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Turbolinux Licenses Windows Media 9

Posted by timothy on from the that's-a-first dept.

spike-288 writes "According a press release, Turbolinux is the first major Linux distributor to license and ship a media player capable of streaming Windows Media audio and video. The new product, "Turbolinux 10 F..." is based on Turbolinux 10 Desktop but will also include licensed versions of Macromedia Flash, legal commercial DVD playback (via Cyberlink's PowerDVD player), RealPlayer 8, commercial Kanji fonts and iPod support via gtkpod (including enhanced functionality)." Update: 04/28 02:33 GMT by T : Prostoalex adds "The Windows Media codecs for Linux will be available for download for $64, the complete TurboLinux OS will cost $150 in Japan and the United States."

28 of 549 comments (clear)

  1. Getting rid of DRM? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Will it strip out DRM so we can listen to our own music on our own machines without hassle?

    1. Re:Getting rid of DRM? by BigBuckHunter · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, you simply have to de-select the DRM features when ripping/encoding your DVD's. Or did you want to remove DRM from other peoples media?

      Sorry to play devils advocate there

      The main argument sould be that it is not free software, not open source, and not based on a free /open standard. Not, "can I remove DRM?".

      Thank you for your time,
      BBH

    2. Re:Getting rid of DRM? by Xaer0cool · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Pirating? one guy in his house? I live in south east asia. Pirating is going to the mall and seeing thousands upon thousands of pirated DVD's of all the movies ever made being sold for profit. A dude in his house wanting to wath a DVD on his linux box is not pirating. Go after the people that make money off it.

    3. Re:Getting rid of DRM? by gujo-odori · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I used to live in SE Asia too, and yeah, you can walk into any video shop and buy a VCD for about a buck. But that's not piracy either; piracy is robbing ships by force of arms. What those shops are doing is copyright infringement.

      What one guy in his house does (and there are many, many people who copy DVDs purely for fair use reasons, starting with all of us who have toddlers in the house :-) is not even copyright infringement, it really is fair use. Now, if you *distribute* a copy, that is infringement.
      Backing up your Disney DVDs so your kids don't destroy them, then playing the backups while the originals are kept under lock and key, is not infringement.

    4. Re:Getting rid of DRM? by gujo-odori · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Cache" in the sense of "CPU cache" and "disk cache" is directly derived from the standard OED definition, and indeed, it fills the role in a computer that a cache of provisions filled for, for example, a miner in the Klondike. That meaning of the word cache is still alive and well in modern English, as any (educated, at least) native speaker could tell you. If you dig through a bunch of news articles about the war in Iraq, I am sure you will find it there.

      In other words, the meaning hasn't been changed, merely extended to something that is conceptually the same but which did not exist at the time the word was borrowed into English from French.

      In the case of using "piracy" to mean "copyright infringement," on the other hand, that is a complete break with the actual meaning, and was made up by RIAA and MPAA. It is not even an evolution; merely something they repeated and repeated until they got the press and politicians repeating it, but that doesn't make it true. Piracy remains the hijacking and robbery of vessels (and sometimes road vehicles; the meaning has been extended that far) by force of arms. And yes, pirates do exist today, in the places you mentioned, among others. I'm pretty sure they aren't copying DVDs.

      Your claim that there are pirated clothes is as false as your claim regarding copyright infringement. Pirated CDs, DVDs, clothes, etc., are genuine articles which are stolen by pirates and subsequently resold (I haven't heard that pirates target that sort of thing much, so these are probably very rare, if not non-existent). A knock-off Rolex, on the other hand, is just what you properly named it as: a case of trademark infringement. If they copied the inside as well (not likely), then it would probably also be a case of patent infringement. None of copyright/trademark/patent infringement are acts of piracy. They are acts of infringement. That is the legal definition, and the only one that even RIAA can use in court. The legal system does not define "piracy" as the infringement of copyright, trademark, or patent. As one who hopes to take the bar exam in the future, I certainly hope it never does so and do not expect it will.

      Piracy has not "evolved" to mean any kind of infringement. It is just a word stuck onto it by RIAA et al. That is the complete opposite of evolution, and something that is rejected by many people other than myself.

  2. Linux is here! by schlagel_j · · Score: 5, Funny

    Finally, when I use linux, I can bring along some of the windows stability issues, and reasons that I moved away from Windows. At least all of the fancy pages will work!

  3. This isn't actually a bad thing... by terraformer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It shows that there is a real place for Linux in the commercial/proprietary software market. Using this, as a foot in the door, the more open standards can be intorduced and promoted to gain larger foothold.

    --
    Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
    1. Re:This isn't actually a bad thing... by pla · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It shows that there is a real place for Linux in the commercial/proprietary software market.

      And you consider that a "good" thing?

      I (and I think many of us) consider Linux as embodying freedom (in both the RMS and and the beer senses) in the IT world. Now, I certainly won't put down some of the great work the major distro companies have done for us, but this goes a little too far - The difference between "added value" to "basically un-free (in both senses).


      Using this, as a foot in the door, the more open standards can be intorduced and promoted to gain larger foothold.

      I hope you meant that as sarcastic.

      Using this as a precedent, companies can feel safer about making totally closed standards, with the hope that if they become popular enough, even "those Linux nuts" will eventually license it from them.


      Not good. I can see this from three main angles... First, while nice to have a legal way to do most of the things mentioned in the FP, I would point out that a legal way to do that already existed - Use Windows. Second, illegal (in some countries) ways to do all of those already existed, making this very unlikely to see adoption by any but the most picky of people and companies. And third, I do consider it nice to have native (rather than the hack MPlayer and the like use) support for a given format, but not at the expense of making Linux have the same stability as Windows.

    2. Re:This isn't actually a bad thing... by kfg · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well no, it doesn't actually. It only shows that TurboLinux is willing to take the risk that there is.

      It will take actually selling it in quantity to show that there is a real place for Linux in the propriatary software market.

      Red Hat/Mandrake, SuSE/et al have already shown there's a place for it in the commercial market.

      Commercial != Propriatary

      KFG

    3. Re:This isn't actually a bad thing... by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

      I (and I think many of us) consider Linux as embodying freedom (in both the RMS and and the beer senses) in the IT world.

      It depends on what you're putting before the slash in */Linux. Your view corresponds to "GNU" before the slash, just like the Debian contract. However, some Linux-based operating systems such as Lycoris and Linspire have different goals that they use the same kernel to meet.

      And third, I do consider it nice to have native (rather than the hack MPlayer and the like use) support for a given format, but not at the expense of making Linux have the same stability as Windows.

      Remember that thanks to Linux's memory protection and I/O abstraction, nothing affects system reliability unless it goes through the kernel, and as long as you haven't tainted your kernel with a "GPL\0which stands for Greedy Private License" driver, a few proprietary apps shouldn't break the increased reliability that the free software process brings to the rest of your system. Or what evidence can you provide against my assertion?

    4. Re:This isn't actually a bad thing... by pla · · Score: 5, Interesting

      thanks to Linux's memory protection and I/O abstraction, nothing affects system reliability unless it goes through the kernel ... a few proprietary apps shouldn't break the increased reliability that the free software process brings to the rest of your system. Or what evidence can you provide against my assertion?

      No, no, you have a fair point that I hadn't considered. I agree with you completely - No kernel mods, this should at worst crash the player in question, not the whole system.

      I do, though, have to wonder if (at least) WMP9 support requires a (binary-only, of course) kernel module to enforce its DRM... If so, my earlier comment on stability would still apply. If not, will this allow playback of protected content, or have they glossed over that small omission from full compatibility?

    5. Re:This isn't actually a bad thing... by Jace+of+Fuse! · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I do consider it nice to have native (rather than the hack MPlayer and the like use) support for a given format, but not at the expense of making Linux have the same stability as Windows.

      First off, who says bringing Windows Media Player to Linux will make Linux unstable? It MIGHT make for an unstable Media Player but then, a single application should never make an entire OS unstable, right?

      Right? Well I assume that MUST be the case, since everybody gripes about how single errant applications can bring down Windows.

      If it does turn out that bringing WMP to Linux makes Linux as a whole unstable, then maybe Linux doesn't have that superior stability that everyone has always claimed.

      Truth be known I don't even use WMP on my Windows machines. I stick to MP3 if I can help it. Sure, it's not opened like Ogg, but it's not quite as evil as WMP and it's a whole lot more popular.

      I really don't see the need for WMP on any platform, much less Linux, but if someone wants to pay for a codec, let 'em.

      --

      "Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"

      Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
  4. $149 per copy by PaintyThePirate · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, the price is about the same as Windows Media Player 9 on Windows.

    --
    eclecti.cc
  5. Expensive by eww · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sounds nice. I would pay $20 for something like that but $146???? That's too much for what you get.

    Eric

  6. What about VideoLAN or MPlayer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    Why not just use the VideoLAN Client or MPlayer? Both play WMV files on my Linux box without problems...

    -H

    1. Re:What about VideoLAN or MPlayer? by sugar+and+acid · · Score: 5, Informative

      The real concern here is that the MPlayer fully installed is dubious legally. That is why Suse and probably a few other distros only come with crippled versions that can not play WMV files and the like, though for suse a fully capable binary install exist elsewhere, but obviously this is out of the scope of the Suse companies legal culpibility. In the plan put forth your really paying for a licence to use the said technology, as the implementation has already been around in linux for a while now.

  7. Re:Real Player? by SavedLinuXgeeK · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well honestly this is a good step in the direction for linux adaptation. And linux has real player anyways, but the adoption of major programs can easily lead to a higher conversion to linux, especially for people tied closely to certain apps. Btw, even if it is not licsensed fully, xine does a good job of playing real streams and of playing streaming window media feeds.

    --
    je suis parce que j'aime
  8. I got a different message from this press release by joeysmith · · Score: 5, Informative
    Turbolinux engineers developed new software called Turbo Media Player that works with xine, a widely-used Linux media engine, to make it possible for customers to watch streaming video in Windows Media format.


    Perhaps I misread, but this article seems to be saying that they used xine to play WMF, and makes no reference whatsoever to licensing WM 9.

    However, they do appear to have an agreement with Cyberlink.

    As for being "the first major Linux distributor to license and ship a media player capable of streaming Windows Media audio and video", well, I've been doing this for quite some time now, thanks to apt-get install mplayer
  9. I can do the same thing by bigjnsa500 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Weird, but I can do the same thing with Slackware and Mplayer for free.

    --
    This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
  10. Ethics of TurboLinux by Technician · · Score: 5, Informative

    Umm, Wasn't TurboLinux bought by SCO? A quick Google search brings up the snip- SCO has announced a number of professional services offerings around TurboLinux's TurboLinux and SuSE's Linux

    I don't plan on supporting SCO in any way until the litigation is over.

    --
    The truth shall set you free!
    1. Re:Ethics of TurboLinux by Quattro+Vezina · · Score: 5, Informative

      TurboLinux, SCO/Caldera, SuSE, and Connectiva were once part of an alliance called UnitedLinux, intent on creating a united Linux distribution.

      No member of UnitedLinux owned another. They put out one release, and once the litigation started, everything stalled. United is effectively no more--they still technically exist, but all operations are dead.

      One thing interesting is that UnitedLinux had one member for each major geographic area except Africa. North America had SCO/Caldera, South America had Connectiva, Europe had SuSE, and Japan had TurboLinux.

      --
      I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
  11. Anyone find it ironic? by emkman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just about 3 hours ago I was reading an article, cant remember where ..cough cough.. about how evil the Sun desktop is because they are licensing technology from Microsoft and are therefore desecrating the GPL somehow. Got it, Sun uses proprietary third party code in their distro, and are therefore evil. So I better find a new distro. I was thinking about Turbolinux 10F. I hear it can play proprietary Windows Media and Real formats, isn't that awesome!!! Man I can't wait. Ill never use that stupid evil Sun distro again.

    --
    Moderation Totals: Flamebait=2, Troll=1, Redundant=1, Insightful=6, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=12. (not mine)
  12. The real tragedy by rknop · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The real tragedy is that Slashdot could post a story that uses the phrase:

    legal commercial DVD playback

    and not leave everybody scratching their head saying, "Huh?"

    Playback. Just playing the frikkin' things, even if you own them completely on the up-and-up, is of questionable legality unless you do it in an Officially Sanctioned Manner. How stupid is that?

    Our society has lost so much perspective it's very scary.

    -Rob

  13. Re:Wait a sec... by jefe7777 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Maya runs on linux, and it's not free.

    Oracle runs on linux, and it's not free.

    So they have a media player, that's licensing windows media player code, so it can play windows media.

    and it's not free.

    what doesn't compute?

  14. How this fits into Microsoft's scheme by eman1961 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The main complaint from the European Commission's antitrust ruling against Microsoft is that Microsoft locks people into Windows because most people who use Windows will use Microsoft proprietary formats. This is certainly true. My aunt Millie will upload all of her pictures, and perhaps some music into Microsoft applications. It then becomes far too daunting for her to switch to any operating system other than one from Microsoft.

    This is Microsoft's main ploy - it locks aunt Millie into using Microsoft operating systems basically forever.

    Now, Microsoft has set a precedent for licensing its formats to Linux distributions.

    The real problem is that it is evil to use Microsoft formats, regardless of the operating system.

    Contrary to previous posts, this is NOT a good thing.

  15. Re:Headline is a lie by spike-288 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Wrong spirittraveller, Turbolinux spent several months negotiating their license with MS. Read this article before you shame the slashdot editors... http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5201352.html

  16. Re:PowerPC? by bmidgley · · Score: 5, Informative

    I was the sole developer of TurboLinux/PPC.

    The problem is that the company always had a "healthy" sense of competition between the US and Japanese offices. Since the PPC effort was done from the US office, they didn't do a whole lot with it in Japan.

    When TurboLinux ran out of money, they sent all the US employees home and sold off the Japanese office. So the side here that actually did PPC stuff was dismantled.

  17. Re:Unreasonable pricing by kforeman · · Score: 5, Informative

    Motown, well put. Thanks for your support. Our plan is to bring out the 100% open source Helix Player (inc Vorbis anfd Theora support) and it superset cousin, the RealPlayer 10 for Linux (inc. non-open source components like RA/RV, MP3, Flash, etc. on top of the Helix Player) this summer. Alpha for both is scheduled for May 10th.... Kevin Foreman GM, Helix RealNetworks, Inc.

    --
    Kevin Foreman