Linspire's big announcement: Community project, opening CNR

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Tue Apr 25, 2006 9:59 am

Judland wrote:But would you call that an ability of CNR or alien? Sounds like more like hacking rather than a simple install.

Well, I'm just mentioning it, maybe this process could be built into CNR, if say Novell/SUSE was offering it or something like that.

Judland wrote:I don't know about the process you mention here, but if it's a deb package, could you not do that with any deb package, not neccessarily those available from CNR?

Yes you can, but in order to not run into RPM hell, the original deb package needs to be LSB-compliant with regards to libraries and stuff like that, if you listen to the TLLTS interview with Ian Murdock, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Tue Apr 25, 2006 10:06 am

Patrick wrote:
Judland wrote: So, as Klik progresses and gets better, why would you pay for CNR?
Can you purchase a legal DVD player in Klik? Of course I know the answer is no. Also I don't think Klik apps are intended to be permanently installed on your machine. CNR is more like apt-get but with access to proprietary apps that you pay extra for.

It seems to me CNR and legal codecs have nothing to do with each other.

There is nothing to stop anyone from paying the license fees and packaging up codecs for sale for any distro. There's nothing about it that requires Click and Run. They're working on providing the same ability through Gstreamer; pay a small fee and get legal codecs.

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Tue Apr 25, 2006 10:14 am

Tsuroerusu wrote:
Judland wrote:I don't know about the process you mention here, but if it's a deb package, could you not do that with any deb package, not neccessarily those available from CNR?
Yes you can, but in order to not run into RPM hell, the original deb package needs to be LSB-compliant with regards to libraries and stuff like that, if you listen to the TLLTS interview with Ian Murdock, you'll know what I'm talking about.

I thought CNR avoided the problem entirely by statically linking everything? Dependency resolution isn't a problem because all the dependencies are built in.

I agree, this isn't something that CNR makes possible. Linspire may be the first to make it available easily, but it's nothing that couldn't be done by anyone.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Tue Apr 25, 2006 10:15 am

Gomer_X wrote:It seems to me CNR and legal codecs have nothing to do with each other.

There is nothing to stop anyone from paying the license fees and packaging up codecs for sale for any distro. There's nothing about it that requires Click and Run. They're working on providing the same ability through Gstreamer; pay a small fee and get legal codecs.

The only problem is, would Microsoft license Windows Media to guys like Red Hat and Novell for use in their enterprise products? I highly doubt so, Linspire has the license, and they can distribute support for Windows Media, not Red Hat or Novell.

Novell is trying to get this multimedia thing solved through a partnership with RealNetworks who provide the MP3 support and stuff in the Helix framework that Novell will ship in their upcoming SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, and then apps like Banshee and amaroK can access it, if Totem was adopted to use the Helix framework, it could play WMV if Real implemented support for it, which I've heard rumors that they might, but in this scenario you could just use the official RealPlayer for video.

Judland · Post by **Judland** » Tue Apr 25, 2006 10:19 am

Tsuroerusu wrote:Yes you can, but in order to not run into RPM hell, the original deb package needs to be LSB-compliant with regards to libraries and stuff like that, if you listen to the TLLTS interview with Ian Murdock, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Just sounds easier for me to use Klik, which is available now and probably works just fine on SuSE already.

Referencing back to an earlier comment from Patrick: since Klik doesn't "install" anything, you can take your Klik apps with you and use on any other Klik compliant PC. Put the Klik apps on a USB stick.... total application mobility.

You like using Gizmo instead of Skype, but the Internet cafe only has Skype installed? Bring your USB stick with Gizmo on it and run the app. from the desktop without having to ask the cafe owerns to install anything. (Just an example).

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Tue Apr 25, 2006 10:26 am

Tsuroerusu wrote:The only problem is, would Microsoft license Windows Media to guys like Red Hat and Novell for use in their enterprise products? I highly doubt so, Linspire has the license, and they can distribute support for Windows Media, not Red Hat or Novell.

So you're saying Microsoft has granted an exclusive license to Linspire for their codecs? That's the first time I've heard this.

As far as Red Hat and Novell, why would they want Windows Media support in an enterprise product? Why do corporate desktops and servers need the ability to play .WMVs?

Chess · Post by **Chess** » Tue Apr 25, 2006 10:29 am

Gomer_X wrote:So you're saying Microsoft has granted an exclusive license to Linspire for their codecs? That's the first time I've heard this.

The Linspire people have basically said that it was part of the Lindows settlement. Not in so many words, because I am sure the settlement agreement contained a confidentiality provision, but in several interviews with them, you can tell that's what happened, if you "read between the lines."

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Tue Apr 25, 2006 10:34 am

Gomer_X wrote:So you're saying Microsoft has granted an exclusive license to Linspire for their codecs? That's the first time I've heard this.

Well, Linspire kind of forced them to, you see during the lawsuit between "Lindows" and Microsoft, Microsoft was loosing because the judge didn't believe generic words was elgible for trademarks, so one of the "deals" of the settlement was that Linspire would change their name and Microsoft grant them a license to play WMV files.

Gomer_X wrote:As far as Red Hat and Novell, why would they want Windows Media support in an enterprise product? Why do corporate desktops and servers need the ability to play .WMVs?

Just go ask Dann, he'll tell you why. Maybe for training videos or presentation videos or stuff like that. I know that Norway is considering deploying SUSE Linux on desktops and servers in 40 schools, in this case WMV support would be a good idea, because if the school has educational videos that they might have purchased or something, they'll need the ability to play them. I'm sure Novell and Red Hat for that matter is more than happy to deploy Linux in schools with thin clients and stuff.

DaveQB · Post by **DaveQB** » Wed Apr 26, 2006 6:43 am

Chess wrote:
Gomer_X wrote:So you're saying Microsoft has granted an exclusive license to Linspire for their codecs? That's the first time I've heard this.
The Linspire people have basically said that it was part of the Lindows settlement. Not in so many words, because I am sure the settlement agreement contained a confidentiality provision, but in several interviews with them, you can tell that's what happened, if you "read between the lines."

Yeah I got that too from the interview with Kevin Carmony at the LWE in Boston the guys conducted.

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Wed Apr 26, 2006 9:18 am

Tsuroerusu wrote:Just go ask Dann, he'll tell you why. Maybe for training videos or presentation videos or stuff like that. I know that Norway is considering deploying SUSE Linux on desktops and servers in 40 schools, in this case WMV support would be a good idea, because if the school has educational videos that they might have purchased or something, they'll need the ability to play them. I'm sure Novell and Red Hat for that matter is more than happy to deploy Linux in schools with thin clients and stuff.

Schools != corporate environment, in my opinion. I see Ubuntu as a better fit than an enterprise distro.

Post by **dann** » Tue May 02, 2006 9:14 am

I can see wmv support being important in a Corporate environment. Say a video comes down the pike, a training video, safety video, pr video, whatever; business is not goiing to want to worry about whether or not they can playback the video on their computer. Once that happens heads will roll.

Post by **Patrick** » Tue May 02, 2006 9:21 am

dann wrote:I can see wmv support being important in a Corporate environment. Say a video comes down the pike, a training video, safety video, pr video, whatever; business is not goiing to want to worry about whether or not they can playback the video on their computer. Once that happens heads will roll.

Agreed. If a company has training videos in wmv format and is unable to play them in linux they won't bother with it. Plain and simple. As I've mentioned previously another barrier for linux adoption is Lotus Notes. Companies who've used for it years won't abandon it. Luckily the next version of Notes will be usable on linux. This is the reality of the corporate world.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Tue May 02, 2006 9:48 am

Patrick wrote:Agreed. If a company has training videos in wmv format and is unable to play them in linux they won't bother with it. Plain and simple. As I've mentioned previously another barrier for linux adoption is Lotus Notes. Companies who've used for it years won't abandon it. Luckily the next version of Notes will be usable on linux. This is the reality of the corporate world.

Just something I've been wondering about, what good open source alternatives to Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange and so forth are there? I've heard the name Open-Xchange, is that something in that direction?

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Tue May 02, 2006 10:29 am

dann wrote:I can see wmv support being important in a Corporate environment. Say a video comes down the pike, a training video, safety video, pr video, whatever; business is not goiing to want to worry about whether or not they can playback the video on their computer. Once that happens heads will roll.

I work in a coporate environment, and we have no training material that uses Windows Media as far as I know. We don't even have the latest Windows Media Player installed.

We use a third party provider that does online training using a Java/flash based player. We've changed vendors 3 times in the last 3 years, but all 3 use the same player. (Check it out at skillsoft.com if interested)

I can't get the player to work on Linux, but it supports Netscape/Mozilla, and would probably work if I installed Sun Java.

All of our internally developed training stuff uses Java/flash as well.

I'm not saying that represents the majority of corporations, but we are a pretty big company (20K employees).

Judland · Post by **Judland** » Tue May 02, 2006 12:15 pm

dann wrote:I can see wmv support being important in a Corporate environment. Say a video comes down the pike, a training video, safety video, pr video, whatever; business is not goiing to want to worry about whether or not they can playback the video on their computer. Once that happens heads will roll.

Companies will put up with a lot of incompatibility issues... if their IT dept. says they must.

Take MS-Word files for example. We (the office I work for) have to deal with the issues of receiving documents created in the latest MS-Word format when all we have is MS-Word 2000. Why do we put up with it? Because our IT Dept. says that's all we have to use, so tell who ever you're getting your .doc file from to save it in 2000 format.

Myself, I just use OpenOffice, but others in the office put up with it because "that's just Microsoft's way".

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is, if we had more competent and educated IT people, maybe these minor barriers could be overcome more easily.