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Real to Offer Open Source Windows Media for Linux

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the open-source-the-drm-too dept.

cpugeniusmv writes to tell us News.com is reporting that RealNetworks plans to release an open source method to allow Linux users to play Windows Media files. Currently Linux users are able to play the two main Windows Media formats (wmv and wma) but only if they install closed-source modules. The ability to launch this initiative comes from a recent licensing deal between RealNetworks and Microsoft and the antitrust settlement against Microsoft.

2 of 228 comments (clear)

  1. Re:already there? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, the latest ffmpeg can play WMV3, no windows dlls needed.

    You will need to check out the latest ffmpeg svn and compile it tho.

  2. Re:Satan: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    Maybe I'm wrong about this, but this is how I've aways thought it worked.
    Unfortunately you _are_ wrong. Case point: Go to http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/ and behold the royalty rates for a "decoder". Note that this patent is generally ignored but some more careful distributions like Ubuntu do not support mp3 playback out-of-the-box for that very reason.
    I assume your misunderstanding is the result of the situation with the LZH-algorithm, or in practical terms, the GIF format. Thos, now expired patents only covered the LZH encoding not decoding, hence one could make, use and distribute a decoder but not an encoder. However this was just the special situation with regard to these 2 patents covering this particular algorithm, i.e. they were luckily (from the patent holder's point of view, unluckily) worded in such a way that they only covered the encoder.

    Nota bene: Yes, there were indeed two patents covering exactly the same algorithm, one was held in its latter days by Unisys and was the more notorious one due to Unisys' active enforcement. The other one was held by IBM and just recently expired but IBM never actively enforced it (It would've probably fallen due to prior art anyway but it does illustrate the utter stupidity of the USPTO specifically and the patent system, especially with regard to software, generally).