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Music Media

RealNetworks Releases Helix DNA Producer Source 205

Posted by timothy from the where-will-the-spiral-take-go dept.
Rob Lanphier writes "We just released the Helix DNA Producer, a multi-format media-encoding engine for creating streaming broadcasts, on-demand streaming content, and downloadable audio video files. It supports RealAudio, RealVideo and Ogg Vorbis, and includes many input and output filters, variable bitrate encoding support, option for two-pass encoding, audio gain control, Firewire support. Press release is here and a couple of stories are here(1) and here(2)." Here's a page that details the licenses under which the code can be obtained.
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RealNetworks Releases Helix DNA Producer Source More

RealNetworks Releases Helix DNA Producer Source

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  • GPL violations? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by I Am The Owl ( 531076 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @10:43PM (#4850299) Homepage Journal
    Are they releasing their encoder as Open Source? I'd like to see the source, because otherwise, with including Ogg support and everything, they look like they're violating the GPL.

    We better stop them fast before they steal any more of our freedom.

    • Re:GPL violations? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Enry ( 630 ) <enry.wayga@net> on Monday December 09, 2002 @10:48PM (#4850339) Journal
      OGG isn't GPL'd. It has a BSD license.

    • Yeah, Peter....What's Happening... (Score:4, Funny)

      by mdechene ( 607874 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @10:49PM (#4850346)
      Didn't you get the memo?

      That was the entire point of their Helix Project.......

      So if you could just put the new cover sheet on, that'd be great........And I'll see you get another copy of the memo.
    • Yeah, but even so,if we dont allow (big evil) corperations to use the .ogg it'll never catch on more than it already has, the fact that it's being included more in things like this could be a good thing. And besides, the Xiph.org foundation still controls the open standard.

    • Re:GPL violations? (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      OGG is not GPL for this very reason.
    • If you bothered to click on the "Here's a page that details the licenses" link at the top of the page...

      RealNetworks Public Source License (RPSL) - the no-cost open source license that requires the developer to make his/her entire work available under the RPSL or a combination of the RPSL and a compatible open source license.

      It's viral, like the GPL. Other than that, at first glance, it seems OK.

    • Re:GPL violations? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Unless they've recently changed things they are open sourcing everything aside from the realplayer 7/8/9 codecs themselves (which means they open source the player, the encoding software, the helix framework). These codecs will be available as binaries, and released under a licence that permits free use. The licence cannot be revoked, unlike mp3.
  • I am stunned that Real Networks would want to take such a viral model as the GPL and incorporate it into their own source licensing schemes. What could motivate a company to do such a thing?

    They have a moral obligation to release their code under the BSD license, so that it is free for all to use and we don't get the jackbooted source code police busting down your door after trying to make an honest buck selling your own improvements to their source code. What a bunch of anti-innovation socialists.

    • >> I am stunned that Real Networks would want to take such a viral model as the GPL and incorporate it into their own source licensing schemes. What could motivate a company to do such a thing?

      Because the only thing worse than not being able to profit from a work, is seeing someone else profit from it.

      They'd go absolutely bonkers if someone else wrapped it up in a nice, pretty, seamless UI and made a buck.
    • They have a moral obligation to release their code under the BSD license . . . What a bunch of anti-innovation socialists.

      Nice troll. They wrote the code, they can do what they want with it.

    • Re:RPSL takes away freedom (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I am stunned that Real Networks would want to take such a viral model as the GPL and incorporate it into their own source licensing schemes. What could motivate a company to do such a thing?
      Real are getting eaten alive by Microsoft in the same way Netscape was (ie, microsoft ships competing software with the system). Real will lose unless they get their framework popular, and as there aren't any good quality free streaming video codecs (theora isn't ready, h.323 isn't low bandwidth) Real actually has a chance to survive. The best way analogy is the Mozilla Organisation.

      BSD would not protect them from Microsoft.

      See my AC comment (#4850475) for how much Real is actually giving away though.

    • we don't get the jackbooted source code police busting down your door after trying to make an honest buck selling your own improvements to their source code.

      Gee, thanks, you little theiving bastard. How do you consider selling someone else's code as your own to be "making an honest buck?"
    • They have a moral obligation to release their code under the BSD license

      Dude, this is Slashdot. You have to lay the sarcasm on just a little less thick.

  • With the amount of spyware that Real is spreading (Score:5, Funny)

    by saskboy ( 600063 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @10:47PM (#4850329) Homepage Journal
    Real already knows my genenetic code they have so much junk watching me when I install Real software with default options. They've probably figured out a way to have my monitor probe my brain.

    Paranoia? I don't think so...
    • Real already knows my genenetic code/i

      So that's what they're using in the Helix DNA Producer!
    • Real already knows my genenetic code they have so much junk watching me when I install Real software with default options. They've probably figured out a way to have my monitor probe my brain.

      Paranoia? I don't think so...

      I know that was supposed to come across as funny, but it also - I think intentionally - misses the point. This is a source distribution, it will not have spyware. If it did, you'd just remove it, wouldn't you? Or move on to another project, so it's a safe bet Realnetworks won't do that.

  • i wonder... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Scaebor ( 587064 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @10:49PM (#4850345)
    One of my main problems with realplayer (and other real products) is the fact that it dumps all manner of ad- and spy-ware on my computer whenever i install it. Therefore, i wonder if the lisence includes stipulations about including advertising software despite the rest of the project being open source. Other than a scheme such as this one, I can't see how a company with a financial scheme like Real could get much benefit out of this arrangement. After all, I find it hard to imagine a large company such as this one just trying to do the Right Thing by the open source people.

    • Re:i wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tempest303 ( 259600 ) <jensknutson@@@yahoo...com> on Monday December 09, 2002 @10:56PM (#4850407) Homepage
      I think part of the whole point of releasing the source is to allow people to build their own tools, sans spyware, et al.

      I'm what some might call a GPL "bigot", but I still think what Real is doing is definitely a Good Thing. Who would you rather have at the forefront of the streaming media industry? Would we really prefer the other major player [microsoft.com] in this battle instead?

      I'm no fan of adware or lame popups, but if forced to choose, I'll take Real over Redmond any day, thanks.

      • No. (Score:1)

        by DAldredge ( 2353 )
        The whole point of releasing the source if so Real can get some good/free PR. Otherwise why are the important parts provided in object code form only?
        • Uhm.. because they are not their own to begin with? The video and audio are licensed from others.
        • Helix is mostly open source. That's a good thing.

          Some of it is not. That's unfortunate.

          Real has been an annoying company, what with spyware and such. That's unfortunate.

          Real is realeasing code you can either play with, or ignore. That's a good thing.

          If Real gets a benefit from giving away code in terms of PR, browney points or Slashdot Karma, what's the problem, again? That would be the case because some people, somewhere, appreciated what Real did.

          Of course there's a strategy behind doing so, and I suspect it isn't quick what RMS would prefer. If that weren't the case, we'd be chatting about this on Fucked Company instead of here.(Which is not to assert GPLed software can't support a company - if that were the case, I'd have a little problem.)

          -j
    • That's one of the best parts of it. As far as I could tell, there's nothing intrusive in the client at least, or at least that I could see with a quick glance. Annoyingly I couldn't get it to compile anyway, but I think it has great potential to be the best media player available for windows. Mplayer pretty much has it beat on the linux front since the recent QT S3 and WM9 support means it can play every format and codec I've ever heard of. But a player that can handle even almost all formats, propritary or otherwise stands a very good chance of gaining ground with windows users.Sure winamp with the apropriate plugins can act as a cover over realplayers dlls, but it's enough of a trouble to get everything set up that I believe a lot of people would rather just have one player able to handle everything from the moment of instalation. I mentioned to a friend just how barebones the current client gui build is, and I was surprised to get an instant request to burn it for her next time she was over.

      And I think that's the reason they're willing to go this route. Windows users have pretty much let out a collective shout that they're not going to put up with realplayer anymore, and this gives them a chance to regain users enough that they can sell support and server software. Though the latter is just speculation on my part.

    • Re:i wonder... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Soko ( 17987 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @11:45PM (#4850845) Homepage
      OK.

      I did a quick read of the RPSL and there's nothing at all in there about advertising, or the requirement thereof. What that means (at first blush anyway) is if there's code in Helix that you don't like, you are free (even encouraged) to rip it out and then give the changes back to Real. Problem?

      I thought it hard to imagine that Netscape would open thier code up too - but here I am typing away on Moz. No ads, no crap - just a browser, and a fantastic one at that. Tried Netscape 7 recently? It's almost as bad as Real 8.0 was for marketing and ads.

      I would imagine that Real is trying to shift thier business model - capitalise on the smarts of the developer community, and cash in on support and consulting. Y'know - the code lives, we know it best and Microsoft can't kill us anymore. Better chance at survival that way than trying to pry WMP 9.0 out of Longhorn.

      Real has been in Microsoft's sights for a while - and since OSS seems to be armour plating against Bill & Co. in the minds of the IT business community, this makes buisness sense. (OK, sort of.) Who said "The enemy of my enemy is my friend.", anyway?

      Soko

  • How about the server? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by quinto2000 ( 211211 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @10:51PM (#4850361) Homepage Journal
    Is there any Free streaming media server that is robust and supports open codecs? I'd even be willing to make some compromises. Of the proprietary codecs, Real is the best. Is there any free way to stream it? Darwin Streaming Media is no good because it only supports proprietary codecs and the inferior ones (in installed base at least) at that.
    • Real codecs are not that good. You can use Windows Media Encoder [microsoft.com] to do live streaming. It's free, but proprietary. Free (non proprietary) video codecs are kind of rare, but for audio, MP3 and OGG streaming is the best.
      • I think I'll stay away from WMV, since I'm targetting installation on a Sparc server. I forgot to mention that part, but it explains why Free is crucial.
      • Thats a joke right? Or you are a troll? Or you need eyeglasses?

        http://www.realnetworks.com/company/press/releas es /2002/keylab_rv9.html --> That is a press release

        Or go ask anyone (dozens of millions of them) why they chose to download Realplayer while "free" wmedia exists on their system.

        Oh also, I want to view video on my Nokia 7650, only Realplayer supports it, soon.

        Where is multi platform support for Windows Media? Lets say, they did it... Where is multi platform support for the intended audience?

        Slashdot, please stop posting Real headlines to frontpage. Guy speaks about a major breakthrough on media serving, for us, media workers, damn article is filled with spyware shouters etc.
        • Slashdot, please stop posting Real headlines to frontpage. Guy speaks about a major breakthrough on media serving, for us, media workers, damn article is filled with spyware shouters etc.

          Releasing the source is a wonderful step on the part of Real. But hassling them over spyware is fair, too. Few companies or people do everything perfectly and both praise and complaint are useful for moving them in a better direction.
          • problems is , guys have never been spyware. They have never sent your private info to servers etc.

            Steve Gibson (the nanoprobe guy) tells its spyware, because it sends your system info to real when you are a _registered customer_ (not user) and click "help"

            Well, hard to mention on slashdot, being anti-real is a tradition here while "others" (wmedia, apple etc) didn't even care to code a native app for *nix.. Anyways
      • It`s not free atall, you need a non-free os to run the encoder and server, and you need a non-free os to act as a client. This is like the free mudflaps and carpets you get with a ford car, theyre not free atall because theyre useless without a ford to put them in.
        What`s more, your actively shutting out the increasing number of users who are not using windows clients.
        Real may not be perfect, but atleast they provide a player for a wide range of systems.

    • Re:How about the server? (Score:5, Informative)

      by robla ( 4860 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @11:04PM (#4850458) Homepage Journal
      Our server will be released early next year. It's in the FAQ [helixcommunity.org].

      • Re:How about the server? (Score:5, Informative)

        by robla ( 4860 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @11:44PM (#4850839) Homepage Journal
        One thing I should clarify now....we are planning to release our server software under the terms of the RCSL only (our community source license) rather than RPSL (our open source license). The client and producer have both been released under RPSL/RCSL dual license.

        This may impact your definition of a "free" server. However, the source code will be available to the community in the same way that our client and producer software are.

    • Re:How about the server? (Score:5, Informative)

      by damiam ( 409504 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @11:08PM (#4850497)
      Icecast and Quicktime Streaming Server are both Free. Icecast does Ogg, and QT does MPEG4.
      • Clearly you didn't read my post. I said that I wanted something with an installed base, and the key was streaming media -- not just audio. Icecast is only for audio, and the Apple product I think you're calling QT (really Darwin Streaming Media Server) I had already ruled out due to the a) lack of installed base for QT and b) patent on MPEG4.
        • So you're after a free server, for some maaaagical format that's both widely popular and free of patents?

          Real is the crappest video I've seen, and they're not anwywhere near as popular as they like to say they are, because even the proverbial joe sixpacs and mothers I know loath their software and ask me to help them kill it.
          • I like the fact that I can play back Real media files on Irix and Solaris. It's an important feature for me. Real is definitely the media software with the widest availability/installed base ratio.
            • Well, hard to explain that probably WinXP dual booter loving windows media.

              No need to reply though, those "anti real" karma whores are everywhere. When you call Real spyware, you are 133t :)

              I am waiting for the day MS directly links windows media to winxp etc kernel, UNDOCUMENTED and those WineX ones left in cold.

              Its real funny that Real is called spyware at once, while its more funny that those people seems never installed *nix realplayer, which is completely standalone product...

              OMG, my browser sends my screen resolution, it must be spyware! endings this comment.. ;-)
              • pppht... karma whore... my karma goes up and down like a whore's draws, but it always settles on 50, i don't think i really need to whore all that much.
                • well same here, that +2 shows you have good karma already...

                  So how much did you get paid by microsoft to bitch about Real format?
                  • Who needs to be paid? I can't believe I'm having this conversation with a fellow /.er... the video quality is terrible compared to quicktime or mediaplayer, the software is horrendous, and sticks icons and system tray crap all over the place. Personally I don't like any of the competing video playback software packages, but as crap as it is, media player wins by a mile, simply because like quicktime the quality is good, and unlike quicktime you can view movies full-screen.
    • Sorry, try again.

      Darwin Streaming Server can serve many file types, and many non-propritary formats. These include

      MPEG-1
      MPEG-4
      MP3
      QuickTime movies with non-propritary codecs like H.261 and H.263

      QuickTIme has a packet structure for streaming, fully documented, and anyone and their dog can build a codec that can hint to a QuickTime streaming package. Heck, Darwin Streaming Server can even stream formats QuickTime can't play back, like MPEG-4 Advanced Simple.

      • MPEG4 is a proprietary format with patent and royalty encumbrance that make it in no way superior to Real for freedom. Real offers a good balance between availability on esoteric hardware and operating systems (like Irix) and quality that none of the proprietary codecs you listed offer. Streaming MPEG1 would be ridiculous, come on. And H.261/.263 are not high enough quality. Ideally, I would use a completely open codec if source were available, and then deal with the inconvenience of requiring users to install it, but if I'm choosing between non-ideal solutions, Real is simply the best choice I can see.
        • Patent fees don't mean propritary. MPEG-4, as an ISO standard, is licensed under RAND - Reasonable and Non-Discriminiatory terms. This means no-one gets a sweetheart deal on using it. And it is fully published, with reference software to boot.

          So, while it isn't free as in beer, it is for the most part free as in speech.

          I'm hoping one of the first Helix Producer projects is to hook the Producer preprocessing engine into the MPEG4IP encoding tools (Xvid, plus AAC-LC, plus a muxer) into a good, open source MPEG-4 authoring tool.
        • MPEG4 is a proprietary format with patent and royalty encumbrance that make it in no way superior to Real for freedom.


          Unadulterated bollocks. I can edit, convert, re-encode and generally mess about with my MPEG4 clips all I want. I have to pull teeth to extract content from proprietary Real files, which use patented technology to boot.

          There are open-source implementations of MPEG4 such as Xvid [xvid.org]. With an open-source codec which can create standards-compliant streams, you have the portability required or at least the potential to be covered against the death of the company holding the keys to your media, and more importantly you have immediate control of said media - the ability to convert it to other formats, for instance.

          - Chris

  • Just for the record (Score:2, Insightful)

    by djupedal ( 584558 )
    ...I grew tired of the constant barrage of Real Player updates long ago. It seems they only provide and use thier products as customer info gathering/profiling tools.

    I avoid the use of any 'Real' audio components, both client and server related. There are always other choices.
  • Does it support Ogg Vorbis?....oh wait it does!!

  • Where I meant to link (Score:4, Informative)

    by robla ( 4860 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @11:11PM (#4850516) Homepage Journal
    I meant to link to this Infoworld story [infoworld.com]. Oh well, one day I'll learn how cut 'n paste works under X. ;)

  • real (Score:3, Insightful)

    by chunkwhite86 ( 593696 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @11:22PM (#4850623)
    Yes, but does anyone use real format anymore? I thought most indie music streamers used MP3.

    Glad to see this software supports Ogg Vorbis though. I have half my music in Mp3 and the other half in Ogg.

    They didn't mention BSD or GPL license though... hopefully it isn't some BS source license like the microsoft "shared source", that is useless to the OSS community..

    So long as it doesn't have any spyware or adware in it, the source license is reasonable, and the quality is OK, this is probably a Good Thing(tm).

  • Anyone else think it's an insult to an good open codec like Ogg for an evil company like Real to be using it? More and more support for Ogg is great, but why do they do it when they already have their own proprietary codec? This seems similiar to Microsoft announcing that its workers can use Linux if they want to. There are other problems, too. Suppose Ogg becomes the new audio standard like at least some of us are hoping it will. If Ogg is supported by Real apps, then newbies might start using those Real apps to play their Oggs. This has the potential of associating Ogg with some bad stuff, like Real's spyware.
    • Your right.

      OGG should be kept in the dark recesses of obscurity, and never used in any commercial projects.
      • I'm not against allowing Ogg to be commercialized. What I *am* against is having companies like Real do it. They have proven time and again that they can't be trusted. Ask yourself what Real has to gain from this. I can't imgaine them wanting to help the OSS movement, so therefore they must stand to profit from it. How will they profit? Only time will tell. Will the way they profit give Ogg a bad name? I think so.

    • Re:Real is eeeevil! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by GarfBond ( 565331 )
      Umm, your logic doesn't work. MP3 is the current de facto standard for compressed audio. RealJukebox and RealOne both play MP3. Does *anybody* associate MP3 with Real? No!

      If Ogg was the defacto standard, more people than Real would be supporting it. Real's a good step towards further usage of Ogg.

  • There is no source code released for the only interesting part of the system, which is the Real codecs. And the source that was released is under a crappy non-libre license. I guess it's an ok story for the developer section but putting it on the front page lens RealMedia Corp undeserved legitimacy.

    • Re:Story doesn't belong on front page (Score:4, Insightful)

      by robla ( 4860 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @11:40PM (#4850796) Homepage Journal
      There are a *lot* of "interesting" parts to a streaming media system, of which the codecs comprise a small portion. On the client side, there's file format readers, the protocol engine, the audio device management, video alphablending, and an object model to tie it all together. On the producer side, there's input and output filters, variable bitrate encoding support, option for two-pass encoding, audio gain control, Firewire support.

      As for the license, what's wrong with it?
  • From reading this FAQ [helixcommunity.org], it appears that there is no problem with packaging this in a distribution (RH 8.1 w/ Helix?). However, I was unable to find a detailed list of supported codecs. I saw that it supported Real, and Ogg, but what I mean is, How does it compare to Real One Player (Currently not available for linux). Version 8 is the latest I think.
    • Realone is available for linux, but only as an alpha release hidden somewhere in the download section for real8. It still drags a bit behind in some ways compared to 8 though, which makes me very happy to see a mostly open source release of a player from real.What I think it needs most are things I think even I'd be able to handle if I got the time. A new qt or gtk gui (wxwindows would be perfect I think), playlist support, and a few other little matters. Actually being able to cut and paste into real player would be a very nice change!

      As far as codec support, I'm not positive on this count but I believe it has support for real audio/video 9.

  • I'm confused. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Erpo ( 237853 ) on Monday December 09, 2002 @11:35PM (#4850752)
    What is Helix DNA? Is it a good thing or a bad thing?

    On one hand, it's from Real -- the first major media company to release a player that (depending on a few bits in a file) won't let you save an internet multimedia stream, the precursor to modern DRM. Real also brought us RealONE, the most junk-infested media player ever, famous for spraying garbage all over your system without your consent.

    Now they're releasing a player and its source with ogg support built in? If there's one thing we need in the media arena, it's an open file format and codecs to combat proprietary windows media, real, and quicktime. This sounds like it could be really cool.

    But is it for Real?
  • I think the design of software like Helix DNA is just driven by bad habits originating on the Windows platform.

    If you look at the capabilities [helixcommunity.org] of Helix DNA [helixcommunity.org], they would be much better provided by a set of small, specific command line programs, filters, network tools, and CGI programs. It would be much easier to reuse those tools for other purposes, to create new plug-ins, etc.

    Instead, what we seem to be getting (but it's hard to tell because there is almost no documentation on the site), is some big, monolithic program with "plug-ins", which probably ends up being hard to extend, hard to modify, and hard to reuse.

    People should really kick the cross-platform habit. The UNIX/Linux approach to building large software systems and servers out of small command line programs is better than the Windows approach. Having junk designed for Windows ported to Linux is not the right approach and fails to take advantage of the strenghts of the Linux platform.

    • There's plenty of documentation on the site, you just have to know where to look (and we're working on making it easier to get to). I really don't think it would be possible to put together a compelling end-user multimedia application with what you dub the "UNIX/Linux" approach (literally using small command line programs). Could you point to a successful end-user multimedia application that does?
      • I really don't think it would be possible to put together a compelling end-user multimedia application with what you dub the "UNIX/Linux" approach (literally using small command line programs). Could you point to a successful end-user multimedia application that does?

        We are talking about servers here, not end-user applications. On the server side, the UNIX approach has been highly successful: CGI scripts are very widely used.

        The approach would work fine for desktop and viewer software as well; the reason it isn't used as much there is simply that that market is dominated by Microsoft software, Microsoft programmers, and Microsoft development tools. And on Microsoft platforms, huge, monolithic, single-program approaches are just a historical bad habit: the platform really didn't use to support anything else. The sooner people get over it even on Windows, the better for everybody.

        What technical reason do you believe exists that you couldn't take a UNIX approach (small command line tools) to building these kinds of applications?

        • Just about every interesting CGI script on the web these days talks to "huge, monolothic" database server - think PHP. So much for the "UNIX small command-line tool" approach.

          Small command-line tools are appropriate for hacking together text processing filters, but I can't see them being useful for building a multimedia pipeline. If you care about synchronization, then you need in-process and/or shared memory communication, not a unix pipe.
          • Just about every interesting CGI script on the web these days talks to "huge, monolothic" database server - think PHP.

            Some do, some don't. And database servers are also way overused anyway, for pretty much the same reasons that people build monolithic programs: they have grown up on cumbersome platforms like Windows or mainframes, where they don't have a choice.

            Small command-line tools are appropriate for hacking together text processing filters, but I can't see them being useful for building a multimedia pipeline.

            Well, from personal experience, I can tell you: they work very well.

            If you care about synchronization, then you need in-process and/or shared memory communication, not a unix pipe.

            No, you don't. Even if you demultiplex and multiplex streams as part of the processing pipeline, pipes take care of the synchronization automatically. That's part of their power.

            Of course, nobody is stopping you to use shared memory for communications among command line tools. But it's a lot harder to get the synchronization right with shared memory, so I wouldn't recommend it unless you really need to eliminate the (comparatively small) overhead of the read/write operations.

            Your comment is pretty typical and it illustrates again how muddled the thinking of many multimedia developers actually is.

          • >> Small command-line tools are appropriate for hacking together text processing filters,
            >> but I can't see them being useful for building a multimedia pipeline.

            Uhhhh... transcode [uni-goettingen.de] much? Use it, and I imagine you'll find as I have that it absolutely shames every other program that has the same feature set for -any- platform.
        • We are talking about servers here, not end-user applications. On the server side, the UNIX approach has been highly successful: CGI scripts are very widely used.

          In this case, the server owner is the end user. Who is what depends on your own viewpoint. For example, from Oracle's perspective I am the end user and they are the supplier, but from my perspective, I have end users to look after and I am the supplier.

          And on Microsoft platforms, huge, monolithic, single-program approaches are just a historical bad habit: the platform really didn't use to support anything else.

          That's either ignorance or FUD. The majority of modern Win32 programs are assembled from COM(+) type objects, each of which is self-contained and reusable. For example, MSIE has an HTML-rendering object. You can reuse it in your own software if you need HTML rendering (for example, in your online help system). Word and Excel are all COM objects, for example there is a charting object that Excel uses, it does one thing - drawing charts - and requires objects either side of it in the processing pipeline, to supply it with data and to receive its output respectively. This idea of connecting self-contained modules into complete programs didn't originate with Unix, you know.

          The sooner people get over it even on Windows, the better for everybody.

          The sooner One True OS zealots get off their high horses, the better for everybody.
  • With RealNetworks' track record of attacking their customers (remember Windows MIME-type battles, anyone?), I can't help but continue to mistrust them, especially when considering what software to make use of during development.

    I think a company that has in the past deliberately and repeatedly used its customers' systems to:
    • Force use of its product over a competitor's even when the user has explicitly chosen to use the competing software
    • Disallow users from configuring their software to not run in the background, pop up randomly (remember "Message Center"?), or download and execute software without asking
    • Force advertisements on the user in extreme excess
    ...has proven that they are willing to go to any ends to make a buck, and they don't care too much about the well-being of their customers.

    I think what they've done in the past is downright immoral. Why would we as a community want to support, embrace, or do anything but boycott and condemn these scoundrels?
    • If you will recall, Microsoft lobbed the first volley in the "MIME war." Their media player took over some RealNetworks mime types. RealNetworks' response was to spearhead an initiative to encourage software makers to be more forthcoming to end users about which mime types they claim. In fact, these days just about every media player allows the user to configure this via the installer. This seems to be a benefit of their fight against Microsoft.

      Furthermore, I think you're mistaken on your bullet points. But then, I would have a hard time convincing someone that has already made up his mind and has no facts to defend his standpoint.

      In the meantime, please feel free to enjoy Microsoft's illegal monopoly and encourage them to trample any and all of their competitors. Real is by no means perfect, but regardless of how you perceive their past conduct they are obviously trying to be better community members. And at least they aren't Microsoft.
      • I don't think I'm mistaken on my bullet points. And I think that Microsoft was acting just as immorally as Real by fighting the "MIME war". I was referring to Real's default option of "restoring MIME types" even when they have been changed by the user explicitly or by another installation. Sure, Real was battling Microsoft. But they were both battling against the consumer, using tactics that were definitely immoral and sneaky.

        Man, even before I hit your homepage I knew you worked for Real. It's none of my business, but it looks like you've bought a little too much of their in-house propaganda. Sure, RN is trying to put on the "nice guy" face, and releasing a lot of press to support that appearance, but history has proven what kind of company you are.

  • You know, I really feel sorry for real (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Joe Tie. ( 567096 ) on Tuesday December 10, 2002 @12:04AM (#4851005)
    They've been pretty heavy handed both trying to get people to use the pay version of realplayer, and trying to get it as prevalent on installed systems as possible. While personally I'm not thrilled at either, it's pretty easy to have some sympathy for their reasoning. I don't know if anyone here has tried to get people to give mozilla a shot, but one of the first complaints I always got was that it started up slower than IE. The quickstart was always one of the first things they wound up doing once they decided to switch. It often takes a lot of explaining before people grasped exactly why IE started so quickly. It's just not easy to compete with components built into the operating system. Don't use a quickstart and a significant amount of the potential audience will complain because it's slower to start than programs integrated into the operating system. Do use a quickstart, and another large user base will complain. The latter at least though for the most part would be able to figure out how to turn that behavior off, so I can sympathise with their decision. Seriously now, they're trying to compete with microsoft. That's not exactly an easy endevor!

    What I find very odd is all the complaints about statistic reporting.
    Real: We've listened to your complaints and removed the spyware for you, given you a lean player that additionally supports ogg and which allows you to create your own gui.
    User: I'm not listening to you because you have spyware in your product, you don't support ogg and I hate your gui!

    • Don't cry for me, Argentina (Score:4, Interesting)

      by robla ( 4860 ) on Tuesday December 10, 2002 @12:22AM (#4851143) Homepage Journal
      I don't know why I chose that subject line, but whatever. :)

      I appreciate that you recognize we're rolling up our sleeve pretty far to show there's nothing up it. The "spyware" complaints have persisted for years after someone found one rogue chunk of code that sent us a lot of useless information that was going in the bit bucket (if you look at what was being collected, it really wasn't interesting).

      Nevertheless, you're absolutely right: if you don't trust us, build your own player.
      • The "spyware" complaints have persisted for years after someone found one rogue chunk of code that sent us a lot of useless information that was going in the bit bucket (if you look at what was being collected, it really wasn't interesting).

        Conspiricy theories are a dime a dozen. What can you do except laugh at them?

        Did you know that some people say the moon landings were faked! *shocked expression*

  • How many licenses does the world need? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bfields ( 66644 ) on Tuesday December 10, 2002 @12:14AM (#4851081) Homepage

    Oh, great. So now we get the RPSL, the RCSL (the latter available in three tasty flavors!), and more.... Couldn't we please just stick to GPL, LGPL, or BSD? Those three licenses cover most of the free software territory, and while I admit that reading them gives me just as much a headache as reading many other licenses, at least I only have to go through it once....

    --Bruce Fields

  • Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth (Score:5, Informative)

    by tabdelgawad ( 590061 ) on Tuesday December 10, 2002 @12:45AM (#4851329)
    I really don't understand why a large number of the comments here are negative. Simply stated, Real has released a significant piece of software under what appears to be a free/open source license (The RPSL has been submitted to the OSI for certification). The open source community is certainly no worse off and probably significantly better off because of this.

    So the Real codecs aren't open sourced. Well, neither is DivX nor Quicktime, but that doesn't stop DivXNetworks or Apple from being darlings of the geek community. It's true that Real clients have been extremely intrusive, but their current actions should be judged independently.

    In fact, the open source community has a vested interest in the success of Real's Helix since that would demonstrate that open sourcing can be a successful *business* strategy. Open source commercial successes are few and far between, so it doesn't make sense to beat up on Real just as they are starting to do something right!

    • I really don't understand why a large number of the comments here are negative. Simply stated, Real has released a significant piece of software under what appears to be a free/open source license (The RPSL has been submitted to the OSI for certification).

      I have to agree with you. I'm just reading RPSL and it's not a bad license. Okay, it's not a license to grant complete freedom, but it is certainly a good way there. Basically, Real wants to make sure they have control over the Helix engine, and in response grant any and all OSS developers access to the source. To retain control, they require changes incorporated to the engine made public under the same license.

      The best catch, I think, is the requirement to release the software that uses Helix engine under a compatible license. In effect, the RPSL license says two things:

      1. If you change the engine, you must submit the changes back BOTH to the community and Real.
      2. If you use Helix in a product, you must release that product under a compatible open-source license. That license does not need to be RPSL. (I suspect they are mostly thinking about GPL and other licenses that are close to its nature.)

      And for commercial developers there is the RPCL that requires only the modifications to the engine released. If the Helix engine is good enough, it will be used. Real will stay in the game, with their streams usable by OSS folks and, hopefully, in return getting both increased use and improvement modifications to Helix.

      Better coverage => more users => more sales of Real's streaming technology to companies providing streamed content => more incentive for end-users to use this technology. I may have missed something, but what is it that makes all of this so wrong? Heck, with this license there is nothing that prevents the OSS developers from making a capable player that has *no* spyware or other annoyances usually associated with Real's end-user products.

  • Are developers expected to preserve some kind of rivalry between open code from real and open code from apple?

    What would happen if they got mixed together and were "given back" to real/helix? this is confusing, at least the last time I tried to get through the maze of documents on the helix page.
  • RealNetworks may be one of the most controversial companies in the Internet. Since its advent, this company made lots of right and wrong moves. So it is quite possible that it has as many fans as flaming opponents. However, they were pioneers in their field, and had had an enemy in the face of Microsoft, which played the same dirty game with them as with Netscape. These conditions were enough to have them sweet to survive. So their story is not so simple to judge.

    Frankly, we should take into attention that this company appeared very, very early. By the time they came up, they produced players for Solaris and Windows was still a conundrom among Internet nodes. and their distribution policies were in fact progressive. While many commercial *NIX producers sold their products, they were giving players for free, the same way as Netscape was distributing its navigators. However, when the market changed, they made two huge errors. First a large part of their policies was kept, no matter the new market conditions. This deeply reflected in the dynamics of development of their products, as, lots of their characteristics became simply archaic. Second they choose the worst way of marketing. As pioneers, they choosed some of the early and unproved advertisment technologies for Internet. And this brought them the fame of an isolated company that loves to spam and spy over everyone.

    No matter these problems, the ideology of their products is still something that is badly explored. The architecture of these systems is not strictly centralised and it has "loose" infrastructure that allows them to be used under several conditions. Still there is a huge potential in this field.
  • Are you sure this is a great idea to post such news to Slashdot which is the lovely platform of 1000s of clueless calling your product "spyware"?

    As a end user using Realplayer on all platforms I use, I already got fed up, I really wonder how people actually coding software, providing free of charge to *nix community feels?

    ps: to read this comment you should browse at -1, just a feeling ;-)

  • ra - ?? ? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ViVeLaMe ( 305695 )
    my question is:

    Will this allow me to transform the .ra & .ram lying around on my HD into, say, .ogg, or .mp3? :-).. I Tried with ffmpeg without any success so far.. Seems there are a few Whine-dose solutions, but i'm looking for a scriptable Unix one.. :-/
  • I'm glad that Real is releasing server tools, but what about spending some time getting the Unix client tools working worth a damn.

    Specifically, getting the RealOne player for Linux to not say "You don't have permission to update" whenever you try to play a file with a new codec, getting a Mozilla plug-in for RealOne so that you can use its Flash player (having a Flash player is useless without having a plugin), and making the RealOne main page have a link for the *nix community, rather than being Windows only.

    In order to contact Real about these matters, first you have to find the discussion forums for the "Community Supported Player for *nix" - these seems to be hidden in a disused lavatory in the basement behind a sign saying "Beware of the Leopard" - I defy you to give me a series of links from www.real.com that gets to the forum (that does not involve a search engine).

    Then, you have to post a message - one forum is down, and the others don't seem to be visited by anybody from Real.

    Then, on those blessed times when a Real employee deigns to visit the forum, the ususal posting is something like "download foo at this URL". However, no mention is made of when foo was updated - usually about a year ago.

    Then, should you download the player, and install it, and get the new codec packages they say will fix the problem, you find out the problem still persists.

    Add to this the fact that the client gets screwed up if you are not running a 75dpi display (with a larger DPI setting the fonts are WAY too big for the space allocated for the text), and the fact that it doesn't play any new files, and the fact that the Flash player only plays local files, and the fact that the Flash player doesn't play the sound....

    It seems to me that Real is simply trying to keep the server market from abandoning them for Microsoft or Icecast - hence the support for *nix in the server arena. For the clients - "If you ain't Windows, you ain't shit!" (corollary left as an exercise to the reader).
  • a program stealing info from another program (like IE's current_url=) and send to servers without your grant.

    Does real fit it? Your browser sends info too, it also sends http_referer (if not blocked on ns or opera) too.

    Or screen resolution, with a single jscript query you can read guys resolution.

    IMHO that Real spyware issues are coming from paid guys AND the innocent ones tricked by them.

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