolby Digital decoders and home-theater quality speaker systems for $299 these days; perfect for the tech on a budget. It's also great for, say, living in an apartment.
In addition, I've never seen the point in owning a movie. I've got some on video, but it's been years since I've ever watched one of those tapes again (and yes, that includes Star Wars).
I can definitely see your point there. However, with Netflix allowing you to rent as many DVDs as you want with no return dates, the rental industry is making a huge stride forward. There are also broadband-based rentals that allow you to download entire movies for rental or purchase. Video On Demand is still a long way off, but Encore and a few other networks are conducting serious experiments to get them done.
I don't have a dxr2 decoder card. I don't have any extra expansion slots to put one in. I need a software decoder.
I'll just wait until I can get a decent open source player, or maybe a pirated version of this one.
"Let me open these blinds so the snipers can see in." - Kevin Giffhorn
Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.
blah blah blah....
But you can't get slapped with a $2,500 fine for opening the hood on your car.
But you can get slapped with a $2,500 fine for DMCA violations.
Closed source might not be too bad, but closed source plus fascist laws is really bad. When industry controls the government and government controls you, it follows that industry controls you. And your vote doesn't give you any real control over them.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Yeah, but if I reverse engineer one to make my car go faster/accelerate better/get more mileage or tell someone how to do the same I won't get sued. I won't get in any legal trouble for doing so at all (as far as I know, I am not a lawyer). I still could get busted for speeding if I actually exceeded a speed limit, but not for having a car which could go too fast. Analogy to DMCA and copyright would be only getting busted for infringment, not for circumvention. See how the DMCA is an extra infringment of rights? Closed source usually doesn't just mean closed source, it means lawsuit risk for using or distributing the product in a non-approved manner. We should come up with a new term, "dangerous software", or "fascist software" come to mind. Any ideas?
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
If they are selling it for 'Linux' and we try an run it on something like ARM Linux - we could have a very good case.
It'll be questionable who will actually buy it - very small market base (1 variant of Linux) and many people who do have Linux will know where to get DeCSS etc.
I can't see it selling myself.
Richy C.
--
And I guess that this is the ONLY way that the player can know which zone it is in.
You don't HAVE to ask yourself why it should be illegal to play a movie from another region. The MPAA has already announced that the reason they implemented region codes (which, in the US, should actually be illegal, since we have the "right" to play media where we want to, when we want to, how we want to once we've bought it, as long as we don't break the law doing it; IE, you can only use it for private performances. All that means is that you can't sell people seats to come watch the movie.
Anyway, it's not actually ILLEGAL to make a player that plays DVDs from any region, UNLESS YOU ARE USING CSS CODE TO DO IT. Even then, it's only because of breach of contract. There's been lots of talk about how people think that the people who put together CSS are just lame because it was so easy to trash anyway, but just step back and take a look at what it HAS accomplished; They copyrighted CSS, and now if you use something that works the same way (which CSS HAS accomplished; You have to have basically the same program they do to get the same result) without a license, you're in violation of copyright law.
So CSS does what it's supposed to, which is make sure that people have to get a license to legally release a player. In order to get a license your player has to support region codes, and not let you pick other regions (though nearly everyone's DVD player software and hardware can be hacked to play other regions or all regions.)
Now, the reason there are region codes in the spec at ALL is that the production companies (little firms like Disney and Paramount, for example) *wanted* that functionality. The MPAA is just protecting its customers desires here, which you can't really blame them for. I agree that it's lame, but they've found a legal way to stop you from playing those DVDs if you don't have the knowledge to hack your player. But what's the big deal? Even owners of a Creative DXR2 can play whatever region they want with a cute little hack.
Heck, I might add, one of the big-name DVD players a while back had DIP SWITCHES that would let you set it to play any region. How cinchy is that?
If you want to be mad at someone over region codes, get pissed off at the production companies, not the MPAA. They're doing their job. Then get pissed off at the Government, for actually getting behind the MPAA and defending CSS. CSS and the accompanying license is the wrong thing to do, though I will say it's a mark of legal genius.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
17 Section 108 refers to REPRODUCTION by libraries and archives. (And limitations on exclusive rights, yes.)
However, OTHER law already gives us the right to make as many copies of a work as we want for PERSONAL use (IE, we can't give it away, lend it if we're not a library, etc. -- Though there's an exception to that, more or less.
That exception is that you can basically play one copy of the work at a time, right? No more. Not even for personal use. You CAN however have that one copy going to a non-broadcast medium (Does that mean you can use TCP but not multicast it?) so you could have five displays in your house showing it at once.
You also have the right to play it with any means you see fit. That's YOUR decision, not theirs. However, the CSS licensing is a seperate issue.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Region Codes are unconstitutional and encourage price fixing, unfair world-wide trade, and censorship.
True. Well, mostly; They don't encourage any kind of world-wide trade. More to the point, this breaks US law; But probably not any other kind of law.
DeCSS is one solution to this problem. Devices like the APEX DVD player is another.
True. The APEX DVD player is a better solution for the consumer, though, because it's not illegal to use (not that something is wrong because it's illegal; Just more dangerous.) However, Apex has basically commited breach of contract there.
BTW, that law that you are talking about that makes reverse engineering is also unconstitutional.
Um, no it doesn't. "Free speech" != "Allowed to leapfrog off someone else's research that they paid for". Not that CSS is such a big deal. See, disallowing reverse engineering is one thing; Supporting CSS (which IS arguably illegal) is entirely another. However, it doesn't make it legal to reverse engineer the CSS code.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There's a port of Windows NT for the Alpha, which up until recently was maintained by Compaq. It got cancled when they realized that NT made up something like less than 10% of their market and so now they stick with some form of Unix (I'd assume Compaq True64).
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
about the region crap...
windows programs are mostly closed source. they have things like built-in copy protection.
but as anyone who pirated software before he discoverd linux knows, there are people out there called crackers who use HEX EDITORS and change the copy protection.
so basically, i expect someone with a hex editor will get around the region encoding REAL qick. then they will realease what we windows warez people called a crack.
and boom. no region encoding.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
If you boycott this does this mean that you are also boycotting the games that Loki release for Linux. I'm pretty certain that they are closed source too. What about Quake 3 I don't think id has released the source for that either.
Gamma Testing - Where testing is extended to the full user community (AKA Shipping the Program)
OpenGL is an API for standardised 3D graphics work. DirectX is a collection of APIs for standardised lowish level access to various pieces of hardware.
DirectX includes
DirectDraw - 2D graphics
DirectInput - Keyboard, Mouse, Joystick, etc.
DirectPlay - Networking
Direct3D - 3D graphics
DirectSound and DirectMusic - Guess
OpenGL is equivalent only to Direct3D. The most important/difficult pieces from a programmer's point of view are the sound, input and 2d. In fact a lot of games until recently (DirectX 6/7) used some pieces of DirectX but did not use Direct3D. Instead writing their own 3D code (GLIDE or OpenGL). A number still do their own networking rather than use DirectPlay.
Sam Lantinga, Lead Programmer for Loki Entertainment Software has created Simple DirectMedia Layer which is an open source project to develop DirectX style functionality.
Gamma Testing - Where testing is extended to the full user community (AKA Shipping the Program)
There is an interesting article on the Computer Games Online site that argues that OpenGL may be dying. Its argument is not that DirectX is necessarily better but that it has better driver support from the hardware manufacturers and updates more regularly (once a year) to keep up with technology.
Gamma Testing - Where testing is extended to the full user community (AKA Shipping the Program)
XFree 4.0 supports non-RGB colorspaces in video memory. This will greatly enhance MPEG playback, as colorspace translation is no longer necessary. Translating from YUV to RGB is an expensive calculation that needed to be done every frame. Now playback should be speeded up a good deal.
:)
I'm not positive, but I don't think that MS Windows supports non-RGB colorspaces, so theoretically MPEG playback should be faster using a movie player optimized for XFree 4.0 than using one optimized for Microsoft's OS.
That's what I love about Open Source
In post-9/11 America, the CIA interrogates YOU!
I will say it again. Marketing cannot rescue a bad product. The customer is not stupid. Many games designers are math geniuses with years and years of comp-sci education behind them. Do you think they would PAY for DirectX if it was not any good ?
While I do agree that Microsofts marketing is in a class by itself, 95% of the success of Microsoft is that its technology is FIT FOR THE PURPOSE, and GOOD ENOUGH. This means their products are never late to market because of some ivory-tower feature that some inexperienced idealist insists must be there.
Just wait for DirectX8 which includes VOXEL rendering. Then you will all realise how useless openGL is. Even John Carmack admits this is the way forward.
thank you
dmg
This is absolutely not true. Consider that libraries may lend books that they have purchased.
DVD-CCA is trying to block consumers' fair use (and other) rights through technology. They are not acting in the spirit of the law.
New XFMail home page
/bin/tcsh: Try it; you'll like it.
The deCSS source is out there. The current court arguments is it is primarly a pirate tool. Write your own program to read DVDs, with dvd as an integral part, and your tool is not a pirate tool it is a viewer. Courts are more likely to look at your program and say "WEll, reverse engineering is legal (THe PS emulator helps this case), and your program is obviously for viewing DVDs and doesn't provide a save function so it much be legal.
Good luck, but you have a better leg to stand on.
It seems to me that he did address your point of view. He wrote this:
Now, it is possible (probable) that some recent Linux converts don't care about Free Software, Copyleft, or any of the things that made Linux possible. They just see Linux as a cool OS and they want it to grow. So for these people there is really no difference between Linux and say OS/2 on a philisophical level.
Of course, for people who don't mind the idea of their movie collection existing under Draconian new copyright laws designed to screw them out of their rights under pre-DMCA copyright laws, I suppose it isn't a problem.
You see Linux/OSS as a product(s), whereas he and many others see it as a philosophy that has helped to produce some great software in a way that gives people more freedom rather than seeking to take away people's rights. Coming from that point of view, it's morally indefensible to take a course of action that reinforces the control of an industry group that seeks to take away the rights that OSS/free software propronents seeks to protect. Since you don't seem to hold those same beliefs, it's not a moral issue for you since, as you said, you just want to see more software out there for Linux.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I didn't say anything about free software. I said "Copyright is the only reason the GPL works." There's a difference, as you apparently noticed, since free software != GPL.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
No, without copyright laws there would be no proprietary software.
Sure there would. It just wouldn't have legal protection. Companies would use other means, probably including obfuscation (like NVidia's source release) and encryption. Sure, the stuff could eventually be reverse-engineered or otherwise cracked, but it would be a never-ending game of catchup, kind of like the Wine team's predicament.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Thanks for telling me what I think and believe.
I guess I should have said "You seem to see Linux/OSS as a product(s)," my mistake. My point stands though. I don't see any way that having a binary DVD player available under the MPAA's rules is a step towards free open source DVD players. It seems to me that accepting such a player and the MPAA's terms for it's licensing and use is actually a setback rather than an advance. It helps to legitimize the MPAA's position on the matter. Would you care to explain why you see it as step towards a free, open source DVD player?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I have to agree with you on this. Copyright is the only reason the GPL works. Without copyright laws, anyone could take any code out there and use it in their own proprietary software and never give anything back (BSD-ish?). The real problem is that the MPAA is trying to take away rights that people have had under copyright law since its inception. They are trying to seriously constrain fair use and reverse engineering in ways that they couldn't do before. They are going about it differently this time though. They aren't attempting to change copyright law directly, they are getting new laws passed that enforce their technological methods of removing your rights (ie. they're making it illegal for you to circumvent their technology, even though you're doing something that would normally be considered fair use).
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
So, if this product came out and was relatively inexpensive I might buy a DVD player....spurring on to supporting the Open Source DVD software..because it should be free.
Maybe you aren't aware that the MPAA is trying to make sure there IS NO open source dvd software. They have decided that people shouldn't be allowed to view dvds that they've purchased on any software that they aren't making money off of and can't control. If we accept their position and approved software instead of defending our rights to do what we want with the dvds we buy (without breaking traditional copyright law), then we'll end up legitimizing their attempt to take even more control over copyrighted works. Then it will be a simple matter for them to prosecute anyone attempting to make open source dvd software.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
The LinDVD product will at least show the world that DVDs are playable in Linux. Unless they use the existing publicity of a Windows version, a new software product for Linux usually won't get discovered and it'll be like Linux never supported the format. Linux is pretty well known for office suites and window managers because they all try to clone Microsoft. Linux isn't known for DVD players because none of the Linux DVD players clone an existing Microsoft product yet it supports the format just fine. With LinDVD being marketed as a clone of WinDVD we at least show Linux as capable of playing DVDs.
It has nothing to do with time zones. I can change the region encoding on my Creative DVD player to play DVD's from the UK if I want (I'm in the Eastern TZ). However, it limits me to five changes of region for the whole lifetime of the product.
There is a reasonably standard API under Windows. Take look around on Microsoft's web site. Implement your own player (if you use Windows that is). The problem was, Microsoft's API wasn't ready when DVD-ROMs first started shipping, hence the use of vendor specific API's and libraries in some places. As I understand it, most of the new ones support both API's now.
Technically, decrypting and playing a DVD involves copying it (temporarily) to memory, which may be covered by copyright.
Then why don't you write your own? Do something about it.
Because if you did so, you would not be able to legally release it, as the DeCSS case has shown. DeCSS has been ruled illegal (though is going up for appeal), and even if the ruling is overturned, not many people are willing to be crucified by Hollywood's lawyers.
I've actually seen it running side by side with LinDVD 2000 on the CeBit computer fair in March. The speed was satisfying and the same for both Windows and Linux.
A demo copy was not available.
MPAA has shown with things like the PS2 recall it is all about region control. Ask yourself why should it be illegal to play a movie from another region? If the MPAA can get the Japanise Government to agree to such a stupid thing. Then think about who is really in control of the world Governments. With this LinDVD is really a non product Why should I go spend my money on something that I can get for free??? Remember it is all about who controls what nothing more and nothing less.
http://theotherside.com/dvd/
Analog with nasty little markings on the film rather than digital?
Try projecting a DVD on a 35 foot high screen! Film barely shows any grain when projected from 35mm film to a 35 foot screen. I've never dragged my DVD player into the theater to test this, but if the pixelation in a DVD is visible on a 17in computer monitor, it would be intolerable on such a huge screen. A movie projector is an analog image decoder; it takes a compressed image input (35mm x 35 mm film frames) and outputs a 35 ft x 70 ft screen image. It can do this as fast as you run the motor, without slowdowns or dropped frames for fast-moving objects (like software MPEG players sometimes do) Digital is not always better than analog.
0 1 - just my two bits
While I'm as big a fan of Linux as the next
Explain why it has been illegal? The only violation of the law is to have access control in the first place. The US law allows for fair use copying of material that you have purchased, fair use includes allowing you to play back for example media in anyway that you see fit.
CSS violates your rights under fair use and infact is reinforcing a monopoly situation with implimentation of access control, for example region encoding. Copying of DVD's has been a problem long before the CSS encryption code was broken so therefore CSS does not prevent copying of content.
The DeCSS fiasco should never have happened in the first place
I am 100% behind you there, if the CSS did not violate fair use rights then there would not be a need for DeCSS and it's contribution towards playing DVD movie streams on any OS / Hardware platform.
if something is illegal then it is obviously wrong, and attempting to break the law is stupid, plain and simple.
I guess it depends on what country you are in doesn't it. There has been a lot of cases where US law is attepting to extend it's reach to the rest of the world. Now I wonder if th door can swing both ways. Europe has some extensive laws regarding competetiveness, I wonder if legal action can be brought against any of the abusers of consumer rights. DeCSS is part of an effort to allow DVD films to play on non CSS licenced OS's, it is reverse engineering and is not illegal.
Anyway, this is a great step forward, since I can now watch my small by growing collection of DVDs on my Linux box.
That is of course if your Linux box happens to run on x86 architechture. If you happen to run another OS (non Windows) that runs on x86 architechture or you happen to run Linux on a non x86 architechture then you are out of luck. Why is it that I can buy a DVD, DVD Drive, x86 PC and depending on what OS I use it is deemed illegal for me to try and get it to play or not? Same hardware just different 1's and 0's in the machines RAM.
Hardware support is getting better, as soon as more hardware people work out it is more cost effective to be a hardware company than try and be a software developer as well and that opening up your drivers increases your market and is hence a better move for the shareholders then the situation will be a wholelot better.
It would be nice to see this out, but until you can watch a DVD movie through x86 Linux it is vapour.
"Because we are not employing at entry level, offshoring will kill our industry stone dead."
It doesn't make any sense because it's propaganda. It's an industry-promoted lie.
Region coding has nothing to do with copyright. It is 100% about market control.
Just like copy protection has nothing whatsoever to do with copyright, yet the industry calls it "copyright protection" in an effort to confuse the two in the public mind.
And of particular interest, I think, to the Linux community is the last paragraph of that article:
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
It's discussed, somewhat, in the Linux newsgroup on their NNTP server.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Both of you make good points, supporting LinDVD is helping the MPAA, and at the same time helping Linux. I was fired up about buying this software until I read this thread
I really want DVDs on Linux, so I might just buy it
First off, its closed source. If we find bugs, we have to report them to the company, which in turn needs to fix them, release a fix (after a looong while), and so on. It won't be good enough.
:-)
Secondly, the company is saying "we're doing it the legal way, use us!". eh? They are saying DeCSS is illegal? They are indirectly saying that reverseengineering should be illegal? Excuse me, I don't want to buy ANYTHING from such a company.
What we need is a fully opensourced DVD player for Linux. With "all keys" included. If it violates a couple of copyrights - then who cares? Who is going to stop it?
--
"Rune Kristian Viken" - arcade@kvine-nospam.sdal.com - arcade@efnet
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
Not really I'm afraid. The zone is stored in the DVD drive, you buy a different DVD drive in japan that you do in america.
would find a way to tweak the thing so it plays regionally encoded DVDs.
Hmmm. How exactly does the disk indicate where it's encoded for? Maybe this could be hacked at the device driver level.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Every time I see this kind of thread, I try to tell people something, but no one seems to listen. So let's try this again:
THERE IS AN OPEN SOURCE DVD PLAYER THAT IT LEGAL TO USE
Look a little closer:
"Due to the DVD standards being foolishly secret, this is not a full featured DVD player: you will not get any of the fancy interactive features, but you will be able to play the movies back."
Let me tell you why nobody listens (besides the fact that it is for dxr2 only). We want a DVD player that is Free in every sense of the word. I can already play DVDs in Windows.
Not free as in beer.
There are some things in life that will never be free. For all other things use Free Software.
The point is to make more software free. A DVD player is not an extremely complex project. Compiler, kernel, httpd server, desktop environment, the list goes on and on.
The point is that it is not the technical hurdles and manpower we are missing, but it is the red tape and the typical overtly-protective stance of the movie industry. Think what happened with VHS at the time they came out. The MPAA cried foul.
Now they make billions off VHS every year.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
I am not a lawyer either, but I do know enough about US copyright law to know that copyright rights are based on controlling distribution, not use. That means...
>1) The copyright holder is allowed to specify
>where you can view their copyrighted material.
This is not true. When you buy a book, the law holds that you own the book, and therefore can do anything with the book itself. Copyright only comes into play when you try to distribute copies of the copyrighted contents of the book.
The same is true of recording, plays, film, etc.
Libraries rely on this to allow them to lend books to anyone -- since no one is making a copy, no copyright violation is occurring.
Distribution, BTW, includes public performance. So renting a tape from the library is OK. Projecting the tape onto a wall for your local block party is not.
# 2) The copyright holder is not obligated by
# law to allow you to make backup copies of
# thier copyrighted material.
This is not the case. The copyright holder has no right to -prevent- you from making backup copies of their copyrighted material that you own. They can prevent you from giving your backups to others, but not from making the backups in the first place.
Many audiophiles in the days of vinyl records would copy their most precious records from vinyl to tape, so that the original would not get damaged from repeated play. This was considered "Personal use". The courts have upheld the right of individuals to make "mix tapes" for their own personal use. The courts have similarly upheld the right of individuals to tape shows off of broadcast TV signals for viewing at thier convenience. All of this is personal use.
And finally...
# 3) You do not have the right to change
# someone elses copyrighted material without
# their permission.
You actually do have that right. There is no prohibition against -making- what are known as "derivative works", just a prohibition against -distributing- derivative works without permission. Doing what you want with the work you own without distributing it is known as "personal use", and is very much recognised in copyright legislation and case law.
The RIAA and MPAA are both scared of digital media because they see it as allowing easy copying. Unfortunately, their technological remedies are too broad, infringing on the right of "personal use" on my part to try to defend their right of distribution control. And they can get away with it in part because people don't know what their rights are. Your enumeration of the rights you "don't" have plays right into the interests of the RIAA and MPAA. By believing that they have the right to restrict what their technological methods actually restrict, you allow them to restrict your own rights.
Worse, their technological methods don't even protect their rights. As an example, MacroVision prevents me from making an "Indiana Jones Trilogy" VHS tape from my DVD copies of those three films. That violates my rights to personal use. It does not, however, prevent me from popping those three DVDs into my DVD player and showing the movies at a local SF convention (a violation of their "public performance" rights).
The Librarian of Congress is currently accepting comments on which classes of "works" should be excempt from DMCA protection. This will either work in favor or against the RIAA and MPAA, because the only two anwers are "all works" or "no works", because "works" is the -wrong- -domain- of protection. Various "rights" are protected, not "works". I'm interested in seeing what the Librarian says.
I think it's possible in Europe.. legally.. but I'm not sure. I'm not very fluent in english legalese, but I found the European Software directive, and article 6 on decompilation seems to indicate this possibility.h tm
If anyone would care to clarify, please do.. the directive can be found at http://www.army.cz/vtciacr/secupage/orig/sw_prot.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
The making of backups (at least in europe) is protected. Directly from the european directive of software:
the making of a backup copy by a person having a right to use a computer program may not be prevented by contract insofar as it is necessary for that use. (article 5, sub 2)
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
As a seasoned Marketing professional
:-)
Why is it that that marketing people think that they know more about technical issues than the experts?
95% of the success of Microsoft is that its technology is FIT FOR THE PURPOSE, and GOOD ENOUGH.
I (as an experienced computer professional) do not consider NT Server to be either 'good enough' or 'fit for purpose'. A major factor in the success of Microsoft is due to it's elemination of the competition by using anti-competitive practices (e.g DR-DOS, Netscape). Look no further than Judge Jackson's Findings Of Fact for evidence.
Many games designers are math geniuses with years and years of comp-sci education behind them. Do you think they would PAY for DirectX if it was not any good ?
They're probably using it because they're forced to by the idiots in marketing
their [Microsoft's] products are never late to market because of some ivory-tower feature that some inexperienced idealist insists must be there.
So, what is it then? And what about that bloody paperclip?
Just wait for DirectX8 which includes VOXEL rendering. Then you will all realise how useless openGL is. Even John Carmack admits this is the way forward.
I haven't seen JC's comments (or have forgotten if I have) but Voxel rendering is not necessarily 'the way forward'. It is only useful in certain situations and has many disadvantages. Whilst it's very useful for (say) medical imaging, I have my doubts about its general usefulness for 3D games. Of course, I'd welcome sound technical arguments to the contrary.
HH
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
She's just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings.
A closed-source DVD player does not give you more choice.
At the moment, I can only play DVDs in Windows. A closed source Linux DVD player gives me more choice as it allows me to play DVDs under the OS of my choice.
HH
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
She's just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings.
One could pack the DVD CSS decoding part into a binary module. The module could be linked into the player at runtime, or at compile time. All other parts of the player could be open sourced.
I think this is simply a licensing problem. So we would get a player all could hack at. And the binary modules would be so small the could be made bullet proof by a few core developers.
Any sugestions what license to use?
thomas
If you want to distribute a player for a market that currently doesn't have a player, yes, cough up the dough. That's the way it is. Take it or leave it.
If you want to distribute a program created from GPLed code, cough up the source. That's the way it is. Take it or leave it.
Just thought you should know: ANY license limits choice.
I, too, want a DVD player for Linux. I am not content with playing VHS through my capture-board. If/when LinDVD materializes I'll buy it so that I can play the DVDs I have already bought.
I would choose to not support a non-free DVD player for Linux. Why?
Because the whole DeCSS issue is not merely about Linux. The issue is about freedom. I'm a Linux user (and in fact, I use Linux exclusively). However, for me, Linux is not the end of everything. I support Linux not because it's fashionable to do so; I support it because I believe the ideal that software should be free (in the open source sense). The DeCSS issue is not just about the availability of DVD players under Linux -- the issue is the availability of a Linux DVD player which is open source and not controlled by some commercial entity.
If you're merely for selling Linux (i.e. if you only care that everything is supported under Linux, whether free or proprietary), you've missed the point, IMHO. Linux is not about making itself popular and taking over the desktop market (or whatever other market). Linux is about producing commercial-quality products using open source methods. And the fact that we must use a proprietary DVD player on Linux is what bugs me. If you want proprietary, why not go back to Windows? After all, there is better vendor support, application availability, new-hardware compatibility, blah blah blah, under Windows (sarcasm).
The whole reason I use only Linux now is because I believe that it should be possible to produce, using free software methods, the same (or even better) quality of products that are produced by commercial vendors.
I know there is this whole argument that if we don't provide what the "public" asks for (like a DVD player for Linux) then Linux will never grow. But my take on this is, so what if you convinced everybody to switch to Linux? It's merely switching from OS #1 to OS #2. It's no different from convincing someone to switch to a Mac or to anything else. All you'd produce is a generation of users who knows nuts about free software. And who knows, when that happens, you will have a user base who would be oblivious when one day some big company somewhere decided to produce a proprietary version of Linux. As long as the proprietary version is more attractive than the GPL'd version, they would go for the proprietary version. Then all our efforts would be vain -- if the end of Linux, and the whole open source movement is such, we might as well stop using and developing Linux now and go back to producing proprietary software systems.
There is a difference between Linux zealotry and being part of the open source movement. As other slashdotters often point out, Linux != open source movement. I don't treat Linux in a religious way. If a better open-source OS comes out, I'd happily use that instead of Linux. But at the moment, Linux best represents what the open source movement is capable of. And that's why I'm supporting it now. If you promote Linux just because Linux happens to be your choice, you're no different from the guy who insists on Windows just because he likes it.
The banning of DeCSS is an infringement of our right to produce, via open-source methods, software with equivalent quality and functionality as proprietary solutions. That is why I will not support a proprietary Linux DVD player. The whole point is that I don't want to be controlled by some commercial entity. That is why I support the open source movement in the first place.
mikre he sophia he tou Mikrosophou.
I would love to have the source to all the software on my machine, but sometimes that is just not possible. Without the drivers from Lucent the winmodem in my laptop would be useless, I know that eventully an open source replacment will come (or lucent open theirs) but at the moment I need the closed source drivers. Lets not bash ppl for closing the source at least we now have DVD and Winmodem support.
blog and junk
You have it right and wrong as I see it. On the one hand supporting this is supporting the MPAA. On the other hand supporting this is supporting Linux. A DVD player is much needed in the community for Linux to gain more momentum. If you don't support it you don't support something in the linux community and people (the dumb bandwagon stock market people) start to wonder why a unique product like a Linux DVD player fails...and then boom you have them pulling money out of many Linux products. How does that work to the Linux community's advantage.
So choose your battles:
If you are trying to win a OS battle then support LinDVD.
If you are trying to win the MPAA battle, which is much smaller in comparison, then you choose not to support it.
What I am going to do? Support LinDVD but also support OpenDVD and those trying to bring it free. My concern is bringing more open source to the public first...and a DVD player is a good step.
--just my $.02
My situation:
I am a contractor who traveling around Europe. When I run out of money I stop, get a job for a while, write some code and then move on. Basically I live in hotels and can still fit everything I own into a backpack, a small suit bag and a laptop case.
I like DVDs, I rent them sometimes. The only thing I can watch them on is my laptop as most hotels don't provide DVD players and it's not really an option to carry one around with you. At the moment this is about the only thing I use w98 on my machine for (I don't feel bad though as I bought w98 for £10 in Estonia).
When this DVD player comes out I will buy it and then remove w98 of my machine. Why? Well I need the HD space. Laptops still arn't the best things for large harddrives and I'm not trying to save up for better hardware at the moment.
That's why this player is a good thing. Besides you can never have too much choice.
"Do you think we could wipe out world hunger forever if scientists figured out how to make AOL's Free CD's edible?"-
Do you think they would PAY for DirectX if it was not any good?
Yep, if that's where the market for games software is. It's either pay or have a product with poor performance compared with the competition.
Just wait for DirectX8 which includes VOXEL rendering.
Why? Since my last hard disk crash, I don't actually run any Microsoft Operating Systems anymore. Why should I even care?
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
What we need is those of us from outside the US to write an open source, Linux DVD player, and host it in the EU. If we find a site that understands the legal issues, and won't be scared off by a letter from a US lawyer, then we can watch DVDs on an open source player. Our US friends can break DMCA if they want by downloading it and using it (much like we can break US export laws when we downloaded PGP until a few months back).
For a first release, take DeCss and an open source MPEG player, splice them together and roll. We can add in the extra functionality later.
This post will enter the public domain 70 years after my death, unless Disney buys another extension.
- watch DVDs from any region?
- make back up copies of my DVDs?
- manipulate the video as I see fit?
If not, then it does not serve my interests, as it still allows DVD-CCA to violate my rights, which include all of the above.There is lawbreaking going on surrounding the DeCSS issue, and it's all being done by the corporate goons that make up DVD-CCA.
New XFMail home page
/bin/tcsh: Try it; you'll like it.
Linux Ware are already beginning to crop up slowly but surely. Run a quick search on "VMWare" and "serialz" in google, and you probably won't have much trouble finding registered license generators for VMWare. Whenever a program, such as this software DVD player, is found to be useful, closed source, and there is no comparable "free" alternative (beer or speech, doesn't matter), two things will begin to occur: the "right" open source approach, with rampant piracy in the interim. The "right" approach of course will be for a few dedicated hackers to go about replacing the software by writing a free (as in speech) version (such as plex86 replacing VMWare). However, until a free version becomes available, I would expect to see a great deal of pirating of the proprietary software.
This may not seem like a major issue to the legitimate-use-only hacker community, but what happens when we begin to see more software that cannot, often for legal reasons be replaced by "open" alternatives? DeCSS was never able to be developed into a full-fledged Open Source player (at least not so far) due to legal action by the MPAA, but that's only part of the picture. Many people in the community are pushing to have as many computer games as possible ported to linux. Most computer games can not be replaced by OSS versions, even if the game engines could be replaced by OSS, the actual art and music is still held in copyright.
I'm not attempting to say that programs such as LinDVD or video games should be boycotted, nor am I suggesting that they are even bad for the community. What I am suggesting is that the face of the linux scene is bound to change in the coming years as more users are drawn into the linux fold. Many of these new users will not give a second thought to pirating copies of their favorite "appz" and "gamez" because outside of the corporate arena, this is the norm for many individuals. The GPL does not require that one subscribes to the notion of free software in order for a user to be permitted access to GPL'd software (an how interesting things would be if it did!), and I think that it's important for the current community to realize that it may not be a very long time before geocities and angelfire are populated by sites with porn banners and links to the latest 'leet linux warez...
Your Brain + EEG + LEGO Robots = Brainstorms
So while the situation seems to be improving, we're still a long way from home. I would hope that Sony's action of recalling the PS2 because it ignores region codes is too late: The Genie is out of the bottle and won't go back in. It seems that many/most DVD players will allow you to circumvent the region codes, so I sincerely hope that the powers that be are fighting a loosing battle. Given their resources though, it will be a long war. The best we can probably do, is to alert our friends to the situation in the hope that they end up buying a player which lets them get around the region coding, thus basically voting with their wallets; the only form of voting big business actually cares about. If enough people state that they simply will not buy a device where the region coding limitation is active, business will (eventually) listen. You own your freedom: don't surrender it easily; fight for it (with your wallet).
Wether an unapproved player is also illegal is for the courts to decide. If you use an unapproved player, you assume either that it will not be deemed illegal, or that it doesn't matter.
A fully OS:ed approved DVD player is not going to happen. Not for Linux, not for Windows, not for anyone. Not as long as the DVD consortium believes in security (and profit) through obscurity.
This at least gives you the choise btw (free and unapproved) and (closed and approved)
Stop whining!
All opinions are my own - until criticized
I think they will laugh at you, for being closed-minded enough to encrypt your creative efforts, using such weak encryption, and believing that it can profited from.
Or BeOS, or H(IRD)URD, or possibly BSD. And it certainly won't work on PPC linux, or Alpha Linux, or ARM Linux. We still have to write out own
And why shouldn't there be an open source DVD player for Windows even? That would be like banning the port of the Gimp because you can get Photoshop.
My suggestion would be to modify the DeCSS source code so that it only plays straight from DVD, and make sure it also supports the Macrovision flag, and any of the other features that could be said to be about piracy. Suddenly the argument that it can be used for piracy disappears, because that would require rewriting, and with sufficient effort, "hello world" could be rewritten to an advanced codebreaking algorithm.
Porting a software-only DVD player to Linux sounds like a minefield. On one hand, the company is no doubt sworn to protect DVD keys as if they were nuclear launch codes; on the other hand, this is impossible to do. They can trap breakpoints and grab ptrace, but an enterprising hacker can code up a debugging kernel that bypasses any software protections.
My guess is that the binary would have to run as root, and would use NMIs or somesuch to enforce unhackability. Or else that the DVD CCA are clueless about technical things (not necessarily a bad thing).
"...lots of complaints from the 'open-source nazis' that LinDVD is closed source. I don't fscking care! As a dedicated Linux user what I want is CHOICE."
Then you should be aware that the licensing scheme to which the LinDVD project is a party limits choice. Specifically, it limits choice to a set of products authored by people or groups who can pay the license to the MPAA. Whether these people can -- or even want to -- put out a DVD player that gives you the exact choice you want is a complete question mark.
This is the precedent the MPAA is setting -- if you know how to make a DVD player, you better be paying the MPAA money. So the set of developers is restricted. Hence, your choice of players is restricted.
Further, the system restricts choice of development model. Open Source can be used to develop a licensed DVD player if and only if someone ponies up and pays the MPAA (and this is not a token charge -- this privilege is marketed to major multinationals with more money than, say, me and, probably, you). This is unlikely -- not because people are skinflints in the Free Software world, but because the investment of a few million dollars is more than most people can afford. (I don't know the actual fee, but I'm sure it's big -- if it's not a million initially, the residuals/royalties the MPAA surely insists on will drive it up there.) Economic barriers are just as real -- usually more so -- than legal barriers.
This means a likely absence of DVD players that are Free Software. So if your favorite DVD player maker wants to pull the product, you suck it up. You (or someone like you) can't continue the project.
I sincerely hope there is a serious choice for DVD players, for Linux and other platforms. But if the system which LinDVD implicitly endorses is allowed to succeed, you very well may find yourself with a few DVD players that all have some things you utterly loathe about them -- and no choice but to live with it.
Just thought you should know.
phil
Keep in mind, that if anyone, ever creates a DVD with CSS protection, and does not sign a contract with DVD-CCA to assign DVD-CCA the responsibility for licensing who is authorized to circumvent the protection, then every single DVD player will become a DMCA violator.
I know that's a twisted and long sentence, I'm sorry about that. The essense is this: under DMCA, nobody except the copyright owner -- of the content (e.g. the movie), not the defacto owner of the CSS algorithm -- can "authorize" CSS circumvention (except for the exemptions provided for reverse engineering, security research, etc). If I ever get a DVD burner and somehow get ahold of even a single blank DVD-ROM that does not have the keys track preburned with zeros, then LinDVD will suddenly have the exact same legal status as LiViD. It will not be an authorized player, because they'll only have DVD-CCA's permission to circumvent the protection on MPAA movies, but it will not have authorization to circumvent the protection on my movie. Since it will be able to circumvent my protection without my authorization, it will violate DMCA.
Keep that in mind, before you buy this LinDVD product or any stock in the company that is going to sell it. Keep that in mind before you buy any stock in any of the other companies that make DVD players (even consumer models) too.
DMCA makes the whole DVD industry ripe for IP "terrorism" and given MPAA's actions over the last few months, I see no reason why anyone should restrain themselves from dropping the bomb. The only thing that stands between licensed and unlicensed players, is the industry's committment to never letting a completely unburned DVD blank get out. If even one disk slips through that will allow keys to be written to it, the whole thing will be over. Some day, DMCA is going to bite DVD-CCA in the ass!
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
If they're going to be releasing a binary player, then why not release the library files to allow enterprising coders to wrap their own applications around it?
The trouble with most computer DVD players is that their user interfaces are too clunky as they try to simulate remote control handsets and stuff. (And normally ignore key bindings so you've GOT to use the mouse to operate it.) Ideally, all I want is a simple window that I can manipulate to my own nefarious needs, such as coding up my own IR remote, etc.
You know, something useful!
I think it's very important that (people like) the MPAA not be supported, but are we really going to do a favor to the Linux community by rejecting every closed source program that comes along?
I mean, as a fairly nascent-to-the-general-public OS, we need applications and no level of idealism is going to make every application open source at this time. An inroad has to be made into the business world to prove that Linux (or any other OS OS) is actually the better alternative. In the end, prominent companies like Creative will lead other `into the light.'
I don't think that the buying of a closed-source DVD player is an admission of guilt about DeCSS -- it's an expression of desire for a product.
I'm still not certain I would buy LinDVD, but I also don't think it's an issue that can be immediately seen to have a right way and a wrong way to view it.
This is not a troll, it's a rant from a supporter of open-source software.
<rant>
I see here exactly what I expected when I read this press release. That is lots of complaints from the 'open-source nazis' that LinDVD is closed source. I don't fscking care! As a dedicated Linux user what I want is CHOICE. I want the choice to choose Linux over Windows. I also want the freedom to choose the applications that I run on Linux, whether they are open or closed source. I don't want to be told This is bad because it's not open-source. Ideally I'd like to have a choice of several (open and closed source) DVD players (& accounts packages, image editors, office packages etc.) If I want to pay money to a company for a product, that's my choice too.
I don't want anyone to stop supporting DeCCS once this is released, because preventing open-source DVD limits my choices (& our freedom) too. I think that CCS & region encoding suck as much as the next rabid geek.
I will probably buy this software once it's released as the more apps (open & closed source) for Linux, the better.
</rant>
HH (feeling better for that)
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
She's just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings.
This gives the Linux community a chance to prove their dedication to Free Software, the basis of their systems.
If Linux users buy this software so that they can contribute money to support the people that filed a lawsuit against DeCSS for reverse engineering, than the Linux community will show that their dedication to Free Software is meaningless.
This is not a situation where a free version is not available. This is a situation where an organization used the courts to prevent a free version's creation overseas. The decision to use a commercial, non-free, version because of convenience to me demonstrates than the hoopla about free software in the Linux community is bogus.
I'm not a hardcore Linux user. NT4 and now Windows 2000 are my primary systems. However, I refuse to buy a DVD player or DVD-ROM. Why? Because I feel that the MPAA is taking a morally unjustifiable position, and the purchase of a DVD player and DVD titles will reinforce the position of a technology whose goal is to take away my rights as a user.
I'm not one who refuses to use proprietary software and will only use free software, I'm a user who won't contribute to morally unjustifiable organizations. I will be amazed at people that are supposedly dedicated to free software would even consider a situation like this.
Alex
OOG AGREE THAT LINUX NEED DVD PLAYER, BUT OOG NO CONTENT WITH LINDVD PROJECT. OOG NOTICE THAT PROJECT BILLED AS CLOSED SOURCE, AND THAT VIOLATE PRINCPLE OF WHOLE LINUX/OPEN SOURCE COMMUNITY, DISAPPOINTING OOG MUCH!!! OOG NO WANT SIMPLY BINARIES, OOG WANT BETTER WITH SOURCE CODE!!!
OOG ALSO SEE HUGE IMPLICATIONS WITH MPAA LEGAL ISSUES!!! PLAYER ADVERTISES SELF AS FIRST LEGAL LINUX DVD, IN OTHER WORDS DEFAMING CURRENT EFFORTS FOR LINUX DVD (I.E. LIVID AND DECSS)!!! WITH THIS PLAYER OUT, MPAA COULD EASILY WIN DECSS CASE BY USING LINDVD AS EVIDENCE!!! THIS ANOTHER BAD THING FOR OPEN SOURCE!!! SEEMS LIKE MAYBE INTERDVD AND MPAA HAVE SOMETHING FISHY GOING ON (BAD FISHY, NOT GOOD FISHY LIKE YUMMY FISH HEADS) TOGETHER!!! INTERDVD GETS ENDORSEMENT FROM MPAA AND LOTS OF MONEY THROUGH SALES, WHILE MPAA GAINS BIG EVIDENCE IN THEIR CASE TO SQUELCH DECSS AND OPEN SOURCE DVD!!! FURTHERMORE, REGION CODES STILL THERE!!! REGION CODES HORRIBLE THING THAT SCREW CONSUMERS AND FIX PRICES!!! OOG NO TOLERATE REGION CODES!!!
IN CONCLUSION, OOG NO LIKE LINVID!!! LINDVD VIOLATE PRINCIPLE OF LINUX/OPEN SOURCE MOVEMENT AND TRY TO USE LINUX HYPE TO MAKE MONEY!!! NOT TO MENTION INTERVIDEO PROBABLY IN BED WITH MPAA TO CRUSH DECSS CASE AND MAKE MONEY!!! OOG BREAK INTERVIDEO HEAD!!!
OOG THE OPEN SOURCE CAVEMAN!!! OOG BREAK HEAD WITH OPEN SOURCE CD!!!