[luau] News - Open Source Helix by RealNetworks will play all media files, even Windows

[Warren Togami]

http://newsforge.com/newsforge/02/07/22/1818209.shtml?tid=6

RealNetworks, the company that brings us the Real Player, announced today
that it is launching Helix, an open standard for multimedia application
development and deployment. The Helix platform brings with it standardized
APIs that will allow playback of most multimedia formats, including .wmf
(Windows Media Player), .mov (Quicktime), and .rm (Real).


In a press conference staged at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention and
broadcast live on the Internet, RealNetworks CEO and founder Rob Glaser
talked about the Helix OS-independent platform, the Helix development
community, and Helix application development. Brad Hefta-Gaub, v.p. of
product development, performed a live demonstration of a Helix Universal
Server running all three of the "big" media file formats simultaneously,
along with an IP-enabled handheld device running mpeg4, and a Nokia cellular
phone streaming radio over the Net.
The company trotted out Open Source luminaries Bruce Perens (HP/Compaq),
Brian Behlendorf (CollabNet), and Eric Raymond, as well as several industry
partners, in support of its licensing schemes. Glaser said that Helix is
being released under two licenses; the RealNetworks Public Source License
(RPSL) and the RealNetworks Community Source License (RCSL). According to
the CEO, the entire system will be released under the community source
license, and various portions of the Helix system will also be available
under the RPSL, which follows the Free Software Foundation's copyleft
philosophy more closely.

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