Legal WMV/WMA support coming to Linux!!!

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 12:08 am

http://news.com.com/Real+to+plug+Window ... g=nefd.top
"SAN FRANCISCO--RealNetworks will release open-source software this year that will let Linux computers play Windows Media files.

The media delivery software company and Novell made the announcement at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo here. Novell said it will include the tool in its Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 in the fourth quarter.

Currently, Linux users can play Windows Media Video (WMV) and Windows Media Audio (WMA) content if they install closed-source modules, said Jeff Duchmann, general manager of client and digital rights management technologies at RealNetworks. That will change as the result of a licensing deal RealNetworks has signed with Microsoft and its settlement of an antitrust suit against the software giant. It will release open-source code to play the files as part of the Helix Community project it launched to bring RealNetworks technology to Linux."

OH YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Same way Linspire did it, except this seems a lot better.

From what it sounds like, this new stuff from Real will be open source, but even if it isn't, we just need KDE to release their new Phonon framework under the LGPL so this new code can be hooked to it and BOOM, all the apps that will be using Phonon (Amarok, Kaffeine etc.) can play Windows Media!!!

CptnObvious999 · Post by **CptnObvious999** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 12:34 am

yay! I never have to listen to WMA files (yay) but there is the occasional website that uses WMV instead of Flash or something good (....those bastards) so now I can view it without having search for the wmv file URL (which is becoming harder and harder to find these days), download it, then watch it in mplayer-bin. I hope Theora and Vorbis still get pushed though (I'm sure they will).

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 9:13 am

I don't see why we're happy about promoting a closed format. There's no reason for Microsoft not to change their format with WMP 11 so this code no longer works.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 9:52 am

Gomer_X wrote:I don't see why we're happy about promoting a closed format.

I read a review of SLED 10 in a danish newspaper and overall they were pretty positive and actually did say this "Can Linux be used at the workplace? Absolutely!", but they did note as a negative that "The standard package should contain all the things we take for granted in the Windows world, sound files such as WAV and WMA must be playable and the radio news you should be able to listen to" and this radio they refer to uses WMA streaming.

Novell is going to a Windows userbase and saying "Linux is ready for these parts of you, you should try it out because it has this and this advantage etc. etc.", then they install SLED 10 and find out that some internal training videos or other stuff in WMV, or maybe streaming audio or something won't play and they go straight back to their Windows box.

Plus this is legal WMA/WMV playback we're talking about, and not using unlicensed Windows dlls.

OGG Vorbis is a really good audio format, but like Chris DiBona said when he was on the show, Apple's QuickTime H.264 has a lot more technical advantages and so on, Theora is based off of On2 Technologies' VP3 codec, which is not exactly state of art, Chris said that if those guys released VP9 to the free software and open source community then we'd be on to something.

Maybe you don't want to get more people to run Linux, but obviously there are people who do, [hint] Novell [/hint], and if you can't deliver what your customers, or potential customers, want, you're not going to have a business.

We don't live in a perfect world, and we're gonna have to live with that fact. If we lived in a perfect world children wouldn't die of hunger or muslim girls wouldn't be tortured for just talking to a boy on a street corner about something like math or something in that direction.

If WMA/WMV playback is what it's gonna take to get more people to run Linux, I say go for it, especially if it could be done with free software, then I don't care at all, remember to promote the open formats when you can, and a lot of governments are already looking at OpenDocument and sees it's benefits and endorse it, they could endorse OGG Vorbis or OGG Theora too if you show them the benefits.

Gomer_X wrote:There's no reason for Microsoft not to change their format with WMP 11 so this code no longer works.

Real got the license from an anti-trust settlement with Microsoft, I think they have this part covered, and if they don't, by breaking Real's support with a newer version, Microsoft will, yet again, piss of the European Commission, and there comes another anti-trust lawsuit, good luck getting that one settled in your favor Microsoft.

jamathis · Post by **jamathis** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 4:51 pm

This is good news. This is one of the reasons that I still keep a Windows partition on my laptop and my desktop. VLC will play some wmv files but not all. Now if I could just get DVD playback to work on Ubuntu.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 4:59 pm

jamathis wrote:This is good news. This is one of the reasons that I still keep a Windows partition on my laptop and my desktop. VLC will play some wmv files but not all. Now if I could just get DVD playback to work on Ubuntu.

You just need to install libdvdcss (http://packages.freecontrib.org/ubuntu/ ... 4_i386.deb) install a full featured Xine engine and a Totem that uses Xine, and you can play DVDs.

Wally Balljacker · Post by **Wally Balljacker** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 5:02 pm

jamathis wrote:This is good news. This is one of the reasons that I still keep a Windows partition on my laptop and my desktop. VLC will play some wmv files but not all. Now if I could just get DVD playback to work on Ubuntu.

Pssst.. http://downloads.videolan.org/pub/libdv ... 1_i386.deb