Gstreamer is a complete open source media framework. It is being adopted by the KDE and Gnome desktop projects, making it the defacto standard for media applications in Linux/*BSD.
Gstreamer's plugin system is ideal for making a proprietary codec such as Real available to open source players, without having to open source or give up control of your codec. The benefit to you is that all of the codecs supported by the current Gstreamer plugins would be available to Helix player, without any additional work by your developers.
Gstreamer developers have approached the Helix developers and offered to cooperate in the past, but received only an absurd response about "splintering".
Cooperation between Helix and other media frameworks would be mutually beneficial. Lack of cooperation only ensures that Real's codec will marginalized on Linux and eventually obsoleted.
"Fedora is no more stable than Debian Unstable, in fact I would say less stable."
I'm interested to know how you came to this conclusion. Debian Unstable *is* unstable. I can't see why anyone would expect otherwise, given the name.
Fedora Core is stable, in the sense that the only updates available between releases are bug fixes and security updates, which have gone through QA and testing.
I use Debian Unstable also, so I know you can't claim that it meets the above definition of stability. Perhaps your definition of "stable" is different from mine?
" ( apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade once / day usually ends up doing around 20+ packages )"
So, I admin a lab with 50+ computers, and I configure them to download and install available updates nightly. As an admin, do you think I want to come in to work every morning and have to wonder what new bugs have cropped overnight? Sure, they'll probably be fixed by tomorrow, but what about all the users bugging me NOW?
If you seriously think that Debian Unstable is an alternative to Fedora, you need your head examined.
1. A downloadable ISO version of your enterprise server software, Check
that I can work with but get no support on. I should be able to load this on as many machines as I want to. Check, and check.
If I EVER need support on these systems OR want to use up2date on them, then I should have to pay. The upgrade from Fedora to Redhat Enterprise should be quite smooth if you choose to pay for support. But why do you insist that you should have to pay to use up2date, when you can use it for free with Fedora?
2. A desktop version of your software, that is also a free download or a boxed set. Not Fedora!!! This should also have the ability to load on as many computers as I would want to. Again this version would have no support or up2date functionality unless I pay you. Again, why do you insist that you should have no up2date funtionality unless you pay for it? Do you really not like getting things for free? Does it feel more valuable to you if you paid for it?
This version, unlike Fedora would actually have vendor support from companies like Oracle, Borland, IBM, etc. Sounds great, but unfortunately, Redhat doesn't get to decide what other software vendors choose to support, that is up to them. There is nothing preventing these companies from supporting their software on Fedora.
I would have NEVER done that before you "tweaked" your licencing. Tweaked? The GPL is still the GPL as far as I know...
I'm not sure where you got your information, but I would say that the Gnome Foundation and Board of Directors have been an overwhelming success.
The Foundation has been instrumental in the last two releases, which were on schedule and of very high quality.
The same people are certainly not elected to the board every year. Case and point, the founder of Gnome himself, Mr. Miguel de Icaza was lost his seat on the Board this year because his application was late.
"3. LICENSE RESTRICTIONS -- DISTRIBUTION REQUIREMENTS. If you choose to exercise your rights under Section 2, any redistribution by you is subject to your compliance with the following terms. 3.1 If you are authorized and choose to redistribute Sample Code or Redistributable Code (collectively, the "Redistributables") as described in Section 2, you agree: (i) except as otherwise noted in Section 2.1 (Sample Code) to distribute the Redistributables only in object code form and in conjunction with and as a part of a software application..."
So if you distribute anything compiled with this compiler you are not allowed to distribute the source code along with it.
"You also agree not to permit further distribution of the Redistributables by your end users except you may permit further redistribution of the Redistributables by your distributors to your end-user customers if your distributors only distribute the Redistributables in conjunction with..."
Good grief, too many "distributes" in that sentence. I think they just said that your end users can't redistribute any software that you compiled with this compiler.
"3.2 If you use the Redistributables, then in addition to your compliance with the applicable distribution requirements described for the Redistributables, the following also applies. Your license rights to the Redistributables are conditioned upon your not (a) creating derivative works of the Redistributables in any manner that would cause the Redistributables in whole or in part to become subject to any of the terms of an Excluded License; and (b) distributing the Redistributables (or derivative works thereof) in any manner that would cause the Redistributables to become subject to any of the terms of an Excluded License. An "Excluded License" is any license which requires as a condition of use, modification and/or distribution of software subject to the Excluded License, that such software or other software combined and/or distributed with such software (x) be disclosed or distributed in source code form; (y) be licensed for the purpose of making derivative works; or (z) be redistributable at no charge."
x, y, and z sound an awful lot like the terms of the GPL to me.
So in my non-lawyer understanding of this, attempting to compile GPLed source code on this beast would be in violation of the EULA, the GPL, maybe both.
This not surprising, considering Gnome 2.6 will not be released for another 2 days. Unless you have some method for pulling tarballs from the future that you'd like to let us know about.
But yes, this is just a test release, and the final will include Gnome 2.6 and hopefully will not require time travel.
When asked what he thought about western civilization, Mahatma Gandhi replied, "I think it would be a good idea."
Not everyone's idea of civilization is the same. People in India may wonder how ass-backwards we are here, when they learn that we are using gas-guzzling air-polluting machines to transport our produce to the market.
Funny that the KDE developers' argument boils down to: "We have these proposed applications, most of them aren't finished yet, or haven't even been started, but they're going to be really great and integrate well with an enterprise desktop, so you should choose KDE and ditch Gnome."
Thing is, Gnome has the applications NOW, already integrated and complying to a well tested Human Interface Guide.
Further more, nobody ever said UserLinux wouldn't include KDE apps. There is no reason their "killer apps", should they ever reach a usable state, couldn't be included. The decision is to go with Gnome as the default desktop, and these KDE developers have shown no reasons why this isn't the best choice. There is no need to include both desktops, as a user can only be running one at a time anyway.
Finally, if you don't like the decision, don't use the distribution! There are plenty of other distributions out there, at least two of which still use KDE as the default desktop (Mandrake and Suse). Funny that you don't see Gnome developers demanding that these distros switch to Gnome.
And if you think most Americans are informed enough to vote for the candidate that best represents their interests, then you are more deluded than they are.
"I would bet that Novell/Suse arent going to piss off all the developers like Red Hat has done."
Um, yeah, how has Redhat pissed off all the developers again? By giving control of their distro back to the community with Fedora? By letting developers submit their packages for inclusion in Fedora, and giving them more control over maintaining said packages? By releasing under the GPL the source code to every single piece of software they've ever made, so that developers can add to and modify it as they like? Oh, maybe it was by hiring developers that have been working on projects such as GNOME and Mozilla, so they can get paid for doing what they love.
Here are the office phone numbers for the two state judges that ruled against the Do Not Call list:
Lee R West - (405) 348-0818, Edmond, OK 73003 The 'Honorable' Lee R. West Senior United States District Judge Western District of Oklahoma U.S. Courthouse 200 N.W. Fourth St. Oklahoma City, OK 73102 Rm 3001, Courtroom 303, Third Floor Chambers Telephone: 405-609-5140 Chambers Facsimile: 405-609-5151
and the more recent one:
Judge Edward W. Nottingham Alfred A. Arraj United States Courthouse A1041 / Courtroom 14 (303) 844-5018
I encourage all Slashdotters to exercise your first ammendment rights, and let them know what you think about their rulings. Hopefully someone will find their home numbers, since telemarketers usually call you at home, and these two firmly believe that everyone should have the right to call you at home anytime they feel like it, even after you've specifically asked them not to.
In the modern era everyone thought that science and technology would be the savior of humankind, leading us to a bright future of world peace and prosperity.
2 World Wars and an atomic bomb shattered that notion, proving that the technologies we had placed so much hope in could be twisted into the machines of our own destruction.
You just described my job at the University to the letter. (I am that barely minimum wage cheap labor student employee.) I think I'm going to go cry now...
>>Which raises the interesting question, i.e., should 501(c)(3) status be granted? In particular, should contributions by AOL to the Mozilla Foundation be tax deductible when AOL will use any work performed by the "public benefit corporation" in its Netscape product? Is this a way for a for profit corporation to fund research in a tax-deductible way?
Interesting possibility. All I can say is, I certainly hope so!
If companies start seeing opensource as a pontential tax write off, this can only benefit opensource and Free Software. This means more funding for opensource projects, the potential for paid opensource programming positions in non-profits, more exposure to opensource in the corporate world.
I don't see it as a conflict of interest if the contributing company should benefit from the non-profit's work, as long as the work is released under a true Opensource licence, it all goes into the public domain, and the contributing companies gain no unfair advantage.
...that the most corrupt administration in this country's history should name the newest part of their war machine after the leader of the second most corrupt administration.
Slashdot Mirror
"I'd also like some UI to turn on and off spatial browsing."
Right click, Browse Folder
Or, if you have a one-button mouse, Applications->Browse Filesystem
Done.
I wonder what the 3D graph of a Slashdotting looks like...
The business model of selling a media player is inherently flawed, and I think that Real knows this.
The real money is in content providers and licencing fees.
Gstreamer is a complete open source media framework. It is being adopted by the KDE and Gnome desktop projects, making it the defacto standard for media applications in Linux/*BSD.
Gstreamer's plugin system is ideal for making a proprietary codec such as Real available to open source players, without having to open source or give up control of your codec. The benefit to you is that all of the codecs supported by the current Gstreamer plugins would be available to Helix player, without any additional work by your developers.
Gstreamer developers have approached the Helix developers and offered to cooperate in the past, but received only an absurd response about "splintering".
Cooperation between Helix and other media frameworks would be mutually beneficial. Lack of cooperation only ensures that Real's codec will marginalized on Linux and eventually obsoleted.
Anybody?
Please?
Good point, and I should also have mentioned that I am lazy.
In the case of Fedora, SuSE, and Debian Stable, it is fairly safe to skip the internal testing step.
Why? Because the only updates between releases are bug fixes and security updates, which have already gone through testing and QA.
"Fedora is no more stable than Debian Unstable, in fact I would say less stable."
I'm interested to know how you came to this conclusion. Debian Unstable *is* unstable. I can't see why anyone would expect otherwise, given the name.
Fedora Core is stable, in the sense that the only updates available between releases are bug fixes and security updates, which have gone through QA and testing.
I use Debian Unstable also, so I know you can't claim that it meets the above definition of stability. Perhaps your definition of "stable" is different from mine?
" ( apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade once / day usually ends up doing around 20+ packages )"
So, I admin a lab with 50+ computers, and I configure them to download and install available updates nightly. As an admin, do you think I want to come in to work every morning and have to wonder what new bugs have cropped overnight? Sure, they'll probably be fixed by tomorrow, but what about all the users bugging me NOW?
If you seriously think that Debian Unstable is an alternative to Fedora, you need your head examined.
1. A downloadable ISO version of your enterprise server software,
Check
that I can work with but get no support on. I should be able to load this on as many machines as I want to.
Check, and check.
If I EVER need support on these systems OR want to use up2date on them, then I should have to pay.
The upgrade from Fedora to Redhat Enterprise should be quite smooth if you choose to pay for support. But why do you insist that you should have to pay to use up2date, when you can use it for free with Fedora?
2. A desktop version of your software, that is also a free download or a boxed set. Not Fedora!!! This should also have the ability to load on as many computers as I would want to. Again this version would have no support or up2date functionality unless I pay you.
Again, why do you insist that you should have no up2date funtionality unless you pay for it? Do you really not like getting things for free? Does it feel more valuable to you if you paid for it?
This version, unlike Fedora would actually have vendor support from companies like Oracle, Borland, IBM, etc.
Sounds great, but unfortunately, Redhat doesn't get to decide what other software vendors choose to support, that is up to them. There is nothing preventing these companies from supporting their software on Fedora.
I would have NEVER done that before you "tweaked" your licencing.
Tweaked? The GPL is still the GPL as far as I know...
So why not Fedora?
I'm not sure where you got your information, but I would say that the Gnome Foundation and Board of Directors have been an overwhelming success.
The Foundation has been instrumental in the last two releases, which were on schedule and of very high quality.
The same people are certainly not elected to the board every year. Case and point, the founder of Gnome himself, Mr. Miguel de Icaza was lost his seat on the Board this year because his application was late.
"3. LICENSE RESTRICTIONS -- DISTRIBUTION REQUIREMENTS. If you choose to exercise your rights under Section 2, any redistribution by you is subject to your compliance with the following terms.
3.1 If you are authorized and choose to redistribute Sample Code or Redistributable Code (collectively, the "Redistributables") as described in Section 2, you agree: (i) except as otherwise noted in Section 2.1 (Sample Code) to distribute the Redistributables only in object code form and in conjunction with and as a part of a software application..."
So if you distribute anything compiled with this compiler you are not allowed to distribute the source code along with it.
"You also agree not to permit further distribution of the Redistributables by your end users except you may permit further redistribution of the Redistributables by your distributors to your end-user customers if your distributors only distribute the Redistributables in conjunction with..."
Good grief, too many "distributes" in that sentence. I think they just said that your end users can't redistribute any software that you compiled with this compiler.
"3.2 If you use the Redistributables, then in addition to your compliance with the applicable distribution requirements described for the Redistributables, the following also applies. Your license rights to the Redistributables are conditioned upon your not (a) creating derivative works of the Redistributables in any manner that would cause the Redistributables in whole or in part to become subject to any of the terms of an Excluded License; and (b) distributing the Redistributables (or derivative works thereof) in any manner that would cause the Redistributables to become subject to any of the terms of an Excluded License. An "Excluded License" is any license which requires as a condition of use, modification and/or distribution of software subject to the Excluded License, that such software or other software combined and/or distributed with such software (x) be disclosed or distributed in source code form; (y) be licensed for the purpose of making derivative works; or (z) be redistributable at no charge."
x, y, and z sound an awful lot like the terms of the GPL to me.
So in my non-lawyer understanding of this, attempting to compile GPLed source code on this beast would be in violation of the EULA, the GPL, maybe both.
This not surprising, considering Gnome 2.6 will not be released for another 2 days. Unless you have some method for pulling tarballs from the future that you'd like to let us know about.
But yes, this is just a test release, and the final will include Gnome 2.6 and hopefully will not require time travel.
I want one of these for Christmas, damnit! You could run over your neighbor's house with that mo fo...
When asked what he thought about western civilization, Mahatma Gandhi replied, "I think it would be a good idea."
Not everyone's idea of civilization is the same. People in India may wonder how ass-backwards we are here, when they learn that we are using gas-guzzling air-polluting machines to transport our produce to the market.
Funny that the KDE developers' argument boils down to: "We have these proposed applications, most of them aren't finished yet, or haven't even been started, but they're going to be really great and integrate well with an enterprise desktop, so you should choose KDE and ditch Gnome."
Thing is, Gnome has the applications NOW, already integrated and complying to a well tested Human Interface Guide.
Further more, nobody ever said UserLinux wouldn't include KDE apps. There is no reason their "killer apps", should they ever reach a usable state, couldn't be included. The decision is to go with Gnome as the default desktop, and these KDE developers have shown no reasons why this isn't the best choice. There is no need to include both desktops, as a user can only be running one at a time anyway.
Finally, if you don't like the decision, don't use the distribution! There are plenty of other distributions out there, at least two of which still use KDE as the default desktop (Mandrake and Suse). Funny that you don't see Gnome developers demanding that these distros switch to Gnome.
Let the whining and flaming commence!
And if you think most Americans are informed enough to vote for the candidate that best represents their interests, then you are more deluded than they are.
If by far-left you mean representing the majority of Americans instead of the wealthiest 1%, then yes.
"I would bet that Novell/Suse arent going to piss off all the developers like Red Hat has done."
Um, yeah, how has Redhat pissed off all the developers again? By giving control of their distro back to the community with Fedora? By letting developers submit their packages for inclusion in Fedora, and giving them more control over maintaining said packages? By releasing under the GPL the source code to every single piece of software they've ever made, so that developers can add to and modify it as they like? Oh, maybe it was by hiring developers that have been working on projects such as GNOME and Mozilla, so they can get paid for doing what they love.
Moron.
Here are the office phone numbers for the two state judges that ruled against the Do Not Call list:
Lee R West - (405) 348-0818, Edmond, OK 73003
The 'Honorable' Lee R. West
Senior United States District Judge
Western District of Oklahoma
U.S. Courthouse
200 N.W. Fourth St. Oklahoma City, OK 73102
Rm 3001, Courtroom 303, Third Floor
Chambers Telephone: 405-609-5140
Chambers Facsimile: 405-609-5151
and the more recent one:
Judge Edward W. Nottingham
Alfred A. Arraj United States Courthouse A1041 / Courtroom 14
(303) 844-5018
I encourage all Slashdotters to exercise your first ammendment rights, and let them know what you think about their rulings. Hopefully someone will find their home numbers, since telemarketers usually call you at home, and these two firmly believe that everyone should have the right to call you at home anytime they feel like it, even after you've specifically asked them not to.
In the modern era everyone thought that science and technology would be the savior of humankind, leading us to a bright future of world peace and prosperity.
2 World Wars and an atomic bomb shattered that notion, proving that the technologies we had placed so much hope in could be twisted into the machines of our own destruction.
You just described my job at the University to the letter. (I am that barely minimum wage cheap labor student employee.) I think I'm going to go cry now...
>>Which raises the interesting question, i.e., should 501(c)(3) status be granted? In particular, should contributions by AOL to the Mozilla Foundation be tax deductible when AOL will use any work performed by the "public benefit corporation" in its Netscape product? Is this a way for a for profit corporation to fund research in a tax-deductible way?
Interesting possibility. All I can say is, I certainly hope so!
If companies start seeing opensource as a pontential tax write off, this can only benefit opensource and Free Software. This means more funding for opensource projects, the potential for paid opensource programming positions in non-profits, more exposure to opensource in the corporate world.
I don't see it as a conflict of interest if the contributing company should benefit from the non-profit's work, as long as the work is released under a true Opensource licence, it all goes into the public domain, and the contributing companies gain no unfair advantage.
...that the most corrupt administration in this country's history should name the newest part of their war machine after the leader of the second most corrupt administration.
Do you have any idea what you are talking about?
Redhat has never released a JRE, of their own, or anyone else's.
They are talking about doing it, and doing it the Right Way.
If I had moderator points at the moment, now would be the time to use them.