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Linux Software

Red Hat Teams with Real Networks 172

Posted by CmdrTaco from the video-on-demand dept.
GregGardner writes, "According to this press release, RedHat and Real Networks are teaming together to bring Real products to Linux. RealServer 7.0 and RealPlayer 7.0 will be physically bundled with RedHat and that RealPlayer 7 will be released for Linux within 30 days on Real's Web site. "
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Red Hat Teams with Real Networks More

Red Hat Teams with Real Networks

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  • Ummm... So? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Unless I've been dreaming, RealNetworks and Red Hat have been working together since 1998, maybe earlier. All of RN's Linux offerings seem to come in Linux and Red Hat Linux flavors, Red Hat has shipped servers and players with their commercial distributions in the past...

    I don't see what the big news is. Perhaps this is yet another in a long line of press releases that hope to capitalize from the word "Linux" included within? I know Red Hat was involved with this PR, but come on, they've been working with RN for a long time! This was done to benefit RN. I'm sure of it.

    Linux PRs are getting ridiculous... They used to have real content, but now they're just put out to help someone's stock go up. What a joke.

  • Re:will they collect our RealUserinfo? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Calm down, nobody would ever confuse this guy with the "TRUE hemos". This guy actually knows how to spell.

  • Re:The joys of feeling marginalized... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    >>maybe it has something to do with Alpha not being produced anymore

    Huh? Alpha is not dead. Hell, you can even get a new EV6 (21264-based) Alpha for $3k from API's resellers! (http://www.alpha-processor.com)

    And when Wildfire comes out from Compaq, it will set a new standard of FAST! All powered by Alpha.
  • Ahhm, read again...

    Real Player 7 will be available within 30 days (actully it will be available at mid. March).

    Also, from what I understand from the RealNetworks guys - is that it will be using the KDE Docking features (this is not final yet)
  • I'm looking forward to this, but I'm currently fuming mad at Real. They released their ALPHA G2 crap last MAY - 9 months ago! Promised a beta by the end of last year, and it never showed up! My favorite radio station is available on the Internet and I need Real to hear it. It works, but crashes randomly a few times an hour. I'm getting sick of it, and I want a stable player! Is this too much to ask???

    They make money by selling server licenses, but they need to produce quality clients for all platforms to have any respect whatsoever.

    A couple days ago I sent them an E-mail asking what's up with the beta (trying to be as polite as possible). They never responded.

    So it looks like Real doesn't give a crap about their customers (or at least the people that listen to their customers' audio), but they have another chance to prove themselves.

    DON'T BLOW IT AGAIN GUYS!!!
  • Take a look at WMP with a packet sniffer for a while.

    Take a look at the msword document format.

    Do you really think you're protecting yourself?


  • Yep, looks like Yoohoo yanked it.
  • I'd love to see Apple step up with QuickTime support for Linux as well.

    Well, I'd love to see them support QuickTime on Linux AT ALL.
  • Ever heard of .mailcap?

    What's to keep real from adding lines such as 'audio/x-wav: rvplayer %s'?

    --

  • >maybe it has something to do with Alpha not being produced anymore

    but they are still in production and doing just fine at kicking x86 ass.

  • ...linux is a multiuser, secureable system. This is not winXX we're talking about here. There are lots of ways to isolate a program.

    Easiest is to create a user: "realuser" and run all "Real" apps from there.
    You know, su - realuser....

    Another is to chroot it.

    Another is to use tcpdump to see what the app wants to talk to, then use the firewall facilities to block access to real's servers.

    Try junkbuster.org for some more ideas...
  • While I do understand how to box their nosy player in so that it can't do spy reports on me, I am also just not very interested in their product.

    It is rather dissappointing to see RH teaming up with the MPAA(indirectly or not). I've got to admit, I tried SuSe 6.1 when it came out and was tempted to dump RH, but I preferred gnome to kde and didn't want to bother converting. After this, I think that my next upgrade cycle will not include RH.
  • That's a good bit of sucking right there.

    Oh, We can scratch our heads when Real buys Xing. Yes we can all laugh at the poor job that Xing did, leaving a gaping hole for dear Jon J. to pry open. We can all get angry at the buggy G2 release Real did for x86 linux. We can be shocked at the privacy violations that came out of the same company.

    So far, Real does not have a "very good track record" or to put it simply, they suck.

    What do you think our reaction should be when RH joins them?

    Now for some constructive criticism: In response to your earlier post about "no open source projects that offer Real streams..." how about this:

    Buy Real. I know that RH can afford it. Talk about a "Real" killer app! Fire all of the execs from Real and a choice number of their programmers. Open the code and let us all make it better. Let linux, on ANY hardware architecture, be the prefered platform for Real streaming servers rather than an alternative.

    Open the DVD license from Xing and let us build a legal player for free software. Bang! YAKA(yet another killer app) will be available in a matter of moments.

    Is that enough constructive criticism for today?
    Does RH have any response to this proposal?
  • A year or so ago, didn't RedHat claim they were going to distribute only free software?

    Nope. Heck, nobody does that, not even Debian (hence the "non-free" category).

    --

  • All Redhat is doing is waiting for Microsoft to make every move and then they mirror the same move.

    This is called keeping up with the competition. If a competitor makes a move, either you respond to it or you ignore it. Companies that do the latter tend to go out of business.

    RedHat doesn't want to create anything new.

    It's not RedHat's job to create anything new! RedHat is a distribution. They collect all kinds of software from various locations and put it together on one nice CD-ROM for you so you don't have to hunt all that junk down and compile it yourself. That's what distributions are for. Software developers come up with new things. Distributions just package it all up nice for you. If you want new things, write some new software! Don't expect distributions to, it's not their job, it's ours...

    --

  • Of *course* its the same. And last time I checked the Realplayer 6.0 had a busy wait that makes it pin my CPU meter whenever its playing.
  • Do you really think that Red Hat threw together this deal with Real in *one day*? Unlikely, this was probably in the works for some while.


    Also, I don't know where you get off saying that Red Hat is a Microsoft "clone"; does Microsoft:

    • Release all software they write under the GPL
    • Make their software available for free download
    • Offer IPO stocks to dedicated Linux hackers
    • Etc...

    I suggest its time to lose your "i'm so alt, i'm so hip" anti-Red Hat attitude; they have done more good for Linux than any other commericial entity. (And no, I'm not a shareholder or anything like that.)

    P.S: That's why Rasterman left.

    I couldn't be happier that Rasterman left. Now I won't have to put up with his WM as the default on my RH box. All he ever did when he was at Red Hat was add themes to GTK+; not really an essential component for World Domination.

  • RealNetworks are probably the closest thing that Linux users have to an ally in the streaming media format battle. They release players for Linux, at least.

    But I just can't bring myself to like them. The privacy invasion, the spamming, the half-assed "look! we're hip to this Linux thing" way in which they have supported Linux, it all turns me off in a big way. They're so cheap. I'm actually sad that they're going to be getting good vibes from a lot of Linux users now.
    --

  • RealVideo and WMT Video do something that no non-proprietary video codecs can - bring reasonable video at low bitrates. It isn't all just DCT, there are supposedly wavelet elements in Real's video as well. Plus the devil is in the details, motion prediction and coefficient quanitization is a general concept, whether it fits down the pipe or not means spending a large amount of R&D time and money on figuring out the precise details of motion prediction and quantization.

    But of course, I'd like to see an open source low-bitrate video codec. If you think you can write one, please do, and let us at The Sync [thesync.com] take a look at it, if it works reasonably well, I'll be the first person to help you popularize it.

  • True. One of the problems I see with MPEG is that it leaves so much open to the encoder. It's hard to know exactly what settings produce the right quality/bitrate, and this is where things like RealPlayer are attractive. They've spent a lot of time and money researching these things and the result is a good low bitrate default, which is what most people are looking for. However, I feel that MPEG could do comparable things with the right settings.

    As for an open source video codec, I have the dead tree version of the MPEG-1 spec (ISO 11172) and I've been throwing around the idea of writing a good parallel encoder (the Berkeley one is horribly scary). It's really just a matter of finding enough time and patience to sit down and do it.

  • I think you missed my point here. I don't want to support these OSes. I just want the standards that people are using on the internet to be open. Then if someone cares, they can port something to whatever operating system they happen to like using.

    Personally, I'm sad to see support for Unix systems (other than Linux x86) declining. RealPlayer is still at version 5 for most Unix platforms. I don't really care on a personal level whether BeOS (for example) has the latest and greatest support for audio streaming. But I don't think that a smaller niche OS should be prevented from using a particular internet standard just because it isn't in the interest of a particular company to develop a client for that platform. That's the major problem with proprietary formats, and I don't think Linux users should be placated by the extension of this closed format to the x86 platform. Everyone else still gets left behind.
  • Hopefully the RealPlayer for Linux won't hijack all my netscape/system settings like the mac version did. (NO I don't want to use RealPlayer to play WAVs. NO I don't want to use it to play MP3s...)

    It can't. Remember that Linux user don't have a ridiculously convoluted mechanism for determining default apps for file types (suffixes/mime types) yet. RealPlayer can't take over MP3s according to the "system" because there's no such thing as an associated system file type. Perhaps your GNOME or KDE settings can be changed, but that's on a user-by-user basis. And you can always change them back.

    - Richie

  • I just tried going to the PR link, and all there was was a page with a single line of text saying the atricle has been removed. Whassup?
  • Let's see Icecast is 10,000 times better than real audio. the RA player is bloatware at it's finest. Their "compression" schema is a joke at best.

    Do I need to go any farther?

    the ONLY thing they have is the streaming video, and there are linux things that do that (I forget where, I hate streaming video, it wastes bandwidth) Icecast has buried realaudio in every way (ok shoutcast started it, but at least icecast was a free alternative that is kicking butt)

    I am all for commercial software, as long as it dont suck.
  • That's just Microsofts way of saying "no. now shut up and go away."
  • Although it will probably be closed source, it is still a good thing. RealPlayer is a neat way to see movies on the web. I know from my experience that a slower Linux box on a DSL line is better than a faster NT box on the same DSL line. This was tested by me and a friend.** I think that real 7 on Linux with a nice fast machine and DSL could bring in good frame rates and make watching movies on the web or tv on the web a good experience.

    ** The test that we did was hook up 2 machines to a hub and that hub was connected to a DSL. The NT machine was a 450PIIMhz with 128 Meg of RAM and the Linux box was a P200MMX with 64Meg of ram. In testing the line speed, the Linux box had 63k uploads / 491k downloads and the NT box had 53k uploads / 423k downloads. So Linux was faster on a slower box. Don't take my word, test this at home yourself and you be the judge. This is not something I care to argue, it is what I experienced. Part of the problem I should state is that this is pppoe, and NT4 does not have good support for this.(AFAIK).

    My experience with Linux vs Win NT/95/98 is that Linux 2.2.14 and Redhat 6.1 is actually more stable as a client. My roommate's win 95 machine is always crashing. My father upgraded to Win 98 and now Outlook and IE do not work (go figure). I have NT on my Linux box, and it always crashes when I add new hardware. The MIS department where I work wont support a windows machine that is not rebooted daily. This is my experience, so yours may differ.

    In a choice in spending 289 for Windows ro $29 for Redhat, I'll take Redhat (especially there 1.89 cdrom's.)

    Don't be lame and single out one sentance of this take it as a whole and as 3 peoples experiences with windows and Linux....

    send flames > /dev/null

  • The Yahoo news item that was cited as the press release is no longer there. Neither the RedHat nor the Real sites seem to mention this. Was this a false rumor or an early leak? Anyone have more info?

  • I'll say it again, we are nowhere near and probably never will be near, this concern. Just because it's "Made for RedHat" doesn't mean it won't work just fine on other distros. Linux is Linux. Now getting official support, that may be annother matter. Vendor support needs to be distro neutral, the configuration differences between distros are too small for there to be any technical reason why they cannot support every Linux distro out there. It would be more helpful for them to say, "We support Product-X with Linux 2.2.x and GLIBC 2.1".

  • at least real and redhat have worked out a way to get the server on linux as well as the player, as that's the more likely, useful application of the agreement.

    anyhoo, i would really like to see quicktime work on linux as well (hell, for a while, quicktime was even using a penguin mascot).

    the argument has been in the past that 'it's the codecs, stupid' and those will never be open sourced or distributed without licences. oh well. give me the darwin streaming server running on *BSD or linux and i'll be happy.

    the server's the thing..
  • He's not giving Hemos any kind of bad name... (that is quite posabily the objective however)
    he is a clear and obveous faker and we can all see him for what he is...

    Byond that I'm in total agreement with your sentiment... especally the rock comment
  • Am I the only one who cant stand to listen to RealPlayer's audio? That metallic quantinization noise is horrible. Mp3 does a much nicer job of hiding the bad stuff.
  • ...so screw 'em. What started out as a cool little proof-of-concept has turned into ugly, intrusive bloatware laden with Windows feature creep. And it still sounds like butt!

    I committed the error of installing RealPlayer G2 on a W95 box a while back. Now, if I want to hear a .ra file, I am always treated to an "upgrade notification" when the player starts up - and the choices in the dialog box are "learn more" and "remind me later." No "go away and never come back" option to be found - and it still sounds like canine flatulence on a good day.

    I would much prefer that efforts be directed toward producing lightweight MPEG codecs to enable streaming. Face it, at low bitrates nothing is going to sound much better than AM radio bounced off the E-layer [fas.org].

  • I haven't used spinner but I have xmms working with some streaming mp3 sites under netscape 4.7 and without using xswallow (which I use for xanim). I looked at spinner.com; it's realplayer only. XMMS will not work on it. You might want to avoid associating .rpm with realplayer just to make spinner.com work (.rpm files being common on several distros).

    This is what I know about getting xmms to stream mp3s:

    To get my.mp3.com to work I had to create a new mimetype entry ("applications" under preferences).

    Description: Playlist
    MIMEtype: audio/x-mpegurl
    Suffixes: m3u, mp3
    Application: xmms.sh %s

    To get shoutcast to work I had to create a new mimetype:

    Description: Shoutcast
    MIMEtype: audio/x-scpls
    Suffixes: pls
    Application: xmms.sh %s

    I use xmms.sh (a wrapper script) to pipe the stderr messages from xmms to /dev/null (otherwise, something about "no libmkmod" comes up in a pop up window every time you use xmms). This is all it does (you'll need to chmod +x and put it somewhere on your path, or specify the full path name).

    #!/bin/sh
    #this is xmms.sh
    xmms $1 >& /dev/null
  • This is great news--an example of why it pays to have companies behind at least some of the distros. Now it's time for the community to do its part: keep lobbying all of the web sites using WMP and Quicktime to switch to RealPlayer. Even if they don't all change over, it shouldn't take many of them supporting Real to force Micro$oft and Apple to realize that they need to start supporting the Linux platform, too.
  • A year or so ago, didn't RedHat claim they were going to distribute only free software? I remember them using this argument to explain why certain long-standing rpm packages suddenly disappeared from the CD (like xsnow).

    I guess this is just another example of the difference between "committed" and "involved". Like with a ham and egg breakfast: The chicken is involved, the pig is committed.
    --
    Here is the result of your Slashdot Purity Test.
  • Ok,

    I know this has nothing to do with RealPlayer but does anyone know of a player that reads windows media player stuff on Linux?

    If you know of something like this please mail me at "aurag at geocities.com"

    I watch a TV station (arabic one) that has for some reason decided to use Windows Media player technology!

  • Slack is shitty as hell. Unless you really have nostalgy of old *nices.

    Debian is full of big name programs like "next-generation superior package management" even though I find it a waste of time and effort.

    They could have worked on enhacing rpm instead of that crap.

    But that's my opinion. I have been using and loving to use rh for 2 years now and I won't switch to any other distro and certainly not to slack.

    No if redhat would buy vmware!
  • It'd be nice to play non-MP3 audio from my BSD music server...
    Of course, (heresy alert) I really want Microsoft's player released more- their client seems not as concerned about bandwidth as realaudio's, and as a result looks and sounds better over a higher bandwidth connection.
  • Why do you want to do that? Why don't you support the v2 assembly OS as well? The only thing go against Windows the desktop OS is that it charges your first born to use it and ties you with low quanlity stuff. The reason people use linux is that they can never take it away frem you.

    Be can always take around and charge your ass. IBM has already taken os/2 away from the users. What exactly is the justification you have to support these OSes? That you can't apply to V2 the assembly OS?

    cy


    /_____\
    vvvvvvv../|__/|
    ...I../O,O....|
    ...I./. .......|
    ..J|/^.^.^ \..|.._//|
    ...|^.^.^.^.|W|./oo.|
  • Actually, I think the GPL only prohibits a proprietary program linking with yours, not your program linking with a closed library. So, if I'm correct, it would be perfectly fine to release front ends for the Real player.

    Also, no one said anything about there being "official" KDE or GNOME front ends. I can write a GNOME program without giving it to the FSF, of course. As long as I don't break the GPL, I'm good to go.

    I don't do sigs.
  • Nice and all... but I think this release illustrates one of Linux's main weaknesses. New products go to the Windows OS first.

    I will get the Realplayer 7 and use it, even though it is out for Windows already, simply because it is the best streaming media player (IMO). I also think bundling with RealPlayer RedHat is a great idea.

    Should one arise, however that came out for Linux first, I should switch instantly...

    (in no way shape or form is the comment above a troll or flamebait... it simply expresses an opinion)
  • Dude, Darrel.

    Get back to work dude. You know we got all sorts of tickets....

    --George the weekend Linux guy at rackspace.com :)

  • Yes, there is a lot of streaming content in Real Networks format out there. However, the company has hardly behaved particularly well: they never released specifications for their format as they had originally promised, and their closed source player has transmitted private information back to their servers.

    Not to mention that they are among the top two or three corporate spammers. Not only do they harvest addresses, but according to reliable regular posters on news.admin.net-abuse.email, Real Networks has been caught performing "dictionary" attacks against mailservers. That's basically picking a domain and attempting to send spam to every combination of characters that looks like it might possibly be a deliverable address in that domain: alice@example.com, bob@example.com, charlie@example.com, and so on. The load on other people's mail servers is tremendous, and of course by definition it's unsolicited. (If you'd wanted their advertising, they wouldn't have to guess your address, would they?)

    MAPS [mail-abuse.org], a service known for being rather conservative about who gets listed as a spam source, has had Real Networks on their RBL (sort of a voluntary spam filter service) for months. I don't know of any other "legitimate" company that's been RBLed for more than a couple of weeks.

    Long story short, besides all their other faults, Real Networks is an unrepentant corporate spamhaus. It's too bad Red Hat has gotten into bed with them.

  • Perhaps it can be forced to run as user "nobody". If you've done a decent job of locking down the box's file permissions that should keep it under wraps. Just be sure the real packages don't set the suid bit on any of those files! Another way would be to run the Windows version under vmware using a highly deprecated virtual partition. Okay, so you'll need an 800Mhz Athlon to do it...at least it could be done. For that matter, a more active approach could be taken. Run a packet sniffer while Real does it's things and look for naughty stuff on all of the ports. Once we know what port they're using, direct that crap straight to /dev/null.
  • The conspiracy is actually that no 'news source' is ever going to want to post Linux-related articles for fear that their servers will be DoS'd, er, I mean, slashdotted.

    Now THAT is a website with power.

    Who needs portals? Next ya know, startups will be using /. in their marketing,
    "...plan to become the slashdot of the e-commerce world"
    Thus it begins
  • Real has gotta make money somehow....their player is free, their 'plus' player costs $$, but I don't know anyone who's bought it myself. Same model as Netscape had- give away the client and try to make $$ on the backend.
    However, I don't like how he basic Real player incorporates ad banners- at all. It's one reason I choose WMP many times. If Real is gonna charge so much for the server, and ask for $$ for the plus player, they could certainly make effort to slim down their basic player- No Banners!
  • I agree, though it's kinda scarey to see a specific distro tie-in like this. So what if everyone runs to Red Hat first, and doesn't offer their products to the other distros? Couldn't that effectively kill off the commercial viability (of linux?! ;) of the others? What is made for one Linux distro should be made available to ALL Linux distros- sell your brand on your support.

    Anomalous Canard==Anormal Duck? (French to Eng babblefish ;)
  • >starting to sound a little like a lobbiest group.

    This is a good thing. This eventually is what I think what we (linux users) all want. More products for us to chose from.

    We might not get the source but at least we get more toys to play around with.

    Sometimes big companies are useful. :)
  • Let's face it. Realplayer is just an advertising vehicle that happens to have an audio player thrown in as a bonus. Oh, and it's(at least G2) really friggin' hard to uninstall.
  • Excuse my ignorance, but I was checking out the page for RealServer, and now my face is stuck in this irritable-bowel fashion and I can't fix it. The server costs $2,995?! I thought it was a typo until later I noticed that this price was $800 off the regular price! Can someone tell me how $2,995 is a justifiable price for this?

  • Spam (Score:1)

    by mal3 ( 59208 )
    Great now I'll get "Open Source" spam from Real Inc.

  • Hopefully... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Hopefully the RealPlayer for Linux won't hijack all my netscape/system settings like the mac version did. (NO I don't want to use RealPlayer to play WAVs. NO I don't want to use it to play MP3s...)

    frustrating.
  • maybe it has something to do with Alpha not being produced anymore, PPC being mostly MacOS users, and sparc linux is only good on machines that you wouldn't want to run solaris on. ie: old ass sparcstations that you wouldn't want to run media apps on anyway. (before you flame me on this, I just want to point out that I own an old ass sparcstation, and I wouldn't want anyone wasting their time trying to support it. If I want RP on my sparc, I'll get a new one and then see if I can get a Solaris player) maybe it also has something to do with going for the largest portion of the linux market and deciding if it's even a good idea. If you want linux to start being recognized, dont bitch when people start doing it. maybe write a letter thanking someone for the level of support they're showing and suggest that they also consider the other platforms as well.
  • They don't need to release the source, just a library that can be linked against. Then we would no doubt have command line, X, GNOME, KDE, and probably some other versions of software that could play Real streams.

    The GNOME and KDE projects at least distribute all their work under the GPL, which stipulates that you cannot distribute the software unless all its components are under the GPL. This condition would plainly be impossible to satisfy for a player that requires a closed Real library.

    While the KDE folks have been known to play fast and loose with this requirement of the GPL (see for example any past flame war on QT), GNOME is official GNU software and hell would freeze over before the FSF releases anything using a proprietary Real library.

    Changing the subject to get back on topic, I feel that the free software/open source community should avoid touching closed standards with a 10 ft pole. Closed software is one thing, and we can work around that given enough time, but closed standards are fatal to the free software cause. File formats and protocols used by companies like Real, Microsoft, etc. have a nasty habit of changing incompatibly whenever it suits the interests of the owning company. I personally am very disappointed that a company like Redhat that has been so supportive of free software in the past is now going to be held hostage to the whims of Real and their proprietary streaming protocol.

    The fact that proprietary file format standards such as Realaudio and MS Office have a monopoly chokehold on their respective market is just one more problem that our community is going to have to overcome. I don't claim to have the answers, but I at least realize that it's a problem.

  • As Cringley reported [pbs.org], Microsoft's entry into the streaming media market is causing waves. There's no doubt in my mind that if M$ wasn't trying to 0wn this market, that Real Networks would continue to ignore Linux.

    I sometimes wonder if Linux will ever be seen by business as something other than a loss leader. Why do only floundering companies come to Linux? Why can't Linux attract mainstream developers on the strength its userbase and programming API?

  • My humble apologizes for not closing a bold tag :)
    --
  • Now yahoo states...



    removed

    This article has been removed.


    I can see a conspiracy theory starting right here :) Did Yahoo just put out a story to start a gossip? Maybe managed to lay Real in the mud, just as Ford Perfect did.

    Enjoy


    --
  • Does anyone have any advice on hooking up xmms to netscape so that it acts as a plugin instead of just as a standalone app?

    Check out XSwallow [csn.ul.ie]. According to its web page: X Swallow is a plugin i've cobbled together to allow any X program to be used as an inline viewer for any appropiate mime type. So a mime type like vrml for which there does not exist, as of the moment, a plugin for linux netscape can be viewed inline to netscape with ordinary vrml viewers such as vrweb/liquid reality.

    I've used it with xanim for quicktimes, wavplay for wavs and the like. Its really pretty cool.
  • I have to shut down Win95 and startup Linux to listen to Internet streaming RealAudio !!

    Something in my Win95 config is scrogged Again, causing the whole machine to lockup after maybe 30 seconds and I don't care to putz around with it anymore.
  • And not just Linux non-x86 platforms are left out: so are other Unices, not to mention other OSes like BeOS and OS/2.

    The Linux community is often guilty of the same assumptions that they so deplore in Windows users: that everyone uses the same as they do. Just as "computer" means a Windows-based PC to most people, "Linux" means Linux-x86 to most users. And they can be somewhat blind to those other operating systems with smaller user bases.

    I don't think the RedHat-Real partnership is necessarily a bad thing. It's an OK thing. But it may take our eyes away from some more important goals: real freedom of choice and transparent interoperability. For this, we need real open standards (an open Real standard would be nice). Streaming media at the moment is essentially a contest between two closed, proprietary formats, and not only will neither company do the work to port their clients (not to mention servers) to OSes with a smaller user base (Redhat Linux x86 apparently has made the threshold now), but because the formats themselves are closed, no one else could do it if they wanted to.

    Open standards are essential. Open source implementations can come next.

  • As long as you are running on x86 (and I assume that is what they specifically mean by releasing a "Linux" version), couldn't you run all of the Real stuff under the FreeBSD Linux-emulation?
  • that they offer a version that has nothing but free software. Because if they dropped all non-free stuff, nutscrape would have been yanked too.

    Could be wrong, tho.
  • I agree with you on the fact that if M$ ported to BSD, Real would very quickly follow. I don't even think it would take them a month. I can't imagine that moving Real* from Linux to BSD would take that long.

    I also understand wanting to have it native. Now, I haven't tried it myself, but from what I hear from FreBSD'ers, almost nothing that runs under Linux can't be convinced to work under the emulation (short of something that needs a kernel module, and even than may be fixed now).

    *shrug*
  • Maybe because x86 has a bigger foothold on the desktop marked than the other platforms.

    If you need quality, you go for Alpha and Sparc on the server. But on the server, you don't really need RealAudio etc.

    Just a thought, not an excuse.
  • I suggested that RedHat support (the development of) an open source streaming media project, just like RedHat supports some other important open-source development efforts.

    In fact, a number of components of such a system already exist and have been released in open source form (some of them by companies I have worked for), including H.xxx CODECs, MPEG CODECs, streaming media servers, etc. We also have good cross-platform toolkits for writing generic clients.

    I disagree that having a proprietary solution on a free OS is preferable to having a proprietary solution requiring a proprietary OS in this case. If we go down that route, we may well end up with all proprietary software, formats, and protocols and only an open source kernel; what's the point of that? Supporting proprietary clients using proprietary protocols on a mainstream Linux distribution will simply help make those protocols more entrenched.

    I think decisions like these are also important for RedHat's image. My organization is considering standardizing on some Linux distribution. We like Linux because it is based on open standards. RedHat has been very supportive of open source software and open standards so far, and has been sponsoring a number of open source development efforts. We want to do business with a company that continues to show that kind of commitment to open source.

    Even if RedHat ships Real Networks software in the short run, I very much hope that RedHat will take the initiative and support a truly open source streaming media system. Streaming media are too important to leave them to a single company.

  • As someone else already pointed out, Real never opened up their file format. This means that they control the server and _also_ the content creation tools.

    The tools is what ultimately matters, because otherwise we are at the mercy of Real and their corporate partners when it comes to video creation tools for Linux. And we want those, oh yes!

    I think it's much better for Linux if we (the people) put our support behind QuickTime format. Yes, the best codecs are proprietary, but the file format is open, so someone can create an good open-source codec.

    And Apple already gave us the Darwin Streaming Server, which is the open source release of their exellent QuickTime Streaming Server.

    I have started work on enhancing and maintaining the source. Take a look at:

    http://www.pobox.com/~kostya/videod

  • I have mixed feelings on this. Yeah, it will be nice to see something new from Real, but the whole privacy violation thing still sticks with me.

    On the other hand, Real seems to be stuck with an old, slow, not very good codec. Yeah, in the beginning it worked great considering you were looking at it over a 28.8k modem, but today all I see it doing is dropping frames and doing a hell of a lot of buffering - even on xDSL.

    I have farted around a bit with Windows Media Player and was most impressed with it - even on a 56k modem you got a lot of decent video. xDSL really helps it out. Of course, that is a Windows program and I like Linux better, so I use Real.

    I am open to the whole thing, but am going to really reseve my judgement on the whole thing until we actually see the player and the servers in action. It would be cool as all heck though.
  • "Just $2,995 with 30-day money-back guarantee" "...with Red Hat 6.1 free"
    Real's RH page is a little different than Yahoo's version of "RH including RealServer".
  • I wish there was a plugin for RealMedia files in XMMS, but if it exists, I haven't been able to find it.

    I like XMMS just as much as the next guy, but in my opinion, the RealPlayer software is one of those "must have" apps for my Linux box. It may not be the best product in the world, and I know a lot of privacy zealots hate it, but let's face it, RealPlayer is still on top in the streaming media business. According to a recent blurb in Wired, RealPlayer has an estimated 90,000,000 users with over 33,000 downloads per week, well ahead of it's nearest competitor, Windows Media Player, with 40,000,000 users and just over 15,000 downloads per week.

    This is another example of an application that may have been a stumbling block in moving from Windows to Linux for some people. Now don't get me wrong, I know that you can already get RealPlayer for Linux, but in my experience, it hasn't worked out too well. I am sure that it works great as-is for some people. My point is that RedHat could make a lot more inroads into the Windows empire by not only having a stable, efficient RealPlayer for Linux, but also by bundling it into the distribution so that the average user doesn't have to fight to get it working.

    As far as I am concerned, this is nothing but more good news. Sure, there is going to be a negative side to it, but I think that overall this is the sort of news that the Linux community in general should be pretty happy to hear, and something that Real Networks should be advertising pretty blatantly.


    Darrell Swoap
  • I'm an Open Source advocate, and yet I want this to happen. I want to see Real Player ship with Red Hat. Why? Because I want streaming video. The free efforts I've seen just don't cut the mustard.

    However, perhaps Real can be persuaded to release source. After all, they rely on patents to defend their market, so giving out the source won't hurt them. It won't be Open Source, but at least it'll be source. The ability to fix bugs and partake in the development of new features cannot be underestimated.
  • Well, with linux, it would be possible to put the realserver in some kind of process confinement, where it would be unable to read anything else on the hard drive, nor able to contact any server except the one it is streaming from. You can't do that on Windows. You can't do it yet on linux either, but at least it's possible.

    Of course, they could have their process not run at all if it is confined. But then I would not run it at all. ;)
  • will Real allow the server to be used without their licensing fees?

    Royalty-free serving of content was touted as one of the big advantages of the Darwin Streaming Server, which is already available for Linux (better known as the QuickTime Streaming Server under Mac OS X).

    <disclaimer> yes, there's no QuickTime Player for Linux. Yes, you can play older QuickTime movies (one snot encoded via Sorensen) on Linux. Yes, Apple should consider a client that includes the codecs. No, I don't work for them. </disclaimer>

  • If I were them, I would have it plastered in big letters. This is a great thing for the Linux community and for Real. I for one am tired of that old buggy G2 alpha.

    Of course, they might have not had time to post it on their site yet.

    Let the viewing of South Park movies in Linux recommence!

    Plankeye
  • and now the article is missing from the story's link. WTF?

  • Rest assured Microsoft has no control whatsoever over Red Hat.

    Yes, we are watching Microsoft (and *BSD and BeOS and other Linux distributions and and and), but that doesn't mean we're copying them. All Redhat is doing is waiting for Microsoft to make every move and then they mirror the same move

    Please tell me, for example, when Microsoft started shipping source, when invented a packaging system that allows for real uninstallation, when Microsoft started to include a clustering system in Windows, or when Red Hat started providing the bluescreen module or putting lots of stuff that belong to userspace into the kernel.
    Red hat doesn't want to create anything new.

    It is true that right now, we aren't starting many new projects all by ourselves - but we're contributing to projects that do something new. Check the CVS commit logs of most interesting open source projects and you'll see commits from Red Hat employees (creating something new). Why would we want to, for example, create our own new desktop environment? Don't you agree that contributing to the ones we have (such as KDE and GNOME, both of which we're working on) is obviously a better solution?

  • Why? (Score:2)

    by bero-rh ( 98815 )
    <I>Maybe if their Linux distro didn't suck so hard I woudln't mind</I>

    So, why do you think we suck?
    Saying something sucks without giving reasons is easy, but doesn't help making anything better. (just like pointing out something doesn't suck - would it get us anywhere if I just replied with &quot;Red Hat Linux doesn't suck&quot;?)

    If you have any constructive criticism, please let me know. If you think this is getting offtopic (it probably is), feel free to send it to me personally at bero@redhat.com.
  • It was about time RealNetworks realised that Linux is is need if their products 8-) What would really be interesting would be to see an RH distro with the M$ media player...
  • Real Player will be a nice binary only addition to the world of unix software, but feh.

    Microsoft Windows Media Player and it's delightful array of codecs is much nicer to use than the bauble-intensive, ad-encrusted real player.

    WMP also does fullscreen much more smoothly than RP and just generally sucks less. I would be delighted to have it available cross platform, even if it was binary only. (which it would be...)

    Real tried to play hardball with MS and see where it got them...

  • I have had my share of bad luck with just about every single Real product I've gotten my hands on. For starters, their Real Player is the biggest little program I think I've seen in the recent past. It has to much junk bundled with it, it ridiculous. I have had problem with the Real Producer to. I was going to setup up streaming television over the LAN in my house. But Real Producer kept rebooting my system. The Real Server wasn't much better, but that actuall worked with some decency. I've tried to migrate away from most products by them.

  • All Redhat is doing is waiting for Microsoft to make every move and then they mirror the same move.

    Who cares?

    Red Hat is one Linux company. There are other distributions out there with other goals. Let them chase the market that they see. It is a business after all.

    Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
  • It's not the bloated mess the Windows version has become... There is *way* too much junk in the RealPlayer app that is useless: Content Panel? AOL Instant Messenger? snap.com search bar? Please.

  • How much does Microsoft control RedHat? (Score:3)

    by heroine ( 1220 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2000 @08:42AM (#1253599) Homepage
    Just because Microsoft announced yesterday that Windows Media Server would be built into Windows 2000, does that mean we should match their every move with exactly the same thing or should we try to offer something better? All Redhat is doing is waiting for Microsoft to make every move and then they mirror the same move. That's why Rasterman left. RedHat doesn't want to create anything new. They just want to clone Microsoft by repackaging existing products that don't work.

  • Several nagging questions (Score:3)

    by Chas ( 5144 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2000 @08:36AM (#1253600) Homepage Journal

    Now, these have been asked by others (some of them at least, but I'd like to ask about them all together.

    1. Will these be binary releases only or will source code be made available?
    2. Will it be as bloated with useless crap as the Windows version is? Or can we opt to run it in stripped-down method?
    3. Is this version going to be collecting information on us the way the Windows version does?
    4. How portable is this going to be to other distros and sister OS platforms like BSD, as well as hardware platforms like Mac, Sparc, Alpha, etc?
    5. Will content creation (Real Producer) software be following? Or are we still having to waste disk space for a Windows partition?
    6. Aren't there other software packages in Linux that have plugins that'll already play Real Media (.rm, .ram) files?



    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!

  • YACPVS (Score:3)

    by CheezH ( 5990 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2000 @10:08AM (#1253601) Homepage

    (Yet Another Crappy Proprietary Video Standard)

    I would really rather see most of these proprietary video standards go down the drain. I think most, if not all, of the functionality is present in one of the MPEG versions. AFAIK all video encoders do the same thing: DCT with quantization, and motion compensation on top of that. Big whoopee.

    I'd like to see some nice MPEG streaming software as an alternative to things like this. The tech is all there, someone just has to slap it together. I'd do it, but I'm too lazy/stupid :)

  • Nice? (Score:3)

    by Jeffrey Baker ( 6191 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2000 @08:19AM (#1253602)
    Personally I feel that the RealPlayer part of this is great. I like to use RealPlayer G2 under X, but unfortunately it takes as much CPU time as it can get, which is a problem. I hope this jointly developed version will be of better quality.

    What would be really swanky, and a great marketing move for Real, would be if they released a shared library for Linux and other free platforms. They don't need to release the source, just a library that can be linked against. Then we would no doubt have command line, X, GNOME, KDE, and probably some other versions of software that could play Real streams. Maybe we would also be able to make it use ALSA output, and integrate it with the X-Video extension to XFree86. The possibilities are endless with even this simple, non-open-source solution. I hope Real and RedHat are considering it.

    As for the server, there is no way in hell I would run a binary-only server on my machine, especially if it wants to run as root or some such tripe.

    -jwb

  • same old evil...great new taste! I'm skeptical... (Score:3)

    by errittus ( 13200 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2000 @09:09AM (#1253603) Homepage
    Think about it. Real shouts out, "YAY! we are gonna support our Real products under Linux." (the crowd rejoices) But most of us know Real's track record. Real STILL owns Xing, regardless of their stance on liunx. Real is also in the DVD software-decoding realm. The growth of RealMedia utils under linux is very welcome, but just like any good company, i'm sure that Real has a game plan. What of their involvement in the DVD/DeCSS debacle. It just seems too weird to me. I'd hate to see this deal come back to bite Linux (as a whole) on the ass. I haven't heard one peep come out of Xing about their poor implementation of the CSS encryption. RealPlayer or DVD software....doesn't matter. It still comes out of the same camp. Comments? Am i the only skeptic?

  • Re:One more app... One more step... (Score:3)

    by Kludge ( 13653 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2000 @08:48AM (#1253604)
    > One more app that pushes me further toward finally deleting Windoze.

    There's only one app you need for deleting windoze: It's called fdisk.

    :)

  • XMMS vs. Realplayer (Score:3)

    by RoLlEr_CoAsTeR ( 39353 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2000 @08:16AM (#1253605)
    Well, what about XMMS? I'm certainly not the expert here, but if it's got all the plugins that winamp does (and/or more), then I'll bet there's a plugin for XMMS that alows you to watch .rm files. Which would make Realplayer unnecessary for Linux unless it's just a better product. However, I'm not saying to not use Realplayer for Linux because we all want choice, right? That's all part of the open source ideal, no? So, I guess what I'm asking here is: How does Realplayer compare to XMMS/what we've already got? (realizing, of course, that XMMS isn't the only thing we've got for multimedia under Linux/Unix/etc....)

  • Better Real support is key... (Score:3)

    by smoondog ( 85133 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2000 @08:16AM (#1253606)
    I'm happy to see that Red Hat is out there getting support for better linux ports. They're starting to sound a little like a lobbiest group. Of course, with M$ having very competitive products of the Real* products, this makes good business sense, too. We've seen some of this before with OS/2. I wonder if this time M$ will get competitive products out on the linux? They'll need to if they want to stay competitive.


    -- Moondog
  • <i>I think customers of Red Hat should let them know that they prefer that Red Hat support an open source streaming audio/media project, rather than bundling Real Networks software.</i>
    <p>
    We're always in favor of something open sourced.
    Please point me to an open-sourced solution for the same problem that:
    <ul>
    <li>is as widely in use/accepted by content providers</li>
    <li>Has at least a client available for many platforms (as much as I dislike it, at this time, not many webmasters will switch to a streaming server that doesn't have a client on the evil empire's side)</li>
    <li>Works reliably</li>
    </ul>
    (or at least will get there soon) and I'll make sure it gets included as well.
    <p>Until we have something like it, I'd say having a proprietary solution on a free OS is preferable over having a proprietary solution requiring a proprietary OS, and no solution whatsoever on free OSes...

  • The joys of feeling marginalized... (Score:4)

    by Chops-Frozen-Water ( 2085 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2000 @08:17AM (#1253608) Homepage
    *sigh* Yet another reinforcement that "Linux" == "x86 only". PPC, Alpha, Sparc, and all the other platforms are really wasted efforts; you should just suck it up and buy crappy Intel hardware. [end sarcasm]
    --

  • Re:I'm doubtful that this is a good thing (Score:4)

    by philg ( 8939 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2000 @10:41AM (#1253609)

    Your response is fair and pragmatic. But the original poster didn't bring up (and you don't address) the most disconcerting aspect of Real's recent business practice: their appropriation of personal information without individual permission.

    Is Red Hat going to take steps to prevent this? How can we be assured that similar shenanigans won't occur in the future, assuming the product is going to remain closed-source?

    I will be sorely disappointed in RH if these concerns simply go unanswered, and I certainly don't feel safe putting Real's binary on my system until the point has at least been addressed.

    phil

  • Press Release found on Real Networks Web Site (Score:4)

    by dave_aiello ( 9791 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2000 @09:21AM (#1253610) Homepage
    I realize that the original press release disappeared from the original location at Yahoo!. I found a press release about the deal on Real Networks Web Site at http://www.realn etworks.com/company/pressroom/pr/2000/rhlinux.html [realnetworks.com].

    BTW, I think it's great that Real is planning to put more effort behind Linux support. I'd love to see Apple step up with QuickTime support for Linux as well.
    --

    Dave Aiello

  • I'm doubtful that this is a good thing (Score:4)

    by jetson123 ( 13128 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2000 @08:33AM (#1253611)
    Yes, there is a lot of streaming content in Real Networks format out there. However, the company has hardly behaved particularly well: they never released specifications for their format as they had originally promised, and their closed source player has transmitted private information back to their servers.

    Using RealPlayer will only help their proprietary format get entrenched further. That means that we may have to live for a long time with their disregard for privacy and their haphazard clients. (I removed RealPlayer from my Linux machines a while ago.)

    I think it would be better to look towards open alternatives and to contact web sites to use such alternatives. Streaming MP3 is a good choice for some applications. And there has been some work on other streaming media for Linux (e.g., here [free-expression.org]).

    Furthermore, I think customers of RedHat should let them know that they prefer that RedHat support an open source streaming audio/media project, rather than bundling Real Networks software.

  • New URL (Score:4)

    by twdorris ( 29395 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2000 @09:37AM (#1253612)
    It looks like they have a new URL for this article...

    http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/00 0222/realnetwor_4.html [yahoo.com]

  • This is important news... (Score:4)

    by teraflop user ( 58792 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2000 @08:23AM (#1253613)
    Because MS have just been tub-thumping about how Win2000 includes streaming servers built in with no further licenses. MS could make Linux a second-class web browsing platform if they could capture the streaming server market with a proprietary format for which no Linux player exists. This move is a step towards preventing that.

    Hopefully RedHat will get the source code and ensure that the new RealPlayer is actually stable and useable under Linux.

  • will they collect our RealUserinfo? (Score:4)

    by hemos. ( 151256 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2000 @08:14AM (#1253614) Homepage
    This is exactly what we have been needing for Linux, a program that will collect our userinfo, and without our knowledge, send over the Internet.
    No longer will people declare than Win98 is more user friendly. Linux users will be targeted by marketing analysts just as easy as Windows users.

    Truly, this is a great day for all mankind!

    -hemos.

  • Is Real being sincere? (Score:5)

    by G27 Radio ( 78394 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2000 @08:39AM (#1253615)
    (I realize that the following sounds very opinionated. That's because it's an opinion. duh.)

    Real's support for Linux products has always sucked. I remember reading a couple years ago about how Glaser originally liked to talk trash about Microsoft, but in the end Gates slapped him around a little and got him to work a little more 'in sync' with Microsoft. Afterwards M$ went ahead and bundled Windows Media Player with Windows. I would have thought at that point Real would start focusing more on it's non-Windows products.

    When Realaudio first came out I thought it was just about the coolest thing in the world. Since then I've watched it become less and less relevant as other competition shows up. In the meantime I've just developed a distaste for Real's products, their annoying reminder messages, lack of regard for privacy, etc. Glaser just seems like an opportunist, and not a very good one at that. If there's one thing that impresses my about Real, it's that they're still around at all. I guess this has more to do with being the first to market than anything.

    I think all this press release means is that Real found another free way to get their software distributed. I'll believe that they are truly making an effort to support their *nix users when I see it.

    numb

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