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Real adds GPL to Helix Player, RedHat/Novell Join In
kforeman writes "Today, Linux desktop industry leaders, Red Hat and Novell announced with Real a deep product development and distribution agreement that will enhance the rapidly maturing Linux desktop experience. Specifically, Red Hat and Novell will standardize on the 100% open source Helix Player as the leading multimedia framework for their Linux desktops, and will help qualify and distribute the superset RealPlayer 10 with their upcoming Linux desktop offerings. As part of the announcement, within 30 days, Real will add the GPL as a licensing option the underlying Helix Player. For all of you free software developers who have been waiting for a true GPLed industry standard AV framework, we look forward to working with you."
So, Helix can become the Media framework for the GNU system, like QuickTime is for Mac OS?
Join the Free Software Foundation
Wow, that's really great ne[BUFFERING...]
Does that mean that someone can make a Windows version without all the advertising crap that comes with the standard version?
Je t'aime Stéphanie
I for one welcome our new media overlords but do you think this will have any impact on Xine, Mplayer and bros.
I thought the beef with Helix was non-free codecs. Has Real changed this, or are RH/Novell just going to distribute the shell of media player?
With it GPLed, we can get something to play RealMedia files on Windows that doesn't involve the neverending barrage of ads! I'm happy for you Linux desktop folks, but the implications for an alternate player for Windows is what does it for me. -PM
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
I've just switched my desktop OS from XP to Linux, when I was running XP I had no compunction to install Real as Media Player + assorted codecs played everything I wanted.
So am I correct in assuming Real realizes (*bum bum*) that they have lost the windows player war and are grasping at OSS to save them?
We already have a GPL'd AV player: mplayer. If by "industry-standard" you mean "a lot of pointy-hairs like it", then we also have an "industry-standard" OS: Windows. In which case, why are we all using Linux?
the real point of this is that you can get real(helix) WITHOUT those things after it's gpl'd...
hopefully windows versions as well.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Well, the code is open, so you it can be checked (and changed) to see what it's doing. That's just one of the many benefits of open source.
Actually, you are missing the point. Real is not putting their typical consumer "Real Player" on the desktop, they are integrating their Open-Source Helix platform int the base of the linux desktop. The difference is, Helix is going to be a rather nice framework for any and all media playback needs. As soon as Real GPL's it, it will be like opening up the source to windows for someone to improve upon it, or make it their own. (I know, bad analogy...but you get the point).
This is a GPL release, so if you thought they had adware/malware in it, you could just fork and remove the abusive content. I doubt they would even bother putting any malware in a GPL version anyway, since they know that someone would spot it and remove it.
What does this mean for GStreamer, which, as I understand it, has similar goals and is being used by quite some OS software already.
Particularly in GNOME software... Which is the desktop used by RedHat and Ximian (Novell).
Not a nice move if you ask me, it has probably to do with the mp3 licence.
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
I've seen this joke at least 3 times in slashdot posts for previous Real-related stories, and it still makes me snort my coffee. :)
Gstreamer already provides GPL'd framework.
http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/
Someone might want to comment pros and cons
of Gstreamer and Helix.
I see this as a great thing simply because the code will be made available to people like the developers of mplayer, who can integrate it into a command-line, accessible, ad-free no-nonsense program that I can enjoy using.
It makes no sense to say "now we'll have a crappy player just like Windows has!"
With the code, anyone can pull out the important decoding bits and integrate them into a non-crappy program.
Meanwhile... everybody who actually cares will immediately remove Helix player and replace it with Xine or Mplayer.
That is all well and good, but when are they going to allow non-windows Real Player 10 users to subscribe to services like (UK) Channel 4 broadband?
Does this mean that the GStreamer media framework that Gnome has been adopting will now take the back seat in RedHat's Gnome distribution? Helix Player seems not to use the GStreamer infrastructure.
Some of you seem to have missed this, they are only GPLing the Helix player. Realplayer10 is not being GPL'd, so they are not making any of their codecs available. It is therefore of very little extra value, as it is the codecs that we need to have. There are already a number of perfectly good free frameworks for multimedia. Nothing to see here folks, move on........
43 - For those who require slightly more than the answer to life, the universe and everything.
here. Free registration is, of course, required.
The latest version of Real Player for Windows is actually pretty nice. I installed it the other day, and they've really made progress on the whole adware /hidden opt-in fiasco. The player defaulted to the minimum no frills compact mode, and I've found real video's video codec to be very competitive with quicktime. I'm the one who made the buffering joke, but Real has been trying to clean up their act lately (link to free player on main page), and I support them for that.
You know, every time Real is mentioned on /. somebody will parrot this. It's such a cheap shot: you haven't said anything that hasn't been said a hundred times before, and in particular, it's hard to imagine how a GPL'd player could possibly install anything that you didn't want it to.
Nor can I imagine Red Hat suddenly changing into the kind of company that distributes malware.
Perhaps you could post a comment that actually relates to the story at hand, rather than recycling the same old junk from a hundred other comments.
(PS: ok, I can imagine how a GPL'd product could install bad stuff, but I can't imagine that it (the malware) would be around long enough to make it worth anybody's time to put in there)
(I'm also aware of Ken Thompsons ACM Award speech, which doesn't apply in the slightest)
What I don't understand is why the companies didn't simply formalize and commit to enhancing the current packages that are out there. Xine, Totem, and others already play MPG, AVI, and even WMV formats--
This seems more like a marketshare play for Real (who is scared of getting streamlined into oblivion by the Evil Empire), especially now that technically Linux has more desktops than Mac. I would guess that Real will take the opportunity to cram all sorts of its bloat and content tie-ins with this, but that the Linux community will tell them to get bent. Another possible play here is that Real hopes to "get in early" for this developing desktop market, and make thier future totally on the content-providing end. I can see them packaging up some sort of MediaServer software to run on company's Linux networks...
davejenkins.com |
come on... we have 2 very polished, mature players out there -- why put time and energy into this "proprietary" project when vlc is probably the best player out there (and already open source)?
-eric
Well they say
... will help qualify and distribute the superset RealPlayer 10 with their upcoming Linux desktop offerings. "
"Red Hat and Novell
I can only assume that means that RealPlayer and its horribly bloated, slow, and low-quality codecs will be freely available for even Lunix now. If the player is GPLed, some of its shittastic behavior will be removed, but in the end it's still Real, and will NEVER EVER find its way onto another one of the machines I control.
that will play all the normal formats out there, and not be a piece of spyware and crapware, I'll try it. I notice at the site referenced there are zero comments in the forum so far. If anyone feels like registering (I don't, not a developer so it's a waste of time) ask them that question-all the formats, or what? I know that the alternatives like mplayer exist, but frankly, I just can't make mplayer (nor xine nor rhythm box) to actually play any alternative streams. I USED to be able to use mplayer, but I admit defeat, I've spent enough hours on it now, I giveth up. I use xmms that works easily for mp3 streaming and the real player from the bbc to listen to either mp3 or real streams. I haven't been able to listen to a single windows stream on mplayer (or anything else) yet, it attemtps to play it then crashes. Back when I was running RH 7x series, I got it to work quite easily, now, nope, and I downloaded all the dang codecs I could find. I'm a binary guy mostly, I just decided I wasn't going to fool with compiling and flags and suchlike anymore, it shouldn't be needed for normal computer useage unless you are running a source based distro, and I ain't. This is 2004, not 1994.
Anyway, good luck to helix in general, glad to see they keep getting hipper. It's taken a while for real to "get real" I hope the trends continue, and with redhat and novell support, maybe it will. It would be *real dang nice* to have one easily installed player with simple or no config tweaking or putzing with the kernel and modules, etc required that actually *played* everything outta the box.
VLC is already as polished and stable as they come, and it plays a heck of a lot more than Helix Player will ever play (at least in the near future). And it already works on almost every platform imaginable. And it's been open source from the very beginning.
I stopped installing Real on any machine some years ago. I got fed up with it changing my homepage, installing crapware and altering my mime settings. Since then I have stopped using Windows at home but haven't installed Real Player on my Linux boxes just because of my lack in trust of software coming from Real.
What's my point? Well I'm just suspicious because this sounds like a major turn around. Next thing we know Gator will bring out a spyware removal tool.
I hope it goes well because I would love to play the ram feeds from the BBC and other sites on my Linux box.
----
Gstreamer's framework is LGPL'd, so it allows proprietary implementations on top of it - unlike of course Real's Helixplayer. IMHO this is doommed to fail unless they change their licensing plan.
...Real open sourced the Helix code a couple of years ago under a different license (probably CPL), they have an active OSS developer base working on it, they are simply adding the GPL as another licensing option.
Real has been more about content and their server offerings than anything else of late, which is funneled through their player. They "grasped" at open source a few years ago when they decided to do a netscape.
I am NaN
Compunction - you keep using that word - I do not think it means what you think it means:
compunction ( P ) Pronunciation Key (km-pngkshn)
n.
1. A strong uneasiness caused by a sense of guilt. See Synonyms at penitence.
2. A sting of conscience or a pang of doubt aroused by wrongdoing or the prospect of wrongdoing. See Synonyms at qualm.
To have no compunction about installing Real would mean you had no fear of installing Real.
I think you mean you had no motivation to install Real.
www.eFax.com are spammers
If you want to make a post that gets modded up don't attach it a random post and go offtopic. Well unless you show us some nude video of Natalie Portman or something.
My point was Real is an annoyance Windows users install if they have to get videos off the 0.001% of sites that are "Real" required.
I never came across any content that I wanted to access that Windows Media Player + Divx etc couldn't access.
So why do I want Real or OSS variant? Their encoding is shitty and their realtime streaming is even shittier.
And if you had actually tried the Helix (or RealPlayer10 for that matter) for Linux you would see that your statement is just plain out of line.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
It also means...
adware, spyware, and malware has now been GPLed! Rejoice! We can now include those into the Linux kernel source, since the licenes are compatibile.
Whomever modded this insightful, is a real big moron. There has never been adware, malware etc on the linux version.
Don't Vote for Norm Dicks! http://www.nodicks2008.com Another nutless dirtbag that voted for the FISA bill!
I don't know too much about Helix, so I could be way off, but I would agree with the parent poster sentiment. It may be GPLed, but it's from RM... {cue scary music}. I will admit that they have improved a little recently (tried on a friends comp, use R-alternative meself).
http://persianews.on.nimp.org/?u=Tar_Baby
Changed?
Actually, that's one of the freedoms of free software... but you MIGHT get it with open source software, but not always.
Join the Free Software Foundation
...and all, more proprietary products being GPL'd and all. I love seeing that. - But - Just how is Helix actually better than MPlayer, Xine, gstreamer, etc.? I mean, MPlayer and Xine are probably the most mature stand-alone players there are right now, and gstreamer provides probably the best architecture I've seen, and it's also integrated throughout GNOME (and soon KDE as well, as I've heard). Just what advantages does Helix provide over these?
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But hey guess what; With the new Open Source GPL version everyone who thinks that Real is crap can now take the source code and improve it; making it so its not crap anymore. If you think that real is crap and can suggest ways that it might be better you have an opportunity to go over to the helix developer site and make suggestions that if they are constructive and not overzealous (like your comment) could actually go into making real a better product.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Aren't most of the Windows infection vectors actually buggy buffer-overflow vulnerabilities in the various system APIs? i.e. Isn't it the underlying DHTML, DNS resolution, etc. that cause the Windows versions of products like Real's to be such a problem?
The one thing I'd like to see come out of this is a common framework for registering protocol and file handlers. It gets so very, very tiring to have to configure each email package, each browser, the file manager, the display manager, etc. to use the applications I want instead of their defaults.
Both Gnome and KDE try to provide APIs to address that issue, but even Mozilla doesn't properly hook itself in to either system. If Real's framework will clean up that mess, I'm all for using their open source implementation to resolve the problem.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I always see a lot of hype on slashdot about helix and Real etc. I really want a nice, fully featured package that has browser integration, a nice interface (mplayer's gui is not nice. sorry.), and the ability to play all my video/audio. But right now all I see is discussion of some 'framework' that bla bla bla. Please. Give me something tangible to use!
I do security
...oops.
What Helix does bring to the party is WMA, which allows you to listen Freely to all of the radio stations and such that have been suckered into the DRM boondoggle and consequently work only with Microsoft's moderately crappy WMP codec.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
It's amazing how many people are so freaking closed mind about anything real does. Real has been doing opensource for a couple of years now trying to fix the problems and complains. Yes, they did listen to the complaints.
"I hate Real it has all that malware and ad crap"
but they've removed it
"I hate Real it has all that malware and ad crap"
It's really better
"I hate Real it has all that malware and ad crap"
ad nausium....come on people. Don't base your opinions on software 2 years old. Try the freeware and newest stuff. Then evaluate it
The reason these companies are not just adding to the other media players such as xine and mplayer is that these companies want to own/control the copyright. If the software is widely used, they can license for commercial companies similar to what Troll Tech does for QT.
To a NY Times article on the subject from this morning:
n ux.html?ex=1089433511&ei=1&en=012b87883877ae0f
The big Linux vendors will ship Real Player 10 as part of the operating system, another step in trying to make Linux on the desktop a legitimate alternative to Windows.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/28/technology/28li
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
Point is it doesn't add anything next to the current frameworks and players. The only thing Real COULD add is the RealVideo/RealAudio codecs. Those were and still are proprietary.
What's added? Good marketing for Real for something which is less useful than it seems. Novell and RedHat help them a hand, sadly.
Why don't they support GStreamer instead? At least it's an innovating company behind it. You may thank them for OGG Theora. They've supported the development; a good competitor to RealVideo.
more than Helix Player will *ever* play (at least in the *near future*)
... you're funny. Sorry, but I just couldn't resist.
Heh
"Good news, everyone!"
based on a recommendation I got here on another thread some time back, I went and got the realplayer that the bbc releases. It *allegedly* has the bloat and spyware removed from the "normal" real player. It works fine on my linux box, and I haven't seen any ads, popups, etc from it. I used it to watch spaceshipone covereage from the bbc, with just a dialup connection and it was a smooth feed. The realplayer beta 10 version did NOT work though for me, so I used the 9 version from the bbc. Just goto their homepage at bbc and look down, you'll see the link to go get their version of the player.
Dude, at least learn to spell Linux correctly. Spelling Linux wrong in two posts just makes you look like an idiot, rather than someone who might have a valid point.
People couldn't type. We realized: Death would eventually take care of this.
i see everyone preaching "hurrah no spyware in the Linux player" and "if it has adware inside then just fork"
while the player might be open source/gpl its merely a simple GUI/shell for the codecs which are not being opened in any form whatsoever, codecs are what makes it work (hence real alternative can decode streams)
now if Real was smart they would put any tracking/privacy/evil code inside the pre-compiled binary codec, you can't easily check it (apart from disassembling to ASM in debugger which is probably DMCA infinging anyway)
so while you sit there at your Linux box saying "no adware in here" the reality is you have no idea whats contained in those files as the actual components that do the decoding of the streams is closed source and will likely never be open.
but iam sure every six months as usual a Real(TM) press release/slashdot story will popup and say but the player is open source
in a desperate bid to have their formats accepted by the OSS crowd/decision makers to lend an air of credibility to their companies dubious activities
A>S
Yo, warezkid. That's only for Win32 and it is illegal. Read the license of the proprietary Real codecs. Same counts for Quicktime. You may only play such video with the appropriate player with which the codec came; hence no such thing as "Real Alternative"
PS: ok, I can imagine how a GPL'd product could install bad stuff, but I can't imagine that it (the malware) would be around long enough to make it worth anybody's time to put in there
Well, that really depends. Sure, a distro or competent programmer could rip it out in next to no time, and release a "clean" version of the product. Once Linux starts attarcting significant numbers of users, however, a growing proportion of those users will be the sort who download cool stuff from wherever with no thought to possible unwanted consequences.
On Windows, for example, there are a great many P2P clients, some with malware, some without. The ones with still get used, however, despite the existence of the ones without. Moving to Linux won't change that sort of thing. People would still download the infested player (or whatever), even if a clean version existed.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Ok, first of all, it's open source player, so it's really not a problem any more about prioritary codecs, about that it is coming from Real (king of bloated player), etc. Yes, Real codecs still will be closed and let them stay in that way if they want to be - it's not a main point this time. I hope at least they will ease distribution of their codecs so they could be included in distros and every distro won't require additional hacking for including them - as it is now. Yes, there are still their official player, but it is very outdated with it's Motif GUI.
Second, there's no worry about it because Helix support Ogg Vorbis/Thedora codecs from the very begining. So, they are open source formats and will play in the Gstreamer enabled apps (Totem) as in Helix.
If there are competition - that's good. Main goal for me in media players is support for patent-free and royality-free codecs. Helix support that. So I don't think that there is something to worry about.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
Our business model is changed. We make our money on consumer services like Rhapsody, SuperPass and STARZ! on Real Movies and therefore don't need to pay our staff with software add-ons or advertising.
Download the binary or source and take it for a spin.
Kevin Foreman,
GM, Helix
RealNetworks, Inc.
Kevin Foreman
My Windows Real Player can play DVDs... so does this mean that RH and Suse (Novell) can now soon ship with DVD player support? I certainly hope so...
Here's the explanation for the spelling:
Lunix is the OS for arrogant shitheads. Spelling it wrong inflames these shitheads (like you).
Get an education:
Lots of info 4 u, fag
More specifically, watch this.
BS. Open-source has the same freedom as far as changing software and redistributing, it just allows more freedom as to how you license the code you choose to distribute.
No one can foresee how successful Helix will become, but I couldn't stop wondering about the possibility of Helix-based NLE. I don't care for Real as far as media format/codecs are concerned. But if GPL'd Helix (with no real codecs) has something to offer, that should be multimedia solutions to Linux.
I may be too naive and optimistic to think about this, though.
Do we really want this as a standard for linux media. I know there are many different media types out there, but from just a quality level I would think developers would spend time on other projects.
Just the fact this is coming from real networks should be a reason to not support it, giving their track record as a company, and their products over the past 5 years.
Will real be the first applicaiton on linux that will install spyware/bloatware/adware onto linux systems? I think so.
TruePunk | Games
"Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But hey guess what; With the new Open Source GPL version everyone who thinks that Real is crap can now take the source code and improve it; making it so its not crap anymore."
The realaudio codec isn't going to be GPL is it? How about the streaming-network stuff (cause of all problems) -- probably that won't be GPL either. We've got a GPL framework, and Real are probably hoping that we will all install their proprietary codecs into it, against which nobody will have any protection.
Silly question, but how does Helix compare to Xine and Mplayer as a "multimedia framework"?
(It seems to me that Xine and Mplayer do a good job of supporting all sorts of different codecs, etc. I'm curious to understand what Helix brings to the table that these two don't.)
Was that supposed to direct me to a site with ladies, or is firefox getting all naughty again? ;)
The system had the verbosity of HTML combined with all the readability of compiled assembly viewed as bitmap images
It's not a rethorical question, I'm realy wondering.
EU suspended Microsoft sanctions on sunday (the sanctions: to sell an alternative without Media Player, share info about the innards of Win to open up competition). These sanctions would have been meet today (monday) or pay a fine of 500 euros (peanuts for MS). MS, as always, appealed and now can relax for years.
Real Networks mayby realised this and is betting open software will even the ods.
But FFMPEG already does WMA, and quite well too.
Moll.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
Tim's pointed out one of the most important issues with the "safe" feeling some get from OSS. Even if you build everything from source, you're vulnerable unless you inspect and anlyize every source package yourself.
Even the distro vendors have had stuff slip by, and they've got far more than one person keeping an eye on things.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I went ahead and installed realplayer for linux, and was fairly pleased with the way it ran. I was leery, because of my experiences with realplayer on Windows years ago, but I have to say, it's decent now.
Thought about a year ago there was a fuss about Linux Mandrake putting adware in their free-for-download distro.
Moll.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
I love free software; I love the GPL. But let's be honest here: producing (not using or doing other things with) such software isn't a great way to make money. Just look at how many years it took Red Hat to turn a modest profit-- and those were years where it was easily the #1 Linux distribution in the US.
How will Real make money from this? If they won't, and I'm betting they won't, they will simply wither and die. Then we won't have any sort of a standard. We'll have yet another company survived by Microsoft, which won't help anyone (except, well, Microsoft)
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
Woohoo! Monday morning pr0n! Nice butt, but what's funny?
Whenever you read this sig someone's refrigerator light turns on.
Forgive my ignorance, but does this mean someone will be able to write a Real plugin for itunes? I wanted to get that airport express to stream music to my living room stereo, but I like listening to NPR streaming which is in realplayer, and I'll need itunes to stream to a remote stereo. Or maybe someone's already written this?
So the framework will be GPL, and not the codecs. But will Real at least allow distros like Red Hat to freely distribute the binary proprietary codecs? It would be a big deal IMO if Fedora came out of the box with the ability to play all modern Real steams.
You know, guys, sometimes you don't get a company's source code for free. A decent, modern, compatible media player for Linux would be great, even if the codecs are still proprietary.
No, it's not "doomed to fail" any more than MySQL is "doomed to fail" (which switched from LGPL to GPL, IIRC). Having a means of charging for making proprietary applications means that all people who modify/augment and distribute also contribute one way or another. Either they contribute by making their application open source (adding to the ecosystem), or they contribute financially by licensing the code. In any case, they help perpetuate the platform.
It sucks that we have to compete on so many fronts, but we've been doing it for 9 years in the face of many, many pundits talking about how we're "doomed to fail".
We've gotten tremendous traction in the embedded software space. Many, many, many handset makers have licensed Helix for use in their devices. We have a strong lead in the nascent Linux mobile space with our deal with Motorola. With our announcements today, we're making a great start into the Linux desktop space.
Rob Lanphier
Development Support Manager
RealNetworks
I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
-truth
I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...
How does this work out with the GPL'd framework? AFAIK, the GPL explicitly prevents you from linking proprietary code (that is not part of the standard system libraries) into the running process image of a GPL'd program.
We want to extend our 400 million unique registered users base to include every Linux, Windows and Mac desktop, and every mobile and living-room device. By doing so, we can sell system software, like the Helix Universal Server, to enterprises who want to reach their employees, customers, and partners as well as setting the landscape for selling added value services, like RealOne SuperPass and STARZ! Ticket on Real Movies.
Having Red Hat and Novell qualify and distribute the RealPlayer for Linux as part of the their Linux Desktop increases the Helix / RealPlayer distribution and guarantees the best of breed solution for Red Hat, Novell and Real users.
Kevin Foreman
Yes, Red Hat will ship the GPL'ed Helix Player and then offer users a no-cost upgrade to RealPlayer 10 for Linux, which adds to the Helix Player the non-open source components such as RealAudio/RealVideo, MP3 and Flash.
Kevin Foreman
I can use mplayer to convert Microsoft audio files to wave files which I can then convert to MP3 for my MP3 player.
I doubt Helix has this ability so mplayer will still be on my system.
It's about acceptance, not about opening the source.
Real is a company who has continually annoyed many customers (and potential customers) with a barrage of misleading links, advertisements and spy ware in the past. Regardless of the fact that the Linux "version" of Real Player did not contain the junkware, the fact still remains: Real has bad karma and opening up the code will not make end users more reluctant to use the software.
Making the software GPL does not help you instantly erase your past and judging from most of the comments here, many are still quite cynical in regards to Real Networks.
Are you more willing to accept Real now because they've GPL'd some code?
Whenever you read this sig someone's refrigerator light turns on.
I having some trouble understanding this. RealPlayer did some ugly things with their software a few years ago, during the dot-com boom (who didn't?), but they've cleaned up their act, released some excellent software (I use RP10 every day), and open-sourced their main framework. What's left to complain about?
I, for one, will be mighty happy to get a stable, mature, free media framework on my Linux system.
WeRelate.org - wiki-based genealogy
long has Microsoft been in the habit of killing competitors, but nowadays they don't die anymore - they just go open source and roam the earth as undead souls, restless, impossible to kill.
Netscape/Mozilla as the oldest of them, OpenOffice the big evil lich king overlord, Helix a fresh recruit... in time, the army of dead will rise until they have their sweet revenge on the killer... poetic justice...
hmmm... maybe i _have_ seen too many trashy movies.
First, the Helix Player plays only 100% open source codecs, like Ogg Verbix and Theora.
Second, the RealPlayer 10 for Linux adds to the Helix Player the non-open source components such as RealAudio/RealVideo, MP3 and Flash.
Third, you are perpetuating an urban myth. Our Windows player contains no spyware and never has. Yes, someone filed suit on us, and it was thrown out of court for being a false accusation.
Fourth, our business model is to sell back end webcast transmission software and consumer services like SuperPass and STARZ! on Real Movies.
Fifth, over 50 semiconductor companies have licensed RealAudio and RealVideo SOURCE CODE for optimizing their nect gen chip sets. I would hope you agree that Intel, TI, Motorola, etc. engineers would not tolerate this nonsense.
Rest easy and enjoy you free player on us.
Kevin Foreman
For all of you free software developers who have been waiting for a true GPLed industry standard AV framework, we look forward to working with you."
Er... why would anyone be waiting for this? From the GStreamer and Arts frameworks to players like MPlayer and Xine that are frameworks in and of themselves, there are already many "true GPLed industry standard AV frameworks" that have been available for years.
Real really missed the boat IMO. Likely the only reason commercial distros are partnering with them, is that Real likely has licensing agreement sot legally use formats like MP3 and MPEG4, so it imdemnifys them from potential lawsuits.
Guys, there are two important messages/audiences here: developers and users.
1) Developers are looking for a standard GPL'd AV framework to built their applications. By adding the GPL to our Helix Player and with Red Hat, Novell, Sun and Turbolinux's support, we hope to catalyze the linux desktop industry to bring our better and faster time to market AV-based applications. We want to avoid a KDE/GNOME fracturing of the industry.
2) Users get the best of both worlds. Besides the 100% GPL'd Helix Player (which plays Vorbis and Theora), the distros will ship a no-cost upgrade the RealPlayer 10 for Linux. The RealPlayer includes the non-open sourced component of MP3, Flash, RealAudio 10 and RealVideo 10.
So, yes the codecs aren't open sourced (We don't own al the IP of RealAudio and RealVideo, and therefore can't even consider GPLing them), develoers and users still getthe best of both worlds.
Enjoy the new players.
Kevin Foreman
You need Realplayer to play realmedia files. The new versions will be built on Helix, but unfortunately not open source.
As soon as we possibly can. This is our business model.
If I could give you access to subscritpion services today, I would.
Join the Helix project https://player.helixcommunity.org/2004/unix/ and let the product team hear your feedback directly.
Kevin Foreman
If Novell and Red Hat combine to offer a supported Linux media player, will that relegate XMMS, the current leading player, to the dustbin of history? Will a combination of faster growth of the increasing userbase, and attrition of fleeing XMMS users leave the old WinAmp clone so far behind that all its skins and plugins are just a memory?
--
make install -not war
Look guys, the head of the Helix project is straight-talking, follows the /. discussion, is supporting Linux, and is a subscriber. What else can you ask for?
Thanks, Real, for supporting the community.
WeRelate.org - wiki-based genealogy
Before the dogs come for blood, it's Ogg Vorbis, not Verbix.
WeRelate.org - wiki-based genealogy
So Helix doesn't contain any non-free codecs, and they can't be added? I know the non-free codecs aren't GPL, but can Red Hat distribute the codecs with the GPL'd Helix player?
A job?
Roses are #FF0000, violets are #0000FF, all my base are belong to you
or a meta package that depends on the player, and just downloads the codecs.
First of all, running the codecs in emulation on an architecture other than x86 or PowerPC will most likely not keep up with the frame rate.
Second, if the Helix player is GPL, doesn't that mean all codecs have to be GPL as well?
Your software offered nothing new months ago, and it offers nothing new now. So I'll enjoy not using your new player, much as I've enjoyed not using it until this point. You can make whatever deals you want with whatever companies, but no one is going to use it.
Misery must love company. I can't think of anything worse that could happen to the linux community.
Second, the RealPlayer 10 for Linux adds to the Helix Player the non-open source components
Will the proprietary legacy codec binaries provided by RealNetworks run on Linux on any CPU architecture other than x86? If not, how much Intel stock does your company own? I'm guessing that because RealNetworks maintains the Intel codecs for free while the "50 semiconductor companies" have to pay both RealNetworks for the source code and their own engineers for the porting effort, non-x86 platforms have a huge barrier to entry.
The standard multimedia framework is MPlayer. I've never seen anything play back on Helix framework. By definition, you can't benefit from frameworks in Linux multimedia because there's no money to outsource with. In Linux multimedia everyone has to implement. There is no concept of speccing out a framework and buying implementations from overseas, which makes pure frameworks like Helix quite worthless and implementations like MPlayer ubiquitous. These corporate managers seem to be in a different universe.
What ?!? Real is no longer Evil ? For the past several years this has been a foundation of The Internet. Next thing you know, Microsoft and AOL will release software that is not a bloated PC catastrophe.
The Internet is now officially one step away from unravelling the enitre universe.
--LordPixie
p.s.Jokes aside, I'm more than glad to see a new business model over at Real.
Doesn't mplayer's license have that exception allowing use of proprietary codecs with mplayer? Are any mplayer developers reading this?
I am hopeful for the future of Gstreamer, but right now it is very buggy, and probably not reliable enough for a full corporate distro to endorse.
I keep seeing that the frame work and/or GUI is GPL, but not the codecs. Don't the codecs dynamically link in?
I hope you find it as moderatly fascinating as I did.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
A seperate issue from the availability of codecs is the lack of HTML rendering in the Linux Real clients.
My wife is a Big Brother fan (don't ask me why), and the site requires the Windows client in order to login to the premium stream. The reason is almost certainly the availability of a HTML renderer for Real to use. Last year, I managed to login using windows and copy the cookie across to the equivalent location for RealOne beta. To my utter astonishment and satisfaction, it worked. No such luck this year.
I understand that in Windows the IE control is available, but in order for Real to be successful, it must be fully functional on all platforms. Please don't take this as a flame, I'm excited about seeing a nicely styled, functional and well-behaved X client for Real, but I'm sorry to say that my current difficulties reaching paid content makes me wish media providers were not using Real.
Ya know, developers also like packages that aren't actively compile-hostile. When you get to the point that I can do 'make menuconfig && make clean && make && make install', call me. That bozotic build environment for Helix is a major PITA.
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
You mention that you use a real player from the BBC to play real and mp3 formats; can you elaborate on that? I've never heard of such a thing, or at least can't recall it, and a scan on the BBC site hasn't yielded anything ...
... there might be ways around this, but I just put Mepis on this laptop last night and like you hate tweaking things for hours of frustration ;)
Mplayer as provided on Mepis works for me to play some things but not others
(tangential: I found that to play DVDs on my Toshiba Satellite laptop with the version of Mepis I downloaded, I think it's 2004-06-3b, the only thing that works is VLC. Xine crashes after flashing its GUI on the screen, mplayer brings up a gui but doesn't actually play the disk. VLC works great though, after I downloaded the decss library, and VLC itself of course.)
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
No offense, but Ogg Verbix sounds like some kind of translator. It think you mean Ogg Vorbis. Like the characters from Terry Pratchet's "Small Gods".
And hopefully you've turned off that fun "report computer type for maximum enjoyment" option, or whatever it was. Allthough it's not tinfoil hat worthy it *is* irritating to have it checked off without being asked prior to using the application.
You're reading Slashdot. Of course you like Linux and pc hardware
Spoken like a true salesman. Buzzwords and well practised lines.
"We hope to catalyze the linux desktop industry..."
Rubbish, you're looking to manoeveure Helix into a blossoming linux desktop industry. The linux desktop industry was fine before Helix, will be fine with Helix, and fine after Helix. You're just another company catching the ride on the increasingly popular linux train. (That's not a bad thing or a criticism.)
"...to bring our better and faster time to market AV-based applications."
How are your codecs any "better" and "faster time to market" than Theora or Vorbis? Yes, you support those, but so does many other media players. In real (sic) terms, how is Helix any better than the GStreamer framework or mature apps like MPlayer?
We want to avoid a KDE/GNOME fracturing of the industry.
You mean, you want to dominate the linux AV industry? Or you want to provide a desktop neutral solution? MPlayer and Totem work fine in both KDE and GNOME for me. I'm quite unsure as to what fracturing you refer to.
Throwing salespeak at the crowd is all well and good, but could you at least make it meaningful and specific rather than a few buzzwords / hot topics thrown together?
Free Gamer - Free games list and commentary
I got (re)involved with linux specifically to work on the gstreamer project. Sure I'm biased, but I got involved with gstreamer specifically because real sucked from the start and we don't need linux to evolve attached to yet another corporatized "media framework."
MOD PARENT UP
It's an important point in reply to the FUD that preceeds it.
Free Gamer - Free games list and commentary
I imagine something useful will be built on top of Helix eventually. So far I've never found a file to play on it, as I already have more useful players that can handle the OSS files, so as far as I know it might not even work. What the open source community really needs is Free Software solutions to video, and get people pushing it for net content. The reason people what Free Code that they can compile themselves and not trust the Real, is once again we don't know if it's modified code going to these semiconductor companies or what. Windows has taught us the dangers of letting hidden code run amuck on your system. I'm thinking of starting an entire business around the cleaning of malware off machines. Yes, I use Real Player sometimes, but I try not to. I also consider it potentially hostile code and take certain actions to try and be protected.
Why isn't the GPL applied as a license option for all of the Helix Community Platform instead of just the client player? Adding Theora support to Helix Producer and Server released under the GPL would provide a more complete AV framework. Why limit the license change to the client player only?
Maybe the fact that their media player sucks worse than windows media player, is bloated, and nothing they EVER do will make up for killing vivo? How's that for a start?
The Farewell Tour II
OK, kforeman, time to come clean. Your software is 100% Open Source in the same way as frozen shrimp is "fresh".
What you want to do is give away something that drives a wedge into the Linux user base. It's a trojan horse, like the first hit of smack for free. You hope that people will eventually choose to pay for your $$$ codecs just so they only have to have one media player installed - and if it's not Linux users you plan to make pay it's a ploy aimed at shoring up provision of content in Real's proprietary formats.
"Look!" you say, "everyone has our player! More than Windows Media Player even!" "Sure they can view your content, they just need to install a free codec pack..."
It's not a stupid move, and it is far-sighted, but at least be honest about it.
Users don't get the best of both worlds at all. They get a long, dragged out death of Real instead of the quick tidy death we've all been hoping for. They get content still served in your shitty format whenever they visit NPR etc. and they say "fuck it, I don't want to hear it that much!" - they get BUFFERING...
We don't own al the IP of RealAudio and RealVideo, and therefore can't even consider GPLing
And you're going to pretend that you would? Oh please... and then where would your company be? Without being locked into a closed format nobody would use your software at all and you know it. Obviously this is the part that isn't Open Source - the useful part, that would let us listen to and view content from institutions that your sales droids have suckered into using your codecs and servers.
Oh hooray for companies that do lip service to Open Source while attempting to maintain a stranglehold on content through proprietary means. I hope Microsoft kills your company soon - I'd rather see a continuation of the fragmented choices available now than this kind of con job.
You are a liar or you have a conveniently short memory. As someone who has installed your software and never will again - even though it was 1996! - I can say that Real DEFINITELY installed spyware. The term wasn't common at the time but that's what it did - yeah, real pioneers, you guys.
Enjoy your free player that doesn't actually do anything useful (until you agree to toss Helix and install the closed source version).
STEVE LOHR, clearly understands free software and software in general better than the average reporter. The first word of the article is "GNU Linux". He then goes on to frame the major players and background the significance in light of recent EU anti-trust rulings. More importantly, he understands that Linux is Ready for the Desktop:
For the Linux desktop, a number of applications are already available and more are in development. These include word processing, spreadsheet, database presentation, e-mail and Web browsing software. "For 80 percent of the people in the world, Linux is now a perfectly fine desktop environment," a leading open-source advocate, Bruce Perens, said.
Good stuff for people to read in the New York Times.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
VIVO KILLER!!!!
The Farewell Tour II
Eh, I'm not convinced. I like their player better than WMP, and I never like vivo.
WeRelate.org - wiki-based genealogy
Third, you are perpetuating an urban myth. Our Windows player contains no spyware and never has. Yes, someone filed suit on us, and it was thrown out of court for being a false accusation.
Yeah, so what if it didn't contain spyware. It asked you to give away personal data and preferences every single f****ing time you started it. The "cancel" buttons were the last ones you'd see in the dialogs, plus even if I marked "don't ask again" it did.
Every other player I used wasn't such a bitch about marketing. You people just went too far.
Let me export from Real formats to other formats, and I'll consider touching your Helix code and using Real encoded audio.
Until then, it looks like Helix is just another attempt to snare people into using write-only data formats.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Does your employer know that some asshat is pretending to represent it? I'm sure some higher-ups would be mighty pissed off if they knew you were posting shit like this on slashdot.
Hmmm...
Man, could you have been more of a jerk to that guy? How about just a little tact?
I have three letters for you: G P L. Where's the problem here? Now that Helix is GPL, the community can start looking at Xine, GStreamer, and Helix on their technical merits alone.
So how exactly does Real GPL'ing Helix make them Evil(TM)?
The Free desktop that Just Works
It's on the vorbis.com and helix community main pages - Helix now has support for both Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora. See Here.
-ReK
md5sum -c reality.md5
reality: FAILED
md5sum: WARNING: 1 of 1 computed checksum did NOT match
> Besides the 100% GPL'd Helix Player (which plays Vorbis and Theora),
> the distros will ship a no-cost upgrade the RealPlayer 10 for Linux.
Translation from marketing to english:
Helix is crap but it was the wedge needed to get RedHat and Novell to ship RealPlayer 10.
Seriously, if you want us to quit laughing and pay attention to what you are saying you have to answer the some of the questions we care about.
How do WE (as users and/or developers) benefit from Helix?
Does it allow us to play a single file or stream we can't already play?
Does it provide a better framework to develop in?
If so, is it enough better to justify refactoring the current extensive codebases of gstreamer. mplayer, xine, vlc, etc. into Helix?
> We want to avoid a KDE/GNOME fracturing of the industry.
How is introducing yet another multimedia framework not fracturing the industry vs. joining one of the existing projects such as gstreamer?
Please, if you wish to engage the OS/FS communities you will need to lose the marketing speak, we aren't the typical idiot management types.
Democrat delenda est
I tried to install Real Player using the RPM
RealPlayer-0.4.0.186-20040615.i586.rpm
and failed. I get an error message:
"MD5 digest: BAD Expected(217edc14851bc6e9cf08e4862e998322) != (db09765bc35a5764b4a2015ec99e482f)"
every time. I downloaded three times. The size matches (7626826) but not the MD5 key. I am running Red Hat 9. Did anybody succeed?
How about a usable UI that doesn't make my eyes bleed after 5 minutes?
Our Windows player contains no spyware and never has.
Of course it didn't contain spyware; It was spyware! As the Anonymous Coward above points out: Real just about invented spyware-as-product. I haven't used RealPlayer Windows in many years however I will bet you any amount of money that even today it is not reasonably possible to open the fucking thing without hitting an IP address owned by Real Networks or one of its affiliates/sponsors.
RealPlayer Windows is "not spyware" the same way that the "v1agr@" ad in my inbox is "n0t sp@m": Term redefinition.
Not really. The OSI tries to work with debian-legal and the FSF to make sure that the three groups licence-lists are the same; there's been a few mistakes and (thus) disrepancies over the years, such as the VIM license which was at one time approved by the FSF but not the two other groups, but mostly Open Source and Free Software amounts to the same thing. (Two very different presentations of that thing though, and two different groups.)
Too many of the current media players are just that. They are a self contained set of codexes and an application to use those codexes.
What I want to see is a single media framework across all desktops and all operating systems, including windows, mac, bsd and linux, which can be added as a 3rd party option that allows us to have a fixed API to program our applications against.
So that you can just add a new codex to your system and any application, including those previously installed can just use it. This means that you add a new video format and instantly it is seen in every media application in Gnome, KDE and the like.
So that you can write an application to run on top of the framework to view media, or an application to convert the media from one format to another format.
This will allow thousands of people to write hundreds of codexes and just drop them into a framework. On the other side hundreds of applications can be written that will still work years from now, even with formats that we know nothing at all about at this point.
Overall this means that 3 sets of programmers can all do less work and get more return.
The codex writers can just concentrate on getting out the best converters.
The framework people can do the best they can to provide a cross platform cross desktop framework that has the set of functions needed for media work.
Finally the applications programmers can fill everyones needs with a lot of applications fitted to specific needs, without even concerning themselves about any specific formats. If a new format is added, it just shows up on a list.
Our Windows player contains no spyware and never has. Yes, someone filed suit on us, and it was thrown out of court for being a false accusation.
... right. whatever you say, O.J.
That's not the point. From what I can tell, Helix isn't meant to add anything you couldn't do before, it's Real's attempt to cash in on the developer base in the OSS community.
Now that Helix is GPL, Real can copy any other GPL code into their client and use GPLed libs, which drastically reduces their maintenance costs.
Now they can put more resources into their codec, and marketing which can't do anything but help everyone, since it's not a MS locked in format.
There: Something at a specific location.
Their: Owned by someone.
Please make sure your english compiles.
IMHO the one thing a commercially developed media player needs, to get any notice on Linux is DVD support. It's the one thing all geeks need, and the one thing that would make me eager to download and try out your latest player.
I don't think most people have any desire to download Helix, or anything based on it right now, since they've already got MPlayer/Xine/Etc... isntalled and humming along nicely. About the only thing you can hope for is that enough people will try out your latest player, when it's included free and pre-installed with future linux distros, to make it successful/respected.
-==- Buy a Mac and leave me alone!
Speaking of Real and QuickTime, I was just made aware of this little gem a couple of days ago. It allows you to export movies to Real format from within QuickTime Player Pro. Now if there were only a decoder component, I could toss Real Player for good...
Disclaimer : I am not a Real Basher, but I am taking issue. I like the new direction for the company and the Player.
Regarding the Third... Others have already taken issue with it, but I'd like to add my own two cents. Whether or not RealPlayer was spyware is a matter of definition. While I am very glad to see that Real is taking a firm stance in support of the consumer, and has streamlined the player, I think it is disingenuous for you to make the claim that Real has never shipped spyware. While you may be able to justify the claim by using a strict definition to convince yourself, many will remain unconvinced.
Ultimately, the important thing isn't whether or not you shipped spyware in the past (by any definition.) What matters is Real's behavior in the here and now. The very tangible efforts being made to gain the trust of consumers are welcome, but questionable denials *DO NOT BUILD TRUST*. The company's stance would be better served by quietly admitting that previous generations of RealPlayer were "nowehere near as awesome as the new improved blah blah blah," instead of trying to convince people that the sour taste left in their mouths isn't real. We can taste it. Don't rub it in, or we will write you off.
Thank you for your time.
"the rapidly maturing Linux desktop experience"
I just want a quality toolset that does what I tell it to and stays out of my way. If I want an "experience" I'll go to fucking DisneyLand!
And will it be called "Ogg Real"?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
There's an old saying:
"If carpenters built houses like programmers built programs,
civilization would be destroyed by the first woodpecker that came along."
Sadly its true, and both "closed source" (think Microsoft), and
open source projects are tragically devolving at a quickening pace
into a horribly unmaintainable, untrustable mess.
Sometimes "less is more"
I think a lot of people are missing one of the big desirability points about
open source, as well as about what appropriate modern features of a standardized codec, media player framework, web browser, or other such user application should be.
We're forgetting SECURITY, TRUSTABILITY, AUDITABILITY, RELIABILITY, et. al.!
Look at all the vulnerabilities of things like Outlook / Outlook Express,
Internet Explorer, Media Player, MS Word / Office and also essentially
identical problems with UNIX things like SENDMAIL, BIND, various
Mail User Agents like KMAIL, Acrobat Reader, et. al.
The single biggest problem of application usability these days goes way beyond
'Adware' / 'Spyware' / 'Banners', 'Buffering', it is due to the insecurity
and untrustability of the applications and all the derivative libraries,
system calls, codecs, helper programs, et. al.
It is a serious security risk to play *any* media file, open *any* WWW site,
run *any* multimedia program, et. al. since not only is the application's
integrity itself in question, but also the integrity of the
shared libraries, DLLs, CODECs, device drivers, et. al that it may access.
A *meaningful* improvements in any new multimedia platform or application
would be:
0) "Design By Contract" principles used for all architecture/engineering.
Design by Contract: The Lessons of Ariane
http://archive.eiffel.com/doc/manuals/tech nology/c ontract/ariane/page.html
1) Reliability, Trustability, Robustness.
Just looking at my personal experience and the other
threads it's clear that there's a huge mess with things like multimedia
player applications crashing, core dumping, taking down the whole PC,
or at least simply inexplicably failing to play / handle various input
files/streams. It simply should not be POSSIBLE to crash a program or
the system based on even corrupt/incompatible media inputs. If it
can crash the program then it's HIGHLY LIKELY that in the worst case
it's a weak application that can crash the system or expose it to things
like trojans/viruses because of faulty input/error handling.
"If it can possibly fail, add input checking, and exception/error handling"
2) NO BLOAT! Thanks to the rampant bugs, memory leaks, resource
hogging it's not at all uncommon to see even my most powerful systems
brought to a grinding halt by browsers/multimedia players/etc.
Is it REALLY NECESSARY to have applications that end up swapping because
they're using hundreds of megabytes of VM just to have a few or a few
dozen instances 'open' on the desktop, most of which are idle and finished
playing or paused anyway?
3) Useful management of / bookmarking of media and playlist / URL / MRL / whatever handling; most of the stuff I see is unusable.
4) Session preservation... if I am in the middle of browsing / playing
things, and I shutdown the PC or application with a "save session"
preference then I want to be able to get back to EVERY window, instance,
URL, MRL, FILE, STREAM, et. al. EXACTLY as it was before I shut down.
The better browsers KINDA do this. Most other things don't at all. Come on!
Furthermodre, even if I have 10 instances of an app open, and they're all
"static" (not playing / loading) then I don't expect to have 10*N-Megabytes
allocated "forever" in that desktop session just to keep the apps "alive"
because at some point later in the week I *MIGHT* want to hit "PLAY" / "REWIND"
again. Give the user a way to "GARBAGE COLLECT" the resources, recover use
of the Audio / Vide
He was selling his wares with bullshit.
Totem
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns