Re: Helix Player virtual team meeting
- From: Rob Lanphier <robla real com>
- To: Ronald Bultje <rbultje ronald bitfreak net>
- Cc: Ryan Gammon <rgammon real com>, gnome-multimedia gnome org, gnome-devel-list gnome org, gnome-list gnome org, desktop-devel-list gnome org, gstreamer-devel lists sf net, licensing open helixcommunity org
- Subject: Re: Helix Player virtual team meeting
- Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 12:13:19 -0800
Hi all,
I've added licensing open helixcommunity org to this distribution, so
that the right folks at RealNetworks are aware of this discussion and
can more easily participate. Normally, that list requires subscription
to send mail to it, but I've taken that restriction off for the time being.
More inline:
Ronald Bultje wrote:
Hi,
[added CC to gstreamer-devel]
On Tue, 2003-12-09 at 19:28, Lee Braiden wrote:
This might be a bit provocational (sorry), but I'm wondering why you don't
work with the gstreamer folks, and just make codecs or bugfix the ui? That
would make helix a MUCH better opensource project, imho.
Being one of the GStreamer developers, I'd like to advocate this point
too. Given the current license of the (closed-source) Real codecs
included in Helix, it's hard for us to add proper Real support to the
default Gnome media framework. If you guys are looking for true
integration in the Gnome desktop, GStreamer is the way to go. We already
provide Gtk+/Gnome video widgets, integration in the file manager, etc.
We're looking for integration into GNOME, but we're also looking at
producing a world-class, *cross-platform* multimedia system, and we've
got to focus on the one we've got (Helix). While it's theoretically
possible to port GStreamer to Windows, Mac OS, and Symbian (for
example), it's *done* for Helix.
If we allow our codecs to be used by other multimedia frameworks, we're
just encouraging more splintering -- for Linux developers would work on
improving GStreamer (improving the experience only for Linux users)
rather than work on Helix (improving the experience for everyone).
Besides that, we would have to convince Intel, Sony, VoiceAge and many
others that this is a great idea, since much of what is in RealAudio and
RealVideo is licensed from them. While it would be extremely generous
for us to do this, there's not much of a business case for RealNetworks
to institute such a giveaway.
We may just be at an impasse here, because years of work have gone into
GStreamer and Helix, and neither group is going to drop years of work to
move to another platform. However, I find it very difficult to believe
that any commercial Linux distributor in the United States is going to
be able to ship anything that is simultaneously legal and useful based
on what is in GStreamer today.
Rob
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