RealNetworks release Helix Client DNA Source

[dang]

Yesterday (10/29/02) RealNetworks released the source code to the Helix DNA Client.

Whats the big fuss?

Well, for starters, people can register for free and download the source and port it to other operating systems like Solaris, Linux, and portable device OS (PalmOS, etc).

from a quote from the Helix Community (http://www.helixcommunity.org) website:
"Of course, there are any number of applications where media playback or creation could be of value. You might:

Create a standalone GUI for your favorite platform, such as Linux, Palm, Symbian, or PocketPC
Create a browser plug-in for your favorite browser, such as Mozilla or Opera
Plug media playback into a media cataloging or distribution system
Build a personal broadcaster, to "shout" your own media to the world
Embed media playback in a training application, or a line-of-business application... or any application you can think of"

And, you can also build upon the client, adding or improving extensions (another quote from the helix site):
"It may be you are more interested in working "in the guts" of a media engine. Courtesy of Helix's rich set of APIs, you can extend the DNA with support for your own datatypes, file formats, procotols, etc. So if you want to add SVG or XHTML support, or stream medical imaging data, or broadcast real-time generated statistics, you can use the Helix DNA as the base.

Some changes might require actual modifications to the DNA itself, such as:

Research into congestion control
Improved multicast/SSM support
Improved HTTP/HTTPS support
SDP parser
RTSP parser
RTP protocol support
DirectSound Audio Device
P2P streaming extensions
IPV6"

This is great news! Especially that it will most likely to get the peeps on the other side of "the lake" in Redmond panties in a bunch.

This is the first release from the Helix community of several releases. Further down the road there will be encoding tools and server bits as well.

What do you all think? Good or bad for Real? Good or bad for the users and developers in the free world?

[Ioman]

This is a major step. I posted the press release on the front page and bookmarked the press release section of Real Networks for future news.

[llbbl]

I can't wait to see what Open Source Projects become of this. I bet Sourceforge.net gets alot of new programs as a result of this move by Real. I like the company alot better now that they have released the source code.

[Ioman]

Originally posted by vindisco
I can't wait to see what Open Source Projects become of this. I bet Sourceforge.net gets alot of new programs as a result of this move by Real. I like the company alot better now that they have released the source code.

But will releasing the source code really get Real more attention or increase their profits and support? I am betting it doesn't in the long run. Initially Linux was a fast adopter because it was open source, but when companies like Corel tried to capitalize on it, they found it incredibly hard to do. Why pay for a product that is free?

So here is another question. If a 3rd party company picks up this open source and tries to produce a product from it, has Real just created their own monster in the form of competition? Or can Real Networks collect royalties from this. What is their overall goal by releasing open source?

[dang]

Actually, thats all part of the licensing. I dont know the details, but I believe there are 2 types of licenses. One for individual developers and one for corps. You can't get the source for our "guts", the codecs.

I believe licensing is something like 25 per client that you as a business sell.

All and all though, real doesn't make money off clients. Real gives their own client away, RealOne Player. Real makes money off of selling subscriptions. If people build their own players using Helix, that just means more players that will be able to subscribe to the content on more platforms. It also make the user base much larger and broader, so more people might license the server to push more real content.

There are lots of ways real can make money, and trust me..real has thought out the licensing very carefully.

[llbbl]

To me at least ....

Who cares about RealONE content. I just want a player that isnt' so much like Spyware and has a better way of choosing the program options ( maybe less ahhhgst )

Maybe a nice small compact fast little utility that works with ALL browsers and plays any streaming media file that I want.

[llbbl]

Originally posted by dang
Helix server is the latest version of RealServer. It's used to stream media. It can stream any major media type (windows media, real media, mpeg4, quicktime, mp3, etc). It's now named Helix Server because its source is going to be released soon as part of the Helix Community.

Helix Producer is the application used to encode into Real media. You can encode clips into RealVideo 9, have stereo sound, etc. It can convert files like quicktime, avi, mpeg, etc into RealVideo.

It too is the latest version of what used to be called Real Producer, but Helix producer is a new version and is also part of the Helix Community, who's source will be released as well.

That's cool that Helix Server can stream other content. I didn't know that. Before this was targeted at large company's like NBC and FOX who have billion dollar sport contracts, so how do you think that releasing the source code is going to change how things are hosted? I guess what I am saying is what happens when all your big company service contracts suddenly don't want to renew because they are going with some Open Sourced version that streams everything but Real content. This could turn into a nightmare for the company. Although I am still glad that they did it.

Ok now tell us how much both items of software cost before you made it free? Oh and does Server run on Linux / Unix ?