Re: [gst-devel] Re: Helix Player virtual team meeting

[Danilo Segan <danilo gnome org>]

Luis Villa <louie ximian com> writes:
>
> Hrm. They just legally can't release some of the codecs, for contractual
> or other reasons. That's hardly 'holding them hostage'.
>
> I can't really speak for others, but I'm OK with that, assuming that
> there are enough Free codecs which also work with the system. It's
> really hard to blame Real for following contracts they've already
> signed. :) 

Luis, I feel that the problem is this:
If Helix doesn't provide any significant advantage over other, already
accepted media frameworks (like GStreamer, which is already part of
Gnome), why would anyone (from the Gnome side) be interested?

If Helix provides Gnome with a real value for Free Software
contributors (like Free access to Real codecs), than it certainly is
a worthy alternative to GStreamer.

Alas, it doesn't, so it's not.

I can see it only as another media-framework platform, which arguably
has some advantages, and has some disadvantages over GStreamer. Since
there is not any BIG advantage for the Gnome project, I don't see how
"we" could or should care.

It's a parallel effort, with different goals -- Gnome integration is
just a side advantage, and not the real goal.

On the same note, Real has not convinced any of us that it is true to
the Free Software ideals (if it was, it would be possible to reuse
even those binary-only codecs in other media frameworks, if we are
ready to accept binary-only stuff, like you seem to be :).

Insisting on monopoly with proprietary codecs as the argument is not
what I would call "Open Source business model" :o)


Cheers,
Danilo