RSSReal Pushes Open Source Media Player
By David Worthington | Published August 12, 2003, 2:31 PM
This past week at LinuxWorld, Real Networks announced its latest endeavor: an open source digital audio and video player for Linux, Unix and Solaris that meets the quality of the company's flagship RealOne product.
The Helix Player, in conjunction with bundled RealAudio and RealVideo binaries, will conform to Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL 2.0) standards set forth by the World Wide Web consortium. Real's goal is to develop a player for millions of users to experience the same richness of its Mac OS X and Windows brands.
According to a Real Spokesperson, the Helix Player is being built on top of Real's cross-platform open source media engine, the Helix DNA Client. By design, its modular nature is intended to easily port over to all available desktop operating systems, and beyond the desktop to embedded and portable devices.
Initial Linux and Solaris distributions will adhere to freedesktop.org standards using the GTK+ toolkit.
Real contends that its support of open source projects is longstanding. In a statement, Nagesh Pabbisetty, Real's vice president for Helix Products and Solutions said, "For years, RealNetworks has offered Servers, Gateways and other enterprise commercial software on Linux. We are thrilled to now build, in collaboration with members of the Helix open source community, the best media player for Linux, as yet more evidence of our longstanding commitment to Linux."
Older RealPlayer code currently ships with several distributions of Linux.
The Helix Project was formed last year as a "collaborative effort among RealNetworks, independent developers, and leading companies." Its focus has thus far been on creation, delivery and playback. A Helix DNA client, producer, and server have been released as part of the initiative, and the Helix player is intended to complete the circle by reaching end users.
In addition to Real's own codecs, the popular open audio format Ogg Vorbis is being integrated into the Helix DNA client, according to Jack Moffitt, CEO of Xiph.org.
Volunteers are said to be instrumental to this effort. Real encourages commercial developers to sign up for membership in the Helix Community. There is also a fund to drive research, with grants upwards of $75,000 USD available to worthy recipients.
If all goes to plan, timelines on the Helix Community Web site plot out a course to having the first Helix Player build available by next quarter.
It's slow and clunky on windows and mac. Why then would anyone want a slow clunky player for linux? i am talking about the "helix" player. I also noticed as real ads more bloat the overall quality of the steams get worse.
I just don't think that this is a good idea.
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|I have a real producer for linux I thought that real already had a player for linux?
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|Real has a player for Linux, yes, but the Helix suite is a different product entirely. One of the main differences is that the source code for Helix is available --- the Realplayer has always been closed-source.
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|I am the program manager of this project. There was a lot of interest shown in the project at Linuxworld and subsequently. This is an open source project that is just starting up and we would love all the help and input that we can get. Right now you can find preliminary architecture and specs on our project page and initial codebase for you to look at. Whether you are a developer or user, I hope you can come take a look and help make our project a stupendous open source success. Please feel free to email me or the project mailing lists with questions, suggestions and comments.
-Vikram Dendi
Program Manager (Helix Player)
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|As previously discussed though, the fact that the player itself is open-source has nothing to do with the codecs for RealAudio and RealVideo. Those are still proprietary and binary only.
So Real Networks "commitment to open-source" still seems a bit weak. Especially considering some of the conditions buried in REal's licensing agreements for this "open-source" project. (RSCL and RSPL)
FAce it, why would Real have had to create their own unique open-source licenses except to make sure that those licenses are specifically slanted to benefit Real.
I especially like the parts where Real will allow you to develop commercial products under their licenses, but you have to (in addition to paying royalties to Real) grant them back a "a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual and irrevocable license, to the extent of Your Intellectual Property Rights covering Your Error Corrections, Shared Modifications and Reformatted Specifications, to use, reproduce, modify, display and distribute Your Error Corrections, Shared Modifications and Reformatted Specifications, in any form, including the right to sublicense such rights through multiple tiers of distribution."
In other words, while you are paying Real royalties on the product you are selling, not only does Real get your product for free......they can legally sell your product as well without paying you anything....or even give 10 million copies of your product away for free and put you out of business.
Forget their "open-source" claims.....while they do give you a copy of the source code for SOME things...they have enough restrictions on it that they remain in 100% TOTAL control of anything you ever do with it.
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|Join us at the helixcommunity IRC channel.
irc.helixcommunity.org #helix
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