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Real Announce Helix Grant Program, Player

Posted by simoniker on from the not-to-be-confused-with-other-helix dept.

Rob Lanphier writes "RealNetworks made two announcements at LinuxWorld this week: we will be giving out up to $75,000 by the end of the year for development of open source projects based on the Helix multimedia platform. Also, we just formally launched the Helix Player project, which is a project to build a GTK+ based user interface for Linux, Solaris, and other UNIXy operating systems. Press releases for the grant program here and player project here"

1 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. Wrong by robla · · Score: 4, Informative

    Getting the code is admittedly more complicated than it needs to be (and we're working on that), but hyperbole like the parent post should not be modded up as "Informative". The steps are:

    1. Sign up for the site, filling in a form with proposed user name, real name, company name, and email.
    2. Receive confirmation URL, and visit included URL
    3. Agree to site terms of use
    4. Agree to RPSL (an OSI certified license)
    5. Get source code via CVS/SSH

    Why are we being hardasses about making sure that people agree to licenses? It's a combination of the way the legal system works, and our general conservativeness that stems from being a publicly traded company.

    There are good reasons to ensure that "manifestation of assent" occurs, even for open source. I'll defer to Larry Rosen's excellent paper on the topic. Larry, as you may know, is the General Counsel for the Open Source Initiative, and while his opinion is only an opinion, it's a very well informed one.

    As for the functionality, it's more than just "shells". There's complete software there, and it's the foundation of our commercial products. Additionally, the combination of Ogg Vorbis, SMIL 2.0, JPEG, GIF, and PNG is very powerful, and *all open source*. No RealAudio/RealVideo necessary, and the app is pretty unique. For an example which plays in the Helix Player (and versions of RealPlayer/RealOne Player with the Ogg Vorbis codec installed), check out the following link:

    http://rtsp.org/2003/demos/oggsmil/oggdemo.smil

    Once one starts looking at SMIL (especially SMIL 2.0), you begin to realize that a system that can support it does a lot.

    Rob Lanphier
    Helix Community Coordinator