RealPlayer To Incorporate Mozilla

Will in Seattle writes "cNet has a story on RealNetworks using code from Mozilla.org's open-source browser code in a private-label version of its media player and server for Web broadcaster Global Media. This version lets RealNetworks' system stream and display Web elements including HTML and Macromedia Flash animation files, and you can download their mods here. "

Comments

Is this really necessary?

[Vector7]

Do we really need to get the roles of all our software tangled and confused like this? Wouldn't life be much simpler if everything was logically divided into seperate applications (browser, mail, news, video players, etc.), rather than gargantuan applications that try to do all of the above, to varying extents?

Anyone think that the "minibrowser" or whatever in WinAmp is the most ridiculous thing you've ever seen?

On a somewhat different, some would argue that excessive use of streaming media and abuse of HTML for really complex designs (strung together with Javascript, with all kinds of animated silliness) is really undesirable. Abusing standards just for a little graphical flair is really a bad thing anyway - it makes it both more difficult for users to view your content (by narrowing the range of browsers that can view it correctly), and makes it difficult for future software to evolve when so much effort must be spent on preserving backward compatibility.

Thoughts ?

Farewell

[Trollmastah]

So long Slashdot my old friend.
I won't come to troll you again.
because the console softly creeping,
killed my karma while I was sleeping.
And the flames
with just remnants in my brain,
don't remain,
upon the threads... of Slashdot.

In flick'ring lights I type along.
Submit my troll, before to long,
Letters haloed by my squinting,
at the rant that I was typing.
For my eyes were blurred
by the flash of the cathode beam,
term'nal screen,
and all the trolls... on Slashdot.

And in the fuzzy light I saw
10,000 zealots, maybe more:
Zealots karma farming,
Zealots flaming without thinking.
Zealots modding posts
that karma never shared.
(No one dared,
disturb the balance... of Slashdot)

"Fools," said I, "you do not know.
Honest opinion makes the karma grow.
They post the rules so that we might read them.
Meta mod 'cause we don't heed them."
But my posts
like trolling karma fell,
(Oh well...)
An echo,
On the threads... of Slashdot.

Thanks folks, it's been a blast. After a long time under the TM account, I feel it's time I call it quits. The TM account was created and used on a bet that a spamming troll could not survive moderation and last more that a few week, made even harder by having to do it with an account name as silly as Trollmastah.

I'm ending my trollish run with:

* +33 Karma (lowest level I hit was around -20)
* Due to being over +25, I receive the +1 bonus (kind of ironic)
* A long run at -2 default.(Well deserved)
* A console initiated permenant tag which keeps default post at -1 regardless of karma. (sort of a select club)
* About 50/50 percent positive/negative e-mail(Thank you all)
* Easily over 100 "First Posts!"(Woo Hoo!)

Even though trolls are generally discouraged, I did find that trolling is a valuable addition to the /. culture and when done without being offensive, vulgar or mean, even trolls can keep positive karma and add not only to the culture of Slashdot, but also to the content.

I'd like to thank Rob, Jeff and the gang at Andover for providing such a cool forum and for putting up with so much noise, the daily moderators for participating, and also to the trolls, you add the character which makes Slashdot a community.

Hope you enjoyed the posts,

Regards,
TM

Re:Why we need GPL

[MarkKomus]

"If the GPL was in effect, this would require Real to publish the entire source, not just diffs, for the Real product. "

And if Mozilla was GPL Real would never have used it in their player. This is why we need alternatives to the GPL, I, and many others I'm sure, are quite happy if someone else uses/modifies our code, as long as changes made to the part we write are made public. Real's code is up to them to release if they wish to.

Not e-mail anymore...

[Paul Neubauer]

Once upon a time it was...

Any program will grow until it can read mail.

But now it seems...

Any program will expand until it can browse the web.

How about one job per program?