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Media Announcements

Real adds GPL to Helix Player, RedHat/Novell Join In 322

Posted by CowboyNeal from the internet-radio-to-suck-less dept.
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."
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Real adds GPL to Helix Player, RedHat/Novell Join In More

Real adds GPL to Helix Player, RedHat/Novell Join In

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  • This is using Helix as a framework, right? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by byolinux ( 535260 ) * on Monday June 28, 2004 @09:44AM (#9550220) Journal
    So, Helix can become the Media framework for the GNU system, like QuickTime is for Mac OS?

  • Hey! (Score:5, Funny)

    by blackmonday ( 607916 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @09:45AM (#9550228) Homepage
    Wow, that's really great ne[BUFFERING...]

  • So? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SpanishInquisition ( 127269 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @09:45AM (#9550233) Homepage Journal
    Does that mean that someone can make a Windows version without all the advertising crap that comes with the standard version?

    • Re:So? (Score:5, Informative)

      by nidx ( 583973 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @09:50AM (#9550275)
      it is called Real Alternative - found here [k-litecodecpack.com]

      • Re:So? (Score:5, Informative)

        by poulbailey ( 231304 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @10:11AM (#9550462)
        > it is called Real Alternative - found here

        Real Alternative isn't a legal repack. Don't ask me why Real hasn't gone after them. Perhaps they fear more bad PR?
      • Am I the only one who sees a bunch of garbage on that page? I certainly don't see anything related to a media player.

      • Which violates the terms of the RealPlayer license agreement. Now that Helix Player is 100% GPL (or will be, it was already open source under an OSI-approved RealNetworks license before), there isn't anything preventing someone from taking Helix and porting it to windows.

        AFAICT, this still doesn't affect the RealVideo and RealAudio codecs. Those are still binary-only distribution, and are not going to be GPL. But if someone can make Helix player damn good without RealVideo (and there's no reason not), t

      • Re:So? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Qwavel ( 733416 )

        That is great - exactly what I've been looking for. Now I can get Real support on my Windows machines without the crap.

        BUT, unfortunately, with this announcement today, I'm going to try to start being nice to Real. This might even mean joining their stupid club.

        I rationalize it like this. Yes Real's software is extremely obnoxious, but they are in the unfortunate position of having to make money now from their product (as opposed to MS).

    • Re:So? (Score:5, Informative)

      by hendridm ( 302246 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @10:04AM (#9550410) Homepage
      They already have it. Real Enterprise [real.com] (free reg required to download). No ads, works great. If you don't want to post fake information, you can prolly find a copy on P2P, or you can just bitch and moan about the free registration here if you prefer...

  • XIne, Mplayer... (Score:4, Funny)

    by tindur ( 658483 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @09:45AM (#9550234)
    I for one welcome our new media overlords but do you think this will have any impact on Xine, Mplayer and bros.

  • Codecs GPL'd? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 28, 2004 @09:47AM (#9550247)
    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?

    • Re:Codecs GPL'd? (Score:5, Informative)

      by pointwood ( 14018 ) <jramskov@ g m a i l . com> on Monday June 28, 2004 @09:58AM (#9550349) Homepage
      AFAIK, no - the real codecs are still proprietary. Helix does support the open source Xiph.org codecs though.

    • Re:Codecs GPL'd? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Choron ( 88276 )
      Exactly, who exactly cares about yet another video codec when 99.9% of the Real contents are encoded using the windows version, which is NOT playable with helix or whatever GPL version they make tomorrow. Nice try but no, I'll just keep using mplayer (which DOES let me play what I want to see) in Linux.

      Oh and yes they released a Linux version of Real Player G2 ? Man what a joke ! Did they ever run it ?

      Releasing GPL codecs is only an attempt to regain confidence from the internet community after the huge c

    • Re:Codecs GPL'd? - Real Responds (Score:5, Informative)

      by kforeman ( 596891 ) * on Monday June 28, 2004 @12:31PM (#9551672)
      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.

      • Re:Codecs GPL'd? - Real Responds (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Deusy ( 455433 ) <.gro.ixev. .ta. .eilrahc.> on Monday June 28, 2004 @02:30PM (#9552903) Homepage
        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?
        • 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)?

  • Yay! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by PornMaster ( 749461 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @09:48AM (#9550255) Homepage
    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

    • Re:Yay! (Score:2, Informative)

      by the unbeliever ( 201915 )
      Have you never heard of Real Alternative?

      It's all the rage with the kids these days, I hear.

    • Re:Yay! (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 28, 2004 @10:00AM (#9550380)
      There's always the free BBC version. Already runs on IE, Opera, Mozilla on Macs, PCs, Solaris, Linux etc...

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/audiohelp_install.sht ml

  • Real (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AliasTheRoot ( 171859 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @09:49AM (#9550260)
    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?
    • ...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.
      • 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 sh
    • 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.

  • Marketspeak (Score:2, Insightful)

    by PhysicsGenius ( 565228 )
    We already have a GPL'd AV player: mplayer [mplayerhq.hu]. 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?

    • Re:Marketspeak (Score:5, Interesting)

      by hopethishelps ( 782331 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @09:56AM (#9550338)
      We already have a GPL'd AV player: mplayer.

      But do we really? The Debian folks have excluded key parts of mplayer from their distro (they include a crippled subset that is arguably useless) because of licensing concerns.

      Now, this could just be a couple of people at the Debian project being anal-retentive; I don't pretend to fully understand the issues, and I don't know whether Debian's position makes sense or not. But at the least, there is some kind of question mark hanging over the mplayer copyrights and license.

      • Re:Marketspeak (Score:5, Informative)

        by compactable ( 714182 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @10:43AM (#9550738) Homepage
        The issue with mplayer was not copyright ownership - it was largely with the non-GPL-ed codecs. The same issue faces the Helix player (codecs are not GPL - all that is released here is the framework).

        Check out the following philosophy of A'rpi ( http://mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/news-archive. html [mplayerhq.hu] ) when faced with the concept of Debian packaging mplayer without the codecs (which is what I'm assuming Redhat & company will be doing with Helix):

        I think that including an unusable build of an application is even worse than not packaging it at all. It is not only valueless for the users (they will have to remove it and compile the source of the original version), but it gives the application a bad reputation, i.e. advertising it as a useless player being incapable of even playing a simple small file, or an unencrypted DVD (with AC3 sound)... Unfortunately most users won't notice the small comments in distribution specific files (like README.SuSE, or README.Debian) and will tell their friends, magazines (which occasionally write distro reviews) and post on portals/forums that it is a very bad, broken, unusable application.

        ... it will be interesting to see what happens with Helix payer, now that you have Redhat & Real (two public companies) trumpeting this as the big thiong fro linux desktop - will they throw in the non-gpl codecs so that everything dances perfectly, or will they ship only the shell & support for things like OGG, dissapointing linux converts used to their OS supporting more flavours of multimedia ... ?

  • GStreamer? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by protonman ( 411526 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @09:52AM (#9550293) Homepage
    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.

    • Re:GStreamer? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by clonek ( 792256 ) <jasonshaw,email&gmail,com> on Monday June 28, 2004 @09:59AM (#9550363)
      IMO Redhat and Novell should focus their energy on GStreamer, which is already being integrated into GNOME and nautilus, and help improve that project rather than including another media player to go with the 3+ others (GStreamer, XMMS, Totem etc.)that are already installed.
    • What does this mean for GStreamer, which, as I understand it, has similar goals and is being used by quite some OS software already.

      Well... Helix is a much cooler name then "GStreamer", so I'm guessing Helix will get all the attention from here on out.

  • gstreamer (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 28, 2004 @09:53AM (#9550307)
    Gstreamer already provides GPL'd framework.
    http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/

    Someone might want to comment pros and cons
    of Gstreamer and Helix.

    • Better than that (Score:4, Insightful)

      by BESTouff ( 531293 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @10:05AM (#9550423)
      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.

      • Helix licensing just fine. (Score:5, Informative)

        by robla ( 4860 ) * on Monday June 28, 2004 @11:50AM (#9551301) Homepage Journal
        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 [realnetworks.com], many [realnetworks.com], many [realnetworks.com] 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 [realnetworks.com]. With our announcements today, we're making a great start into the Linux desktop space.

        Rob Lanphier
        Development Support Manager [helixcommunity.org]
        RealNetworks

  • Not a crappy program - A Good Choice (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 28, 2004 @09:53AM (#9550308)
    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.

  • Allow access to subscription services? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by grahamm ( 8844 ) <gmurray@webwayone.co.uk> on Monday June 28, 2004 @09:54AM (#9550315) Homepage
    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?

  • GStreamer (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AirLace ( 86148 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @09:57AM (#9550341)
    Does this mean that the GStreamer [freedesktop.org] 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.

  • They're not GPLing the codecs (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DFJA ( 680282 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @09:58AM (#9550350)
    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........
    • Get Real codec from the propriatary player...copy library to free player....and the codecs work.

      Took me 3 min

  • NYT Article (Score:3, Informative)

    by finny ( 107762 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @09:58AM (#9550357)
    here. [nytimes.com] Free registration is, of course, required.

  • Latest for Windows (Score:5, Interesting)

    by blackmonday ( 607916 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @09:59AM (#9550362) Homepage
    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.
  • 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...
    • 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--

      They play the formats, sure, but legally? There's a reason Novell doesn't ship SuSE with .avi support for Kaffeine and it's not that they forgot it.

      Whats going on here is that Novell is using Linux to make money, and Real thinks that might be a good idea. They are losing ( have lost? ) the media-players-f

  • what about mplayer and videolan (Score:4, Insightful)

    by elinenbe ( 25195 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @10:00AM (#9550372)
    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)?
    • vlc is crash-prone -- at least on Windows.
      • vlc is crash-prone -- at least on Windows.

        Perhaps for you. I run VLC on Windows 2000 and it's far more stable than Windows Media Player. Not to mention that Windows Media Player is always choking on some file or another, while VLC plays them without complaint. Granted, VLC wouldn't be needed if the people doing the encodings knew how to NOT corrupt the file six ways to Sunday.

        For example, I downloaded a little video called "TOS vs. TNG: The Final Battle". While it was a mildly amusing home-brew video, Windows Media Player choked about 80% through the file. If I fast forwarded past the point of the error, I'd get video but no sound. When I loaded it in VLC, it was able to play it through without error.

  • well if they make a player (Score:4, Insightful)

    by zogger ( 617870 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @10:02AM (#9550392) Homepage Journal
    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 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 28, 2004 @10:03AM (#9550405)
    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.

    • Re:VLC (Score:3, Informative)

      by mritunjai ( 518932 )
      VLC ain't free! ... because VLC and MPlayer use many patented codecs and algorithms! They can't be free (as in beer and more importantly, as in SPEECH!)

      Now as an end-user you may use them, and though its illegal you can mostly get away with that, but as a "corporation", Redhat and Novell etc can't touch them even with a 10 meter barge pole!

      Helix, otoh, as a product from Real themselves, can be used *LEGALLY*.

      Being legal is important when it comes to being in business and making money. As Redhat Corp, las

  • That's great... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dolda2000 ( 759023 ) <fredrik.dolda2000@com> on Monday June 28, 2004 @10:26AM (#9550585) Homepage
    ...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?

  • How the hell do I use Helix (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Gyorg_Lavode ( 520114 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @10:30AM (#9550613)
    Ok, I know how to use MPlayer. I go to the page, download the source, follow the build instructions and get a program that plays video and audio. Now wtf does helix do? I haven't found a site where I can download the helix code and compile it to a usable media player. I also haven't seen the site that offers a nice Real Player 10 rpm that could take the place of mplayer.

    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!

  • closed minds (Score:4, Informative)

    by Danathar ( 267989 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @10:34AM (#9550650) Journal
    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

  • Codecs contain spyware (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 28, 2004 @10:46AM (#9550763)

    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

    • 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.

      I feel pretty certain I will be able to tell if it's got adware in it...because...it will display ads. Perhaps you are inferring that we can't tell if it has spyware. All I can say is snort.

    • Re:Codecs contain spyware - Real Responds (Score:5, Informative)

      by kforeman ( 596891 ) * on Monday June 28, 2004 @12:23PM (#9551598)
      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.

      • Non-x86 barrier to entry (Score:4, Insightful)

        by tepples ( 727027 ) * <tepplesNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday June 28, 2004 @01:10PM (#9552038) Homepage Journal

        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.

  • Agree that it is a good thing, not about standarts (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Pecisk ( 688001 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @10:49AM (#9550782)
    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.

  • I don't need a player, but an editor (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mm0mm ( 687212 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @11:02AM (#9550902)
    I have absolutely no doubt that mplayer will remain in my system as a primary media player regardless of what helix will bring to the Linux desktop experience. And meantime, I am hoping to see NLE apps which offer features that are on par with Avid and FCP (mainactor is still low-key).

    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.
    • The last two distributions of SUSE (9.0 and 9.1) have included Real Player fully configured. As far as I can tell, there's no spyware/bloatware/adware. I doubt SUSE/Novell would allow future versions to include any malware either.

  • 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.

  • It's about acceptance (Score:3, Interesting)

    by radiophonic ( 767486 ) on Monday June 28, 2004 @12:15PM (#9551516) Homepage
    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?

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