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Music Media

Helix Server Source Released 160

Posted by michael from the beaten-down-by-windows-media-player dept.
Rob Lanphier writes "RealNetworks just released the Helix DNA Server source code, the main engine powering the RealNetworks' Helix Universal Server (nee RealServer). Additionally, the RealNetworks' Public Source License (RPSL) just became approved as an Open Source Initiative (OSI) certified license. Speaking of which, the Helix DNA Server is available under RPSL (which wasn't originally our stated intention). Ask questions via IRC during our live webcast at 11am PST (19:00 GMT) or just read the press release."
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Helix Server Source Released More

Helix Server Source Released

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  • Really Free? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AirLace ( 86148 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2003 @08:28AM (#5134447)
    I think the crunch test will come when Debian assesses the Helix server for eligibility. Until then, I'm treating this cautiously based on experience with Real. Without free codecs, this is useless anyway so it'll be interesting to see to what extent they've embraced Ogg Vorbis and the other technologies from Xiph.

    • Re:Really Free? (Score:2, Funny)

      by 10Ghz ( 453478 )
      I think the crunch test will come when Debian assesses the Helix server for eligibility.


      Well, Real would then have plenty of time to sort out any licensing-issues. Looking at the speed of upgrades to Debian, this issue becomes relevant sometime in 2008 (about the same time HURD is officially released).

    • Re:Really Free? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by cscx ( 541332 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2003 @08:43AM (#5134547) Homepage
      Um, no.

      Frankly, and don't take this the wrong way, no one cares about Ogg Vorbis except for Slashdotters. When talking about streaming media, you have only two and a half choices: Windows Media and Real Media (QuickTime is only half supported, if not for its typical clunky Apple streaming solution. Streaming OGG Vorbis on mainstream websites, or on any site for that matter that asks the user to "download something else" will force users away. In short, never gonna happen, stick with the proven market leaders.

      • People who say "um, no" are simple (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Acidic_Diarrhea ( 641390 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2003 @08:55AM (#5134620) Homepage Journal
        Listen, back in the day, the Netscape Navigator was the number one "Internet" browser. By your logic, they should still be the market leader since they once were. Oddly enough, they aren't. You see, your statement that because something is a proven commodity guarantees that no other product will replace it goes against everything in business. I think you should apologize for not thinking this out thoroughly. Ogg vorbis could become the de facto standard with the right company behind it and the correct market conditions. Users will downoad "something else" if the market dictates that they have to or all their friends do it. Trust me, stranger things have happened.
        • Times have changed. We've now reached a point where (and I hesitate to say) more and more computer-illiterate people are using computers. Most commodity PCs ship with WMP and Real for ease of conveience. They don't want to be bothered installing something else. 90% of websites with streaming multimedia content still want to cater to this clientele. Now tell me how this will adversely affect their decision...?
          • Yes, most commodity PC's ship with the same software but you're saying that this will never change and I am telling you that you're wrong. If MS were to suddenly take up Ogg vorbis and begin throwing their weight behind it, you should realize that it would quickly become a standard. You are basically saying that "Ogg vorbis will never become mainstream because it isn't mainstream." I am telling you that the possibility exists for a market shift and ogg vorbis becoming a standard. Yes, websites will cater to their clientele, obviously. You're not saying anything revolutionary with that statement. You're missing the point though. I'm not saying a shift would come from the websites now am I? In fact, I merely said that conditions within the market COULD lead to a shift. You're denying this possibility because you're being short-sighted. Your last sentence used a rather ambiguous "this" and "their" so I won't bother with that. I'm right and you're wrong.
            • I am not a software project manager, but I would be willing to bet that Microsoft spent a ridiculous amount of money developing Windows Media Player and its associated codecs over the past few years, much as they did with Internet Explorer. I find it highly unlikely that they are going to jettison everything they have worked on in favor of Ogg. That makes about as much sense as hacking explorer.exe to work with the Linux kernel rather than the NT kernel.

              Oh, wait, that was already suggested a few days ago, right?
              • Alright alright chief, settle down. First of all, I don't know what you are but you're not a "reader." I never said anything about the likelihood of Ogg vorbis taking off because of Microsoft's influence. The root was saying that Ogg vorbis would never gain in popularity. I was refuting that. Where in any of my posts did I say anything about likelihoods? Come on, point it out.

                Is this the post you've been planning all day long Bill? Don't waste my time.

            • Gee, I don't know who to listen to here, the guy with "Acidic Diarrhea" for a nick, or the guy with http://www.analse.cx/ [analse.cx] for his homepage...
        • "Users will downoad "something else" if the market dictates that they have to"

          Flash for example

          Nick
        • Trust me, stranger things have happened.

          Yeah, like people started using that ghetto realvideo shit in the first place. It does seem to have the best streaming, but it has the worst video quality of any of the most popular options; this has been true pretty much throughout its life. Even at higher bitrates it tends to look like crap.

          THIS is the time for some codec to take dominance; Quicktime streams like shit (in some situations, shit streams infinitely better) and WMV looks like crap and is too DRM-friendly for our happiness. This is the time for some MPEG4 codec to take the lead. Perhaps this streaming server could be the delivery mechanism, and DivX the payload... I could give a shit whether you use mp3 or ogg for the audio, especially since I waited for ogg-avi audio support FOREVER.

      • Re:Really Free? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2003 @09:03AM (#5134668)
        any site for that matter that asks the user to "download something else" will force users away

        Considering that WinAmp has had Vorbis support built in for ages now, and WinAmp is extremely popular even amongst all my non-geek friends, I doubt it'd actually "force" as many users away as you might think.

        Anyway, last time I checked RealPlayer didn't come included with Windows either?

      • I wonder how you explain the success of the divx codec.

      • Re:Really Free? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by blincoln ( 592401 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2003 @10:22AM (#5135234) Homepage Journal
        Streaming OGG Vorbis on mainstream websites, or on any site for that matter that asks the user to "download something else" will force users away. In short, never gonna happen, stick with the proven market leaders.

        I switched from mp3 to ogg for my website, and out of ~1000 unique users/week, I've received two or three emails where people had trouble.

        I can see WM as being about on par (end-user wise) with Vorbis, but Real? Come on. Realaudio still sounds straight out of 1995. RealPlayer/One is incredibly buggy (how can installing a media player manage to destabilize an entire NT4 or 2k system?!), it's full of ads, and user control of content is very limited.

        Besides, Vorbis is free. That's already managed to convince a number of game companies to use it as the compression standard in their products (e.g. Soul Reaver 2 and Blood Omen 2 for the PC).

        • Re:Really Free? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by benwaggoner ( 513209 ) <ben DOT waggoner AT microsoft DOT com> on Wednesday January 22, 2003 @01:46PM (#5136893) Homepage
          While there is legacy support for the 1995 RealAudio codecs, the modern stuff is really very good.

          Anyone encoding music or soundtracks should be using the RealAudio Stereo Music 8 codecs. At lower data rates, this uses Real's in-house "Cook" codec, and at higher data rates a streaming-optimized version of Sony's ATRAC3 from miniDisc.

          While Ogg is a fine format for download and CD-ROM type applications, today it isn't anywhere near mature as Real is for real-time streaming over lossy networks. Of course, with the sub-band stuff, Ogg could get a LOT better for this with further development.
      • "When talking about streaming media, you have only two and a half choices: Windows Media and Real Media (QuickTime is only half supported, if not for its typical clunky Apple streaming solution"

        What on Earth are you talking about? QuickTime's streaming uses open, IETF standard protocols: RTP, RTCP, RTSP, SDP. These are far from 'clunky', and are used by lots of other companies (including RealNetworks). There's nothing Apple-specific about them.

        The only thing that's proprietary about QuickTime are some of the codecs (e.g., Sorenson video and QDM audio) that it can use.

    • Re:Really Free? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Havokmon ( 89874 ) <rick@NospAm.havokmon.com> on Wednesday January 22, 2003 @08:44AM (#5134557) Homepage Journal
      I think the crunch test will come when Debian assesses the Helix server for eligibility. Until then, I'm treating this cautiously based on experience with Real. Without free codecs, this is useless anyway so it'll be interesting to see to what extent they've embraced Ogg Vorbis and the other technologies from Xiph.

      Err.. Insightful? I thought the point of OpenSource was sharing. Now you've got the source for a potentially great streaming media server, and you're bitching about not having the codecs?
      I suppose you'd rather re-write the whole server, AND the codecs yourself instead of just the codecs.

      No, it's not 100% free, but if you're looking for 100% free streaming server there are many already out there.

      If this was Jack Mioff releasing this (half-done) on Sourceforge, you would be hearlding this as another step forward for OpenSource. I guess because it's from Real, they should be able to give you the whole thing for free, right? Wine changed to GPL because they didn't want companies profitting from their code, and not giving anything back. Why do you think a company would be any different?
      Please, be thankful you now have another choice, and if you want a codec, code it yourself.

      • Wine changed to LGPL, which does include GPL but there are important differences and more flexible for commercial developers.

        http://www.winehq.org/docs/wine-faq/t1.shtml#WHI CH -ONE-OF-THE-DIFFERENT-WINE-PACKAGES

      • Re:Really Free? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Steve Hamlin ( 29353 )

        I thought the point of OpenSource was sharing. Now you've got the source for a potentially great streaming media server, and you're bitching about not having the codecs?

        The whole point of Open Source IS sharing.

        The whole point of Free Software, and Debian GNU/Linux, is sharing, free modification and distribution, without limits. You may disagree with their philosphy, but proprietary codecs do not fit in what they believe in.

        I suppose you'd rather re-write the whole server, AND the codecs yourself instead of just the codecs.

        No, they would not rather write the server and codecs themselves, but if the alternative is an Open Source, but non-Free Software, server, along with proprietary codecs, they would rather not use them at all.

        Just a choice they made for themselves. They are not forcing you to accept Debian's terms. The poster you are quoting is just postulating what Debian might do, for its users only, and forced on no one.

    • Without free codecs, this is useless anyway

      Exactly... I have a partition dedicated to inferior software such as the Real Player. If I *really* need to play a Real Media File, then I will boot into it but that is becoming rare these days so I have a feeling that others feel this way, too. They are shooting themselves in the foot if they don't supply a codec for free.
      • They are shooting themselves in the foot if they don't supply a codec for free.

        And according to the news release, that apparently nobody read, you can stream Real and MP3 for free, non-commerically.

        "Helix DNA Server streams MP3, RealAudio® and RealVideo®. RealNetworks intends to add support for MPEG-4 after the MPEG-4 systems license terms have been released by the MPEG-4 licensing body, MPEG LA. Developers can create extensions for other media types such as Windows Media and QuickTime, or they can license these extensions from RealNetworks through the Helix Community. "

        • you can stream Real and MP3 for free, non-commerically.

          I'm talking about the ability to play a RealAudio or RealVideo clip with a legitimate media player that doesn't consume every aspect of the OS. It will never happen (they might talk about it, but it will never happen). And eventually, I can get rid of my bastard software partition.
    • ... but the server does support streaming WMA, QT, etc.

      I've been working on a plugin for the server and can say the SDK is pretty good. A little loose on the docs sometimes, but releasing the source probably will help.

      My plugin didn't deal directly with streaming, but when scanning the docs it looked like they expose the interfaces you would need to integrate new codecs & file formats into the client & server.

      They did have some funky restrictions (as I recall):

      • You can't suggest to the user to change mime-type associations away from realplayer.
      • You can't have any auto-update software except real's update.
      Anyway, I'm just talking about the SDK, I don't know how differently the Helix Comunity [helixcommunity.org] stuff works.

  • Ogg? (Score:2, Redundant)

    by ultrabot ( 200914 )
    Helix DNA Server streams MP3, RealAudio® and RealVideo®. RealNetworks intends to add support for MPEG-4 after the MPEG-4 systems license terms have been released by the MPEG-4 licensing body, MPEG LA.

    Wasn't there supposed to be ogg support?
  • I mean, that is wonderful that it is open-source and all, but why would they do something like this? Do they really want everybody making their own streaming format off of their source code or do they expect people from the OSS community to basically write their code for them?

    • Re:What will this do for us? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      " or do they expect people from the OSS community to basically write their code for them?"

      Why shouldn't they expect it?

      They could just give the OSS world a free(tm) middle finger and be done with it. Instead, they're offering OSS programmers a chance to use their stuff.

      Of course, that's not good enough for most of the people around here - they expect corporations to unexplainably cater to the smallest slice of the market, eh?
    • I guess the're just doing "the descent thing" (releasing the source) because they know that the OSS community will copy & improve it anyway if they don't. Also, it will help them gain market share, mainly as a result of the community porting their stuff to other (hardware) platforms.

    • Commercial penetration of an open platform (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CharlieO ( 572028 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2003 @09:20AM (#5134780)
      Thats what it will do for you.

      The money in streaming media is the server end, the clients are generally given away free or at very low cost - you want people to demand that companies install your server product so there is no point stiffing the consumer.

      This was Real and Microsoft's approach - but of course Microsoft has a real adavantage [pun intended] because it can put a player on every desktop that it sells - so buisnesses in have to buy Microsoft streaming server software because of consumer demand.

      But then people with Mac/*NIX/Set top boxes are cut out of the loop because MS doesn't do players for those platforms, and they won't release the codec details for others to use because then someone could code an alternative streaming server.

      Real is fighting back by offering an open platform server - in this case anyone who wants to write support for thier player can look at the server code and write a plug in for it. The attraction for a buisness is they now potentially can install one streaming server and probably one set of master media files - they can stream media to any player on any platform.

      This gives Real a commercial adavantage over MS becuase MS software needs to run on MS operating systems - and most big internet stuff is still the domain of various *NIX

      Helix could be compiled for your particular choice of OS - thats a definate plus over the MS offering. Even if MS offered binaries for a number of OS's you still don't have as much choice.

      Now what they want is everybody to install Helix as thier streaming server. They win by market penetration and you still have to license the codecs for thier RealPlayer series so they have a revenue stream.

      Real are NOT going to release the codecs open source because that could allow anyone to write server software that works with thier free players and they are rapidly out of buisness - the only other option would be to charge for the players - but people would then use MS players anyway. Either route they are commercially dead.

      So if you want to write TuxPlayerDeluxe then what you do is look at the Helix code and develop a plug in for your player - now you can get buisness to support you. You'll not get a commercial entity to install your homegrown server software on thier servers, but they may use your plug in if you get enough demand, so the success of Helix will help open source media player developers.

      So the advantages are:
      1) Real can offer an all in one solution and hopefully become the prefered solution to Microsoft
      2) Real can continue to make money from licenseing codecs, rather than having to charge for the player.
      3) Anyone can write support for thier favourite player/format

      I mean to me this looks like a finely balanced mix of commercial sense and Open Source support such that Real can make money.

      The good thing is if it works and big commercial streamers - for instance the BBC - switch to Helix then it actually will help the adoption of open source formats like Ogg Vorbis because it will so easy to support.

      Alternatively if MS wins the server software war 90% of the net will not notice, but the rest of us will lose. Bare that in mind when worrying if the codecs are Open Source or not - they never will be - but kicking Real may just play into MS's hands.

      I'm not a great fan of either companies buisness practises - but at least in this case Real is doing something that benefits our community - lets support them on this and maybe in a year or two's time they will do more to support open source.
      • But then people with Mac/*NIX/Set top boxes are cut out of the loop because MS doesn't do players for those platforms, and they won't release the codec details for others to use because then someone could code an alternative streaming server.

        Media Player for the Mac, Media Player 6.4 for Solaris and Media Player for CE are all available. Don't forget Microsoft just started offering the WM9 codecs and DRM [theregister.co.uk] for license. If the codec is, as reported, cheaper than MPEG4, I wonder who will win that little war.

        • So what about Free/Open/NetBSD, Linux, HP-UX, IRIX. Which versions of MacOS, Solaris, CE?

          My point is not about what players are available, and qouting out of context hides that.

          The point is that with open source anyone can compile and port to thier platform of choice, with binary the control is still with the manufacturer.

          Real is looking at the big war about who gets money from the infrastructure, not the little war about specific codecs.

      • so buisnesses in have to buy Microsoft streaming server software because of consumer demand.
        Unlike Real's server product Windows Media Services has always been free (as in beer).
    • I mean, that is wonderful that it is open-source and all, but why would they do something like this?

      They want it easy for other parties (such as telcos) to set up streaming to a variety of clients. Such as mobile phones.

  • Benchmarks? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 22, 2003 @08:42AM (#5134531)
    Now i'm just waiting for someone to do some kind of quantitative or benchmark comparison between this and Darwin Streaming Server [apple.com].

    It's all just RTSP... right? Do the two support any common codecs?

    Are the RSPL and ASPL compatible? I mean, can we take code from Darwin and code from Helix and legally put it into the same app?

  • Codec is More Important (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The only thing I want from Real is the codec for their movie files, and that is only so I can reverse engineer them and not have to use their awful player.

    Granted, Helix will provide a way to get rid of the player, but that just means all the spying Real does will be moved into the codec.

  • Unlimited streaming now? (Score:5, Informative)

    by liebesgruss ( 643738 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2003 @08:42AM (#5134539)
    So we can use more than 1MBit/s for streaming now?
    The 1year-testing-version is limited to this bandwith.

    cheers,
    liebesgruss
    • Yeah no kidding, dumping THE ALL NEW TNN onto my 100 mbit lan can have 15% of my bandwidth, instead of just 1%- Captain Picard will look slightly less bald! w00t! Is there a free encoder yet?
    • The Helix DNA Server has no limits on the maximum delivered datarate other than the natural limits of the underlying platform. Besides, the source for the server is available, so even if there were such imposed capacity limits you could write a helix dna server without them.

    • Yes, the Helix DNA Server allows unlimited bandwidth usage. There's something about this in the FAQ on helixcommunity.org.

      Additionally, with access to the source code, even if a limit was in there you could comment it out. :)

      Dean Collins
      Server Core Technical Lead / SDE
      RealNetworks, Inc.
      Seattle, WA

  • Posted by michael on Wednesday January 22, @08:26AM
    from the beaten-down-by-windows-media-player dept.

    Thanks for the always insightful remarks, Mike, but I'd wager that those of us who give two damns about our privacy would much rather use a cross-platform, free solution such as Helix as opposed to the DRM'ing-you-and-all-your-files program known as Windows Media Player.

    But hey, what do I know, I'm not an omnipotent Slashdot editor.
    • Kind of offtopic, but isn't Real beaten-down-by-windows-media-player? Doesn't Microsoft now controll the market? It was a simple statement of fact and I'm sure michael "would much rather use a cross-platform, free solution such as Helix as opposed to the DRM'ing-you-and-all-your-files program known as Windows Media Player." It's not like it implies that Real/Helix will be beaten by WMP, rather that - in terms of market share - it is (beaten.) At least for now.

    • Re:Yay, it's Michael again! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Mr_Silver ( 213637 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2003 @09:07AM (#5134694)
      Thanks for the always insightful remarks, Mike, but I'd wager that those of us who give two damns about our privacy would much rather use a cross-platform, free solution such as Helix as opposed to the DRM'ing-you-and-all-your-files program known as Windows Media Player.

      Even with all those people out there who do give two damns about their privacy, this still doesn't detract from the fact that Real pretty much has been "beaten-down-by-windows-media-player".

      To put it another way, Windows may not be the operating system of choice for many Slashdotters, but that still doesn't detract from the fact that it has 90% of desktop market share.

    • I'd wager that those of us who give two damns about our privacy would much rather use a cross-platform, free solution such as Helix as opposed to [...] Windows Media Player.

      First off, you're mixing your apples and oranges, comparing servers and clients. WMP and RealPlayer are both the devil's spawn, when it comes to individual users' privacy and rights.

      Hiding Your Choices And Saying You Made Them [slashdot.org] (just this month!!!)
      RealPlayer Uploads Your ID Too [slashdot.org]
      (though, can't forget Big Brother Lifetime Award Goes To Microsoft [slashdot.org])

      Second, "cross-platform" and "free" are hardly synonymous with "privacy". I think you're confusing "free"-as-in-beer with "free"-as-in-liberty. Even "open" code isn't free from being abused to lock you in to solutions. Notice "lock-in" coming up as a recent buzzword at LinuxWorld [businessweek.com]? Wonder where the Slashdot rightousness was then. 'Course it must be okay if it's only companies who are locked into a proprietary solution, right?

      RealNetworks isn't opening Helix out of altruism. They need market share, and this is a (potentially) sound business decision. Don't confuse it with any sort of plan on their part to stop doing everything they can to get more users -- and more information about those users.

      Glad to see that while I was writing this, you got modded back down.
    • But hey, what do I know

      Not much about WMP if you
      a) think that it's "DRM'ing-you-and-all-your-files" and/or
      b) don't know how to turn that feature off.

  • So (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 22, 2003 @08:47AM (#5134569)
    So I guess we like Real now? Real has been one of the worst offenders in hidden opt-in agreements, obnoxious marketing tactics, and borderline spyware reporting of usage metrics back to their home base.

    My, what a fickle crowd we are.

    • Real is moving at the border of legal usage of users information for years now. And they won't change - as this is the only reason why they're still alive.
    • If Bill Gates would turn his back on the darkside and release the windows source he could redeem himself in our eyes too.

      Well done to Real for taking a bold step, and lets hope that they take the even bolder step of releasing their codecs.
      In the mean time how long will it be before we can whip up a working helix based server that steams .oggs?

      • oops (Score:1)

        by valisk ( 622262 )
        It might be even more useful if it can stream .oggs as well (my bad)

      • Oh Yeah (Score:2, Insightful)

        by inteller ( 599544 )
        And when coke turns from the darkside and releases it's formula they'll be redeemed too....you fucks. When will you ever figure out that the people with te secrets are the ones that make money. No secrets, no money.
        • Coke have released the 'source' to their old products on numerous occasion usually in books, Open Cola gave away one of these formulas a year ago on their website, sadly it aint there no more. But I grabbed a copy while it was an I will email it to any interested parties.
          Still I don't see many people brewing their own 1950s vintage style Coke, and why because its easier to buy that £1.25 2 litres of Coke than buy all the lab kit to set it up and produce safe to drink cola.
    • So I guess we like Real now? Real has been one of the worst offenders in hidden opt-in agreements, obnoxious marketing tactics, and borderline spyware reporting of usage metrics back to their home base.

      Well, actually, RealPlayer for Linux behaves rather nicely, and has none of the problems you mention. Perhaps it's time for you to switch to a real (ha!) operating system?

    • Re:So (Score:3, Informative)

      by davetrainer ( 587868 )
      borderline spyware reporting of usage metrics back to their home base


      There's nothing borderline about it [com.com].


      Back in 1999, it was discovered that Real were assigning unique IDs to RealJukebox users and profiling them without their knowledge. Real were subjected to a federal probe [com.com] and slapped with two lawsuits [com.com]. Even then, were Real compelled to stop what they were doing? Nah, they just issued a patch that maybe 10% of all users even knew existed.


      Real have cleaned up their act since then, but clearly their past arrogance has left a bad taste in the mouths of many users.

    • I'll consider starting to like them if they stop spamming and apologize.
    • So I guess we like Real now?. ... My, what a fickle crowd we are.

      Why does this sort of foolishness always get moderated up? Here are some clues for the clearly clueless:

      1. Slashdot is composed of a wide variety of people with varying opinions. Despite popular opinion Slashdot is not a hivemind. As a result the singular "voice" of Slashdot is a bit confused. You'll find this to be true of any forum with many voices. Would you equally complain that the Republican party is fickle because some Republicans are pro-abortion while others are anti-abortion?
      2. Slashdot tries (and sometimes succeeds at) to report news for nerds. Even if Slashdot has a strong anti-Real bias, the release of this source code is newsworthy to many of the nerds reading. Similarly some of Slashdot's readers are extremely anti-large media, so Slashdot posts anti-large media stories ("Attacks on Copyright"). Other Slashdot readers are very pro-large media, so Slashdot posts pro-large media stories ("New Movie Coming Out").
      3. You can't simply label a person or a company as Good or Bad. Most people are a bit more complex. If you believe that Free Software is Good but sleezy marketing is Bad, then Real's release is Good but their proprietary software is Bad. Depending on how you weigh things you personally might decide that Real is generally more Good than Bad, or more Bad than Good. You can still applaud the good works while condemning the bad works. Similarly, Bill Gates donates lots of money to various charities. I think this is good. Bill Gates also knowingly lead his company to use monopoly power to squash competitors. I think this is bad. I'm not fickle or hypocritical, just appreciating the Bill Gates is a complex individual. It is extremely rare for people or companies to be Entirely Good or Entirely Bad.

  • w00t (Score:4, Funny)

    by Tuxinatorium ( 463682 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2003 @09:02AM (#5134659) Homepage
    Now I can, umm yeah, look at the source code for my helix server and, if I feel like it, make a monumental waste of time debugging it myself. Wow, that's great. I'm totally not being sarcastic.

    Open source is overrated. When it comes to software, free as in beer is about 100x more important to the average consumer than free as in source code.

    • Re:w00t (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ergo98 ( 9391 )
      When it comes to software, free as in beer is about 100x more important to the average consumer than free as in source code.

      I think you're underestimating the ratio there. It is ironic how over-estimated open source really is, rather than being seen for what it often really is

      -A last ditch, before being kicked in the grave attempt by an organization to re-invent themselves around a failing product, hoping to get some massive free labour.

      -A shirking of normal software development responsibilities. This weekend I had to go spelunking through masses of code for a famous open source product to find a trivial feature that wasn't documented at all. A lot of people have a "throw the code over the wall" mentality that relieves them of documentation, good user interfaces, or even making a stable product (How many times have we heard on here "You've got the code! Fix it!").

      • Re:w00t (Score:1, Offtopic)

        by greenrd ( 47933 )
        A shirking of normal software development responsibilities.

        Why is it irresponsible to release an open source project without documentation? Why should a donor to the community be morally obligated to work on things that you consider important? Be grateful that anything was released at all.

        Besides, what have you contributed to the open source community lately? If you've contributed zero and someone else has contributed 100,000 lines, it's a bit rich you moralising against them for not doing even more work to benefit you. I don't object to criticism, what I object to is this moralising that somehow releasing an alpha quality product is worse than nothing.

        If I pay $1000 for a product I expect it to be of a high quality. But if I pay $0 I don't expect anything much.

        • Of course, for a grand you often don't get very much either. I can't count how many times in the last year I've wanted to source to something we bought from a third party because of a trivial bug that they aren't interested in fixing. Or how many times I've had to talk my company into paying for support fees because the documentation shipped was incomplete or wrong. And yet, we STILL keep going for ridiculously overpriced commercial software over open-source alternatives. Sigh.

          Major companies, too. Like Oracle. Who I am growing to hate more and more every day, because of a ridiculously overpriced product, poorly indexed documentation (although vast quantities of it), and loads of trivial, crappy little bugs in thier damn database drivers.

      • Re:w00t (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Shads ( 4567 )
        > (How many times have we heard on here
        > "You've got the code! Fix it!").

        About as many times as I've heard people whining over a product that I'm producing in my freetime, for no money, because it does something *I* need it to do, which I decided might benefit someone else so I made the code public domain.

      • Re:w00t (Score:3, Insightful)

        by ChaosDiscord ( 4913 )
        It is ironic how over-estimated open source really is, rather than being seen for what it often really is

        -A last ditch, before being kicked in the grave attempt

        Yes, some software is open sourced as a last ditch rescue attempt. So what? Most of that software proceeds to fail and we forget about it. The successful open source software (Apache, Gnome, KDE, Gnumeric, Linux, GCC, GIMP, and others) isn't. It's software started for the sole purpose of providing the software in an open source way.

        -A shirking of normal software development responsibilities.

        Normal software development responsibilities typically come with a paycheck. If you'd like to pay for the software, I'm sure you can get the support and improvements you're interested in. There are even companies dedicated to this.

        Many open source projects have exceptional documentation, great user interfaces, and are exceptionally stable. Sure, you'll find open source software with bad documentation, poor user interfaces, and are unstable. Of course, you'll also find proprietary software with these same flaws. I'm sure you avoid crappy proprietary software, so just start avoiding crappy open source software. Meanwhile people who do like the crappy open source software will keep working to improve it, perhaps to a level you're willing to use, or someone might decide to try a business model around supporting the software, bringing it to a level you'd accept. With open source software I have additional options. If I'm dissatisfied with the interface or stability, I can fix it or hire someone else to fix it. There is typically an abundance of for-sale documentation for popular open source products (sure, it costs money, but since the software was cheap, spend some of your savings on a book).

        Relatedly, could you point to the definition of ironic you're using? I'm not seeing one that matches your use.

    • Open source is overrated. When it comes to software, free as in beer is about 100x more important to the average consumer than free as in source code.

      So what? Yes, most people don't appreciate the freedom of the source code. Most people also don't appreciate the freedom to repair their own cars. People tend to think short term costs. But that they don't care about the long term benefits doesn't invalidate those benefits.

      No, you might not want to debug the Helix source. Great. But the open release still provide you with advantages. Previously, if you had a problem with the server or want a change, you had to go to Real. If Real wasn't interested you were out of luck. Now they have competition. If there is demand businesses will grow up around supporting and modifying the source in ways Reals won't. If there isn't demand you can still hire someone to do the work. You've just gained some options, but you can still go to Real if you want.

      Of course, it may be that there isn't enough demand to create dedicated businesses, and the cost of hiring someone to make the change will also be unreasonable. Such is life, not all options pan out. But if the software remained proprietary the options would never have had a chance.

  • That's nice. Call me when the client works (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2003 @09:13AM (#5134732) Homepage Journal
    I applaud Real for releasing their server in this fashion.

    Now, when the client for Linux will actually work with Mozilla, will actually play content that is available without generating spurious "You need to be root to update this" messages, and is actually easily found on the main Real site without resorting to using Google, then perhaps I might get excited about this.

    But a server without a client is nigh useless. And if you want to say "But the client for Windows works great" - yes, but then so does Windows Media Player, and it comes pre-installed.

  • what I'd like to see (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Slyder ( 30950 )
    Someone should take the MMS protocol description from http://sdp.ppona.com/ and write in support for that. Since it would be basically a clean-room implementation for compatability with the WMP based off the documentation the SDP project provides, there shouldnt be any legal issues. I almost started a stand-alone version of that, but we've more or less dropped the media side of our business, and I'm busy w/ other things.
  • I wonder about all these companies that have to come up with their own licenses. I had some understanding when netscape did it (they being one of the first big companies doing major open source and perhaps finding the gpl/bsd "extremes" unappealing), but now that they, ibm, and others have released tweaked licenses that are (presumably) more friendly to business, is there really need for another one, or are the lawyers just extracting $$$?

    -- p
    • now that they, ibm, and others have released tweaked licenses that are (presumably) more friendly to business, is there really need for another one, or are the lawyers just extracting $$$?

      Change "licenses" to "operational support systems" and "lawyers" to "Big 5 consultants" and you'll find many more examples of the same phenomenon. The easiest solution for a manager who needs something his own staff can't provide is to hire an outside expert and pay by the hour until he gets something he can live with. The outside consultants or lawyers pull together all their old documentation, global replace "Old Company Name" with "New Company Name", and start running the meter. When you ask the parties involved why this SAP (for instance) implementation is so different from any other in the same industry, they'll mumble something about "comparative advantage".

      Open source may eventually rein in this phenomenon in software (not sure about licensing), but that will require managers to realize that they can get by just fine using the same shovels and rakes that their competition uses.

      later,
      Jess

  • Could someone PLEASE explain to me what the big deal is with this realserver.

    If from what I can tell is that it serves up streaming RealVideo, then I don't really see why this is so terrific.

    I remember ignoring the last 500 sites that had videos in RealPlayer only format simply cuz it's the most annoying thing in the world to install on your Windows PC. God damn thing hoggs memory, sits in your system tray for eternity... etc..

    Wouldn't it be just as easy to have a windows media object in your webpage.

    Please note: I'm not discussing multi-platform related issues.

    --Zaqintosh

    Sig sigga... WHO stole the keys to ma beema!
  • please hack that "Real" thing. I'm paying 4.95$ a month to listen to Nascar races and maintaining a win98 partition for that reason. By the way, I like free beer...
  • I'd think this could be good if they release code (or someone figures it out from the server code) for the client so we can be rid of the of the real client once and for all. If it can be a spyware-free plugin for any application, real might actually become useful. I'd rather not use either microsoft's latest client or any version of real if I can help it.

    As far as I can tell, neither company has produce a viable "media player" since MS media player 6.4. College kids programming in their free time are putting out better programs to play media files, so maybe we should leave the client interface development out of the hands of the clueless (MS and Real).
  • Guys,

    Yes, the default license doesn't include the codecs, but there is an attachment that will give you access to them. The license is somewhat more restrictive. Among other things, there is a $0.25 fee per decoder for commercial products.

    But, if you want to look at the source code for the codecs, its availalbe. Certainly not free software, but arguably open source.

    https://www.helixcommunity.org/content/licenses# po rting
  • Folks,

    Go to http://www.helixcommunity.org

    Just started at 11am PST. They're taking live questions.

    • Hi, I was one of the RealNetworks panelists for this webcast. First, I wanted to thank all those who participated for their great questions! If your questions didn't make it in during the time we had available, or have additional questions, please get them to us either via the e-mail lists or via IRC. Visit https://www.helixcommunity.org/ and https://helix-server.helixcommunity.org/ for details. This second URL is where you can find the technical articles I referenced.

      Thanks!

      Dean Collins
      Server Technical Lead / SDE
      RealNetworks, Inc.

  • And who submited this? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anenga ( 529854 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2003 @03:18PM (#5137720)
    Why Helix's Community Coordinator at RealNetworks [slashdot.org] of course!
  • I had problems installing the Helix server on FreeBSD 4.7 i386.. The XML module wouldn't compile which caused the entire compilation to fail. The fix is to add the following line to common/lang/xml/pub/xmlesc.h prior to the #endif // _XMLCONV_H_ line.

    const char* strnstr (const char *&, const char[4], UINT32 &);

    Then re-run the build and it should compile fine.

    • Thanks for pointing this out. It builds on my FreeBSD 4.3 box, but from what you describe, a slightly cleaner fix for FreeBSD 4.7 is probably to change this (line 1129 of common/lang/xml/xmlesc.cpp):

      "://", ulLen);

      To be:

      (const char*)"://", ulLen);

      Does this fix the problem as well?

      Above all, I encourage you to take this up at dev@server.helixcommunity.org where it will be easier to get assistance.

      Dean Collins
      Server Core Technical Lead / SDE
      RealNetworks, Inc.
      Seattle, WA

  • Bwahahaha. That's a good one!

  • Does Helix include RDT support? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by __aawsxp7741 ( 78632 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2003 @04:45PM (#5138512)

    Currently, realplayer still seems to be the only option for those wanting to play realaudio streams. Quite annoying, especially when trying to record internet radio. mplayer still can't do this, for example. live.com [live.com] has some info on this. Seems the protocol is undocumented.

    So, I'm wondering whether the Helix server or possibly client contains code documenting RDT, which would allow either integrating that code into the live.com libraries, or at least reimplementing it.

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