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Helix Server Source Released
Rob Lanphier writes "RealNetworks just released the Helix DNA Server source code, the main engine powering the RealNetworks' Helix Universal Server (nee RealServer). Additionally,
the RealNetworks' Public Source License (RPSL) just became approved as an Open
Source Initiative (OSI) certified license. Speaking of which, the Helix DNA Server is available under RPSL (which
wasn't originally our stated intention). Ask questions via IRC during our live webcast at 11am PST (19:00 GMT) or just read the press release."
I think the crunch test will come when Debian assesses the Helix server for eligibility. Until then, I'm treating this cautiously based on experience with Real. Without free codecs, this is useless anyway so it'll be interesting to see to what extent they've embraced Ogg Vorbis and the other technologies from Xiph.
Helix DNA Server streams MP3, RealAudio® and RealVideo®. RealNetworks intends to add support for MPEG-4 after the MPEG-4 systems license terms have been released by the MPEG-4 licensing body, MPEG LA.
Wasn't there supposed to be ogg support?
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
I mean, that is wonderful that it is open-source and all, but why would they do something like this? Do they really want everybody making their own streaming format off of their source code or do they expect people from the OSS community to basically write their code for them?
Now i'm just waiting for someone to do some kind of quantitative or benchmark comparison between this and Darwin Streaming Server.
It's all just RTSP... right? Do the two support any common codecs?
Are the RSPL and ASPL compatible? I mean, can we take code from Darwin and code from Helix and legally put it into the same app?
The only thing I want from Real is the codec for their movie files, and that is only so I can reverse engineer them and not have to use their awful player.
Granted, Helix will provide a way to get rid of the player, but that just means all the spying Real does will be moved into the codec.
So we can use more than 1MBit/s for streaming now?
The 1year-testing-version is limited to this bandwith.
cheers,
liebesgruss
Posted by michael on Wednesday January 22, @08:26AM
from the beaten-down-by-windows-media-player dept.
Thanks for the always insightful remarks, Mike, but I'd wager that those of us who give two damns about our privacy would much rather use a cross-platform, free solution such as Helix as opposed to the DRM'ing-you-and-all-your-files program known as Windows Media Player.
But hey, what do I know, I'm not an omnipotent Slashdot editor.
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
My, what a fickle crowd we are.
The success of the streaming OGG format is as cold as an Iditarod huskie's nutsack.
before he/she can checkout source code? i dont believe they take those emailadresses and geographic adresses to be real dont they?
Real is moving at the border of legal usage of users information for years now. And they won't change - as this is the only reason why they're still alive.
Wine changed to LGPL, which does include GPL but there are important differences and more flexible for commercial developers.
I CH -ONE-OF-THE-DIFFERENT-WINE-PACKAGES
http://www.winehq.org/docs/wine-faq/t1.shtml#WH
Listen, back in the day, the Netscape Navigator was the number one "Internet" browser. By your logic, they should still be the market leader since they once were. Oddly enough, they aren't. You see, your statement that because something is a proven commodity guarantees that no other product will replace it goes against everything in business. I think you should apologize for not thinking this out thoroughly. Ogg vorbis could become the de facto standard with the right company behind it and the correct market conditions. Users will downoad "something else" if the market dictates that they have to or all their friends do it. Trust me, stranger things have happened.
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
It might be even more useful if it can stream .oggs as well (my bad)
Economic Left/Right: -0.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.69
Yeah, sure. "Fuck them" but forget about making a major impact.
And when coke turns from the darkside and releases it's formula they'll be redeemed too....you fucks. When will you ever figure out that the people with te secrets are the ones that make money. No secrets, no money.
Now I can, umm yeah, look at the source code for my helix server and, if I feel like it, make a monumental waste of time debugging it myself. Wow, that's great. I'm totally not being sarcastic.
Open source is overrated. When it comes to software, free as in beer is about 100x more important to the average consumer than free as in source code.
Repeal the DMCA!
flash has shipped with the last few versions of IE.
Yes, most commodity PC's ship with the same software but you're saying that this will never change and I am telling you that you're wrong. If MS were to suddenly take up Ogg vorbis and begin throwing their weight behind it, you should realize that it would quickly become a standard. You are basically saying that "Ogg vorbis will never become mainstream because it isn't mainstream." I am telling you that the possibility exists for a market shift and ogg vorbis becoming a standard. Yes, websites will cater to their clientele, obviously. You're not saying anything revolutionary with that statement. You're missing the point though. I'm not saying a shift would come from the websites now am I? In fact, I merely said that conditions within the market COULD lead to a shift. You're denying this possibility because you're being short-sighted. Your last sentence used a rather ambiguous "this" and "their" so I won't bother with that. I'm right and you're wrong.
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
I applaud Real for releasing their server in this fashion.
Now, when the client for Linux will actually work with Mozilla, will actually play content that is available without generating spurious "You need to be root to update this" messages, and is actually easily found on the main Real site without resorting to using Google, then perhaps I might get excited about this.
But a server without a client is nigh useless. And if you want to say "But the client for Windows works great" - yes, but then so does Windows Media Player, and it comes pre-installed.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Someone should take the MMS protocol description from http://sdp.ppona.com/ and write in support for that. Since it would be basically a clean-room implementation for compatability with the WMP based off the documentation the SDP project provides, there shouldnt be any legal issues. I almost started a stand-alone version of that, but we've more or less dropped the media side of our business, and I'm busy w/ other things.
Thats what it will do for you.
The money in streaming media is the server end, the clients are generally given away free or at very low cost - you want people to demand that companies install your server product so there is no point stiffing the consumer.
This was Real and Microsoft's approach - but of course Microsoft has a real adavantage [pun intended] because it can put a player on every desktop that it sells - so buisnesses in have to buy Microsoft streaming server software because of consumer demand.
But then people with Mac/*NIX/Set top boxes are cut out of the loop because MS doesn't do players for those platforms, and they won't release the codec details for others to use because then someone could code an alternative streaming server.
Real is fighting back by offering an open platform server - in this case anyone who wants to write support for thier player can look at the server code and write a plug in for it. The attraction for a buisness is they now potentially can install one streaming server and probably one set of master media files - they can stream media to any player on any platform.
This gives Real a commercial adavantage over MS becuase MS software needs to run on MS operating systems - and most big internet stuff is still the domain of various *NIX
Helix could be compiled for your particular choice of OS - thats a definate plus over the MS offering. Even if MS offered binaries for a number of OS's you still don't have as much choice.
Now what they want is everybody to install Helix as thier streaming server. They win by market penetration and you still have to license the codecs for thier RealPlayer series so they have a revenue stream.
Real are NOT going to release the codecs open source because that could allow anyone to write server software that works with thier free players and they are rapidly out of buisness - the only other option would be to charge for the players - but people would then use MS players anyway. Either route they are commercially dead.
So if you want to write TuxPlayerDeluxe then what you do is look at the Helix code and develop a plug in for your player - now you can get buisness to support you. You'll not get a commercial entity to install your homegrown server software on thier servers, but they may use your plug in if you get enough demand, so the success of Helix will help open source media player developers.
So the advantages are:
1) Real can offer an all in one solution and hopefully become the prefered solution to Microsoft
2) Real can continue to make money from licenseing codecs, rather than having to charge for the player.
3) Anyone can write support for thier favourite player/format
I mean to me this looks like a finely balanced mix of commercial sense and Open Source support such that Real can make money.
The good thing is if it works and big commercial streamers - for instance the BBC - switch to Helix then it actually will help the adoption of open source formats like Ogg Vorbis because it will so easy to support.
Alternatively if MS wins the server software war 90% of the net will not notice, but the rest of us will lose. Bare that in mind when worrying if the codecs are Open Source or not - they never will be - but kicking Real may just play into MS's hands.
I'm not a great fan of either companies buisness practises - but at least in this case Real is doing something that benefits our community - lets support them on this and maybe in a year or two's time they will do more to support open source.
is because linus refuses to call it GNU/Linux
It's shipped with the last few releases (i.e., subversions, point revisions), not the last few versions. Before that, people were downloading it anyway. Now, if I have a one-year old PC and IE came with Flash 5, and the site I'm visiting wants Flash 6, I click a button and hey presto! It's installed.
So I submit that it is YOU who is WRONG, WRONG-caller!
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
And according to the news release, that apparently nobody read, you can stream Real and MP3 for free, non-commerically.
"Helix DNA Server streams MP3, RealAudio® and RealVideo®. RealNetworks intends to add support for MPEG-4 after the MPEG-4 systems license terms have been released by the MPEG-4 licensing body, MPEG LA. Developers can create extensions for other media types such as Windows Media and QuickTime, or they can license these extensions from RealNetworks through the Helix Community. "
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
Is this the post you've been planning all day long Bill? Don't waste my time.
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
I'll consider starting to like them if they stop spamming and apologize.
I've been working on a plugin for the server and can say the SDK is pretty good. A little loose on the docs sometimes, but releasing the source probably will help.
My plugin didn't deal directly with streaming, but when scanning the docs it looked like they expose the interfaces you would need to integrate new codecs & file formats into the client & server.
They did have some funky restrictions (as I recall):
- You can't suggest to the user to change mime-type associations away from realplayer.
- You can't have any auto-update software except real's update.
Anyway, I'm just talking about the SDK, I don't know how differently the Helix Comunity stuff works.I wonder about all these companies that have to come up with their own licenses. I had some understanding when netscape did it (they being one of the first big companies doing major open source and perhaps finding the gpl/bsd "extremes" unappealing), but now that they, ibm, and others have released tweaked licenses that are (presumably) more friendly to business, is there really need for another one, or are the lawyers just extracting $$$?
-- p
Kind of offtopic, but isn't Real beaten-down-by-windows-media-player? Doesn't Microsoft now controll the market?
No, sorry. My organization just did some fairly extensive research of the current live streaming options, and the quality and functionality of Real beat Windows Media soundly. Note that we focused on live streaming, not download-and-play.
Didn't we just have a discussion recently on how much real-player (free) sucks? Just because the server is open-source doesn't mean that people will want to download a buggy-ad filled POS viewer
You'll recall that Helix Code, a corporation formed by the prime movers behind the GNOME project, changed their name to Ximian some time ago.
Usually changing an accepted, visible brand name is stupid and wastes resources, so one assumes they had good reason.
The stated reason was "we cannot legally defend the name Helix Code".
Did Real have anything to do with this? If not, why do they think they can use "Helix" when the Gnome Boyz couldn't?
Anybody out there know anything? Miguel? Nat?
Could someone PLEASE explain to me what the big deal is with this realserver.
If from what I can tell is that it serves up streaming RealVideo, then I don't really see why this is so terrific.
I remember ignoring the last 500 sites that had videos in RealPlayer only format simply cuz it's the most annoying thing in the world to install on your Windows PC. God damn thing hoggs memory, sits in your system tray for eternity... etc..
Wouldn't it be just as easy to have a windows media object in your webpage.
Please note: I'm not discussing multi-platform related issues.
--Zaqintosh
Sig sigga... WHO stole the keys to ma beema!
please hack that "Real" thing. I'm paying 4.95$ a month to listen to Nascar races and maintaining a win98 partition for that reason. By the way, I like free beer...
Does any of this mean that eventually i'll be able to listen to my RealOne RadioPass on Linux? Other than games, this is the only thing keeping me from doing a complete switch to Linux. Gotta listen to my KPIG radio! Oink. Oink.
What more can be gained with this back-and-forth? Nothing! Have some self-respect and just drop this ridiculousness.
"Arguing on the Internet is like competing in the Special Olympics: you might win, but you're still retarded." - Someone
Here's a simple solution.
I really hate Slashdot with a passion.
rrrrrrrrRRRRRAAAAAAOOOOOOOWWWWWwwwwwwww
Repeat ad nauseum.
The entire "streaming media server" landscape is poisoned. They provide almost zero value for the user and they saddle the provider with unstable and half-baked implementations of third-rate designs and proprietary protocols. It is a total sham.
And here we have Real introducing another "streaming media framework" that nobody wants and nobody cares about. The market would be better off standardizing on Apache and MPEG than by continuing on the marketing and PR-driven "streaming media" bonanza.
I'd think this could be good if they release code (or someone figures it out from the server code) for the client so we can be rid of the of the real client once and for all. If it can be a spyware-free plugin for any application, real might actually become useful. I'd rather not use either microsoft's latest client or any version of real if I can help it.
As far as I can tell, neither company has produce a viable "media player" since MS media player 6.4. College kids programming in their free time are putting out better programs to play media files, so maybe we should leave the client interface development out of the hands of the clueless (MS and Real).
But hey, what do I know
Not much about WMP if you
a) think that it's "DRM'ing-you-and-all-your-files" and/or
b) don't know how to turn that feature off.
The truth doesn't care what I think.
I wish.
The truth doesn't care what I think.
Guys,
# po rting
Yes, the default license doesn't include the codecs, but there is an attachment that will give you access to them. The license is somewhat more restrictive. Among other things, there is a $0.25 fee per decoder for commercial products.
But, if you want to look at the source code for the codecs, its availalbe. Certainly not free software, but arguably open source.
https://www.helixcommunity.org/content/licenses
My video compression blog
Actually, Microsoft is moving away from MMS and towards RTP/RTSP for Windows Media 9.
My video compression blog
Folks,
Go to http://www.helixcommunity.org
Just started at 11am PST. They're taking live questions.
My video compression blog
nice try. you were very close to first post. keep trying, you can do it!
GOOD EFFORT
Why Helix's Community Coordinator at RealNetworks of course!
I had problems installing the Helix server on FreeBSD 4.7 i386.. The XML module wouldn't compile which caused the entire compilation to fail. The fix is to add the following line to common/lang/xml/pub/xmlesc.h prior to the #endif // _XMLCONV_H_ line.
const char* strnstr (const char *&, const char[4], UINT32 &);
Then re-run the build and it should compile fine.
Bwahahaha. That's a good one!
The (Hopefully) Great Slashdot Blackout Apr 21-27
Change "licenses" to "operational support systems" and "lawyers" to "Big 5 consultants" and you'll find many more examples of the same phenomenon. The easiest solution for a manager who needs something his own staff can't provide is to hire an outside expert and pay by the hour until he gets something he can live with. The outside consultants or lawyers pull together all their old documentation, global replace "Old Company Name" with "New Company Name", and start running the meter. When you ask the parties involved why this SAP (for instance) implementation is so different from any other in the same industry, they'll mumble something about "comparative advantage".
Open source may eventually rein in this phenomenon in software (not sure about licensing), but that will require managers to realize that they can get by just fine using the same shovels and rakes that their competition uses.
later,
Jess
I am programmed for etiquette, not destruction!
Currently, realplayer still seems to be the only option for those wanting to play realaudio streams. Quite annoying, especially when trying to record internet radio. mplayer still can't do this, for example. live.com has some info on this. Seems the protocol is undocumented.
So, I'm wondering whether the Helix server or possibly client contains code documenting RDT, which would allow either integrating that code into the live.com libraries, or at least reimplementing it.
I think this is far from useless, even "without free codecs." One of the coolest things about the Apple Darwin Streaming Server (also open-source) is that it's a good reference implementation on RTSP / RTP. In other words, if reading the RFCs just leaves you with a bunch of questions, and maybe a "sure would like to see it work" hunger in yer belly, then you can build it, run it, play with it, and suddenly those RFCs make a lot more sense. Reference implementations (and multiple ones at that) are always good -- everyone interested gets educated by actually seeing the stuff go, putting breakpoints where they want, and really making the concepts gel in their head.
Regards
John
Falling You - beautiful
you can stream Real and MP3 for free, non-commerically.
I'm talking about the ability to play a RealAudio or RealVideo clip with a legitimate media player that doesn't consume every aspect of the OS. It will never happen (they might talk about it, but it will never happen). And eventually, I can get rid of my bastard software partition.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Thanks for pointing this out. It builds on my FreeBSD 4.3 box, but from what you describe, a slightly cleaner fix for FreeBSD 4.7 is probably to change this (line 1129 of common/lang/xml/xmlesc.cpp):
"://", ulLen);
To be:
(const char*)"://", ulLen);
Does this fix the problem as well?
Above all, I encourage you to take this up at dev@server.helixcommunity.org where it will be easier to get assistance.
Dean Collins
Server Core Technical Lead / SDE
RealNetworks, Inc.
Seattle, WA
I wouldn't use RealNetwork's crap if they gave it away.
Wow, a crapflood intelligently modded "Insightful" Nice....
Just the other day you passed yourself off as a Yahoo engineer. Masterful.
Some clueless twit zit faced pre-pubescent moderator with a serious psychosis started with this post and then proceeded to waste the other 4 of their points moderating 5 of my posts -1 Troll. I chuckle in your general direction my moronic friend.
RNWK CEO Rob Glaser owns a third of the company. His stock is worth ~$180M now that the stock trades at $3.50. It used to be worth ~$5B.
I bet he thought he was Bill Gates for a while there. Ha-ha.
You're mistaking "better" for "more widely used".
:-p
MacOS is "beaten-down-by-windows" even if it is "better"
You're mistaking "better" for "more widely used".
Read the post, it's no mistake. For live video streaming, Real is both better performing AND more widely used.
This is not the age of pamphleteers. It is the age of the engineers. The
spark-gap is mightier than the pen. Democracy will not be salvaged by men
who talk fluently, debate forcefully and quote aptly.
-- Lancelot Hogben, Science for the Citizen, 1938
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