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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."
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.
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 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.
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........
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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 |
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.
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.
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VLC and MPlayer are perfectly free if you don't distribute proprietary codecs. And guess what, Helix will have proprietary codecs, too, which will not be freed. So, as far as this goes, there's absolutely no difference
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
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?
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