Fluendo To Sell Proprietary Codecs For Linux 276
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."
World Domination (Score:2, Interesting)
http://catb.org/~esr/writings/world-domination/wo
ESR, et al, believes the ability to play codecs such as these is so vital to the 2008 world domination deadline, that we should put up with these binary blobs. For a while, at least.
Lindows is supposed to be working on this also.
There is a market (Score:2, Interesting)
Second, I think that it is even easier to sell these kinds of things today. They can make a deal with somebody like Novell or Xandros who want to provide their users with a fully functional fully LEGAL linux desktop. This will help them to do that.
I don't see this being so popular with non-commercial distros like Debian because its a different set of users. But with commercial distros like Xandros (who already offer things like Codeweavers Office), I think its a great fit.
This could help acceptance of the Linux desktop (Score:2, Interesting)
I hate DRM as much as the next person, but this is good news. Acquiring and installing proprietary codecs is a dark art that is major obstacle to wider acceptance of the Linux desktop.
Given some further development, I can see a few opportunities:
As someone who absolutely refuses to pirate software unless I have no choice, I'd be prepared to pay a few ££ extra to stay legal.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:3, Interesting)
That doesn't matter - that's not what this is intended for. It just has to be not much worse than the common alternatives on Windows. Linux has plenty of other advantages that make it a good choice - maintenance alone is far easier for Linux than Windows, for example.
I have much more time to visit with my parents when I'm over now that I've got them switched to Linux. I don't have to keep Windows running anymore. But I couldn't have done it (there or with my family at home) if they couldn't watch viral videos on YouTube and email. Setting that up was possible thanks to the quasi-legal packages, but not easy. Some repositories were down when I tried - twice - to use EasyUbuntu or Automatix and if I didn't know what was going on behind the scenes I couldn't have done it.
I'm not convinced that ESR has the timing right, but the general outline - that the transition from 32- to 64-bit represents a major opportunity for Linux, and being able to play (note: not edit, just play) multimedia stuff easily and legally is important - I think is spot on. See here [catb.org] for the oft-argued-about details.
Users with more advanced needs or less full pocketbooks (or less ethics, depending on the exact circumstances) could use the 'other' packages. But a good out-of-the-box multimedia experience is worth a lot for Linux promotion. Since the problem isn't technical, it's legal, a legal approach is unfortunately needed.
Re:Hmmmmmmmmn, (Score:5, Interesting)
How would you sell that? (Score:3, Interesting)
How would this work? Does APT or YUM work via authenticated HTTP connections? They'd obviously need some way to keep just anyone from sticking "apt http://fluendo.com/updates [fluendo.com] nonfree" into their sources.list and grabbing their software -- and I don't think their business model is going to fly if they attempt to do shareware.
Maybe they could sell people digital certificates which were used in the authentication process, allowing them to access the repositories; that seems like it might be viable. Not perfect (because you'd need to keep people from sharing the certificates, but at the same time you wouldn't want to tie them to IP addresses, because that would impact traveling people or those on dynamic IPs), but I could at least see it being possible.
Re:Yes, they're part of ffmpeg (Score:4, Interesting)
It also tends to be a bit buggy, with various bugs popping in and out depending on exactly when you check out the code. It also does not have regular released versions like other software.
I just recently had to convert several hundred gigabytes of various videos people have uploaded with varying degrees of success. WMV caused problems, and I cannot get 3gp audio files to decode (possibly due to the fact that I'm running 64-bit.
It also is flakey when dealing with AC-3.
-Aaron
Re:Hmmmmmmmmn, (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I have a better idea (Score:3, Interesting)
So. Alternatives? Dirac? Snow? Powerful and very advanced, but a) beta b) even less known.
So, for ensuring that everybody can watch a video, you have to go with WMV or Quicktime, or avi with mpeg4 video (divx, xvid). A very bad situation, indeed. But this is reality.
Re:Fluendo = "Streaming Penguin"? (Score:2, Interesting)
Exactly. I think one of the biggest problems with w32codecs, libdvdcss, etc. is that they are too easy to install. People don't realize that in many countries (most notably the United States), installing these codecs is NOT LEGAL; they just install the packages on their Linux box and complain about distros not including them by default. The critical application of Fluendo is for OEM installs of Linux; instead of charging the utterly ridiculous $60 or whatever price for Windows XP, they can now markup $4 for a codec license and finally offer the layman a completely functional operating system.
Re:why we are releasing these codecs (Score:3, Interesting)
1) The license seems to say "per computer". Does that mean it's OK to install the same software in two versions of Linux on the same (dual-boot) computer?
2) Is there a process for me to legally move the software to a different computer (deleting it on the old one, of course).
3) Does the software "phone home" in any way?
4) The Indemnity clause demands that the buyer (licensee) indemnify you against anything. Where's the part where you promise that you have legally licensed the patents that you are implementing, thus indemnifying *us*?
5) Is the software distro-aware? If I install it on Fedora, will I know if some livna RPM tries to blow away a library?
Thanks in advance for any information.
Re:Hmmmmmmmmn, (Score:3, Interesting)
No I wasn't trying to make any assertions as to number of people involved, I was just using the numbers 5000 and 5 in regards to the kernel to demonstrate the idea that having loads of manpower involved in something doesn't mean that they can all solve these various problems, there may only be 1 in 1000 that have the experience and knowledge of internal design etc required to fix it. The linux kernel is huge, and bugs tends to be fixed by people specific to the particular subsystem... Linus may fix an issue with the VM subsystem, but usually won't be the person to fix a problem with ext2 - that's better handled by the ext2 team. In the same way, what I'm saying, is that the nvidia driver developers are going to be the people best for fixing problems with the nvidia driver, and openning it up to thousands of other people is as likely to change that, as the thousands of people who have access to the linux kernel has changed that Linus* is the best person for fixing problems deep routed in his VM subsys.
(*no, it may not be linus who's the best person, and there maybe a few others who are on equal enough footing, I haven't followed it enough to say, but it works as an example to demonstrate my point nonetheless)