Fluendo To Sell Proprietary Codecs For Linux

Several readers wrote in to tell us that the open source media software development company Fluendo has announced plans to sell native Linux implementations of proprietary video codecs such as Windows Media, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4. (Press release here.) From the article: "Currently, many Linux video applications facilitate Windows Media video playback using Windows DLL files and Wine, which provides suboptimal performance, particularly with streaming video. Fluendo's codecs could potentially provide better integration for streaming Windows Media playback in Linux web browsers as well as through GStreamer-based desktop applications like Totem."

Comments

Re:Hmmmmmmmmn,

[John Betonschaar]

2) I guess a native binary blob is slightly better than a MS coded binary blob.... but frankly, it's still just a binary blob. You have no idea what its really doing.

I guess the vast majority of end-user couldn't care less what their video codec is doing, as long as it plays their damn video's. It's a bit like the NVidea Linux drivers: the free software purists see it as something awful to load a binary driver on Linux, but I for one am very grateful to have proper 3D accelerated drivers at all. Same goes for video playback... There will always be proprietary video codecs, just get over it. I don't see the problem anyway, if I'm want to run commercial software on Linux it is usually binary as well. Does that mean the software is useless or bad?

Good luck with that

[Cheesey]

I suppose the market is Linux distributors who can't bundle MPlayer for legal reasons. Can't see anyone buying this directly, though.

They'd probably be legally unable to be as good as MPlayer, (a universal video player, home page, debs), as licensing some codecs will require signing up to agreements to play nicely with DRM. MPlayer is good because there's none of that nonsense: it just works, for every video that I've tried.

Re:Good luck with that

[Pecisk]

Why does everyone says "in some countries"? Germany, US, Canada, Australia is "some country" now? :)

Honestly, FFMPEG is illegal in MAJORITY of IT world. Why it is so hard to say that? It is patent minefield.

Don't troll.

[Anonymous Coward]

NVidia's lamented product is a binary only driver with a binary only kernel component. A codec is application software. The nvidia software runs on the bare metal, interacting with your machine in god knows what ways. The codecs are fairly self-contained. It's not really compariable.

Re:Hmmmmmmmmn,

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

It's a bit like the NVidea Linux drivers: the free software purists see it as something awful to load a binary driver on Linux,

Perhaps because of security fears?

"the NVIDIA Binary Graphics Driver for Linux is vulnerable to a buffer overflow that allows an attacker to run arbitrary code as root. This bug can be exploited both locally or remotely

Anyway, bringing nvidia into the discussion is a red herring, there is a huge difference between running a binary blob in ring 0 and userland. Let's discuss userland binary rather than kernel mode binary.

Sounds great. If...

[jitterysquid]

Rah rah. I like people trying to sell commercial things on Linux. This will only work if they are johnny-on-the-spot when it comes to updates. I would hate my purchased codecs to keep me from updating gstreamer, the kernel, or whatever. In fact, I should not even have to *think* about my purchased codecs when I run a yum, apt-get, or up2date.

I'll just wait here for the Free Software fire-breathing demons of zealotry. It's quite cold right now and my furnace needs a break.

I have a better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop encoding media using proprietary codecs!

Re:Yes, they're part of ffmpeg

[Pecisk]

But ffmpeg can't be distributed legally in all countries. These codecs are for sale for those people who want be legit - usually companies - common crowd will still stick with gstreamer apps/plugins or mplayer/vlc/ffmpeg combo. I see this Fluendo step as very contributing to choice I can make on Linux system - I can say boss that these codecs can be easily installed in public terminal which aim to provide video serices for example. Just buy a license and vola, you are set.

And kudos to ffmpeg team. I use Totem with gstreamer bad/ugly/ffmpeg combo and I can say - hats off to you guys. Quality is very good.

Fluendo = "Streaming Penguin"?

[Kadin2048]

I guess a native binary blob is slightly better than a MS coded binary blob

It's significantly better, actually. Not because it's technically superior (although it may be), but because it can legally be rolled into a commercial version of Linux. Right now, you can't legally distribute a Linux distro with multimedia support (at least not in the U.S.), because they depend either on MS DLLs (obvious copyright problems) or patent-encumbered free implementations (which can't be distributed with the distro for legal reasons).

This makes Linux into a second-rate desktop OS, even if you're willing to pay for it, because it means key features don't work out of the box. There have been exceptions to this from time to time (Xandros, Lindows), but they weren't well accepted by the community, possibly because they tried to leverage their use of proprietary codecs as an advantage over other Linux distros, rather than against Windows -- not a good way to make friends.

A company which wasn't involved in the actual production of a distro, might be in a good position (assuming it dealt with everyone on the same terms) to produce codecs that could be incorporated into (a non-free, pay-per-copy) version of any distro. E.g., someone could take Ubuntu, add the codecs (paying Fluendo, obviously), and sell the result as a package, suitable for pre-installation. I don't think this would violate GPL either, if the codecs were built in a way that didn't require linking or otherwise producing a "derived work."

In short, Fluendo could be in a position to be ESR's "Streaming Penguin." In that paper, he discusses some of the major problems facing Linux as a marketable desktop OS, and the lack of modern multimedia capabilities are a real deal-breaker. In fact, the lack of multimedia capabilities are more of a weakness, than simply being free-as-in-beer is a strength; people are obviously willing to pay for an OS that works, but one that doesn't work out of the box (or works only after fiddling around with some shady instructions involving PLF mirrors) won't fly, even if it's free.

While people here on Slashdot may not regard having to manually install LAME, Xvid, Flash, and the Win32 codecs as a significant problem, it's one of the many reasons why you can't go out and buy a Dell pre-configured with Linux as a home computer. Even if there wasn't Microsoft trying to torpedo it before it gets going, I'm not sure customers would accept anything that didn't work right, right out of the box. Fluendo could, if they play their cards right, be a big benefit to the adoption of Linux.