Re: OfB.biz: Real Networks Announces New Media Player Project

On Wed, Aug 06, 2003 at 07:31:31PM -0700, Neil Stevens wrote:
> It'd be pretty stupid to call Kaboodle, Noatun, etc. "lagging" becuase Real 
> withheld their codec information.

Real is available and I believe the only serious problems would be Windows
Media files and the Sorensen codec.

> The honest thing would be to say that anyone using those codecs is 
> "lagging" in actually distributing their information.

Maybe Theora (http://www.theora.org/) will change this, but given the slow
mainstream adoption of Ogg, I'm not hopeful.

> Further, anyone who recommends to a proprietary-software-wanting friend the 
> use of "GNU/Linux" is doing that friend a disservice.

There's a difference between wanting proprietary software and wanting to
play mainstream Internet content. Until open document formats are developed
and leveraged, that means we'll have to find a way to work around those
problems.

We could simply say "no, we can't support those formats" and be done with
it, but that would corner free operating systems back into a niche world.
While I could personally live with that, I'm afraid that commercial vendors
of Linux have enough influence to prevent this from happening. The paycheck
of more and more people depends on the success of Linux in a mainstream
environment.

I'd like to see mplayer and wine as software highlighting the transitional
phase of gaining marketshare until we can successfully leverage open
document formats.

Rob
-- 
Rob Kaper     | "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
[email protected] | temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
www.capsi.com | - Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

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