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On Mon, 2004-01-12 at 11:04, June Tate wrote:
> What about the Helix suite of tools? They seem rather well supported
> right now and can play most of the RealMedia formats that I've come
> across -- granted RealMedia isn't free, but it's a codec on Linux that
> works legally, AFAICT.

Helix is actually pretty cool - they're working on a GTK client, and
really trying to get it into the community.  The license is still a
little bit restrictive - but it is much closer than most companies.  I
really think that they should write a Gstreamer Helix plugin, here's for
hoping.

I believe that the Helix stuff is based off of Real's actual source
code.  I think it's actually the real thing.  I haven't looked closely
though.

> Also, what about Totem's[1] ability to use codecs straight from the
> Windows DLLs -- is that considered legal or no?

I'm pretty sure that this is legal, the DLLs were probably licensed from
everyone fair and square.  But it doesn't solve the problem in as we
don't end up with a free CODEC at the end of the day.  It still
encourages people to make things with closed CODECs.  It also doesn't
help those who use architectures other than x86.

> And since we're on the subject of video codecs, you might want to have a
> look at Xiph.org's Ogg Theora[2]. It's still alpha quality, but looks
> very promising.

I'm excited.

		--Ted


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