Fluendo To Sell Proprietary Codecs For Linux

Several readers wrote in to tell us that the open source media software development company Fluendo has announced plans to sell native Linux implementations of proprietary video codecs such as Windows Media, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4. (Press release here.) From the article: "Currently, many Linux video applications facilitate Windows Media video playback using Windows DLL files and Wine, which provides suboptimal performance, particularly with streaming video. Fluendo's codecs could potentially provide better integration for streaming Windows Media playback in Linux web browsers as well as through GStreamer-based desktop applications like Totem."

Hmmmmmmmmn,

1) I don't believe (for xine at least) that wine is neccessary for asf (wmv) playback (the windows codec dlls are required, but used by xine without wine's help)

2) I guess a native binary blob is slightly better than a MS coded binary blob.... but frankly, it's still just a binary blob. You have no idea what its really doing.

Good luck to Fluendo however.

Re:Hmmmmmmmmn,

2) I guess a native binary blob is slightly better than a MS coded binary blob.... but frankly, it's still just a binary blob. You have no idea what its really doing.

I guess the vast majority of end-user couldn't care less what their video codec is doing, as long as it plays their damn video's. It's a bit like the NVidea Linux drivers: the free software purists see it as something awful to load a binary driver on Linux, but I for one am very grateful to have proper 3D accelerated drivers at all. Same goes for video playback... There will always be proprietary video codecs, just get over it. I don't see the problem anyway, if I'm want to run commercial software on Linux it is usually binary as well. Does that mean the software is useless or bad?

Re:Hmmmmmmmmn,

It's a bit like the NVidea Linux drivers: the free software purists see it as something awful to load a binary driver on Linux,

Perhaps because of security fears? [rapid7.com]

"the NVIDIA Binary Graphics Driver for Linux is vulnerable to a buffer overflow that allows an attacker to run arbitrary code as root. This bug can be exploited both locally or remotely

Anyway, bringing nvidia into the discussion is a red herring, there is a huge difference between running a binary blob in ring 0 and userland. Let's discuss userland binary rather than kernel mode binary.

Re:Hmmmmmmmmn,

I got hit by the file corruption bug in that's existed in recent 2.6 kernels due to race condition. Was burried pretty deep, took the experts a while to figure out what was going on. I had the source code, so did thousands of other people. The bug still caused lost files. The nvidia driver's a pretty complex piece of code, having to handle many slight differences and implement workarounds for many different cards and chipsets. Nvidia have paid people on the job, with the relevant experience. What makes people think that the oss community can do a better job than nvidia's own people, when they can't even keep their own codebases bugfree? Bugs happen, and with really complex code, it takes people with the most experience available to find and resolve the problem, properly.

Re:Hmmmmmmmmn,

So hundreds of developers (and being kernel hackers, probably paid) took a long time to find a file corruption bug that would presumably affect a lot of people. And somehow you think that NVidia's little graphics driver team should be able to magically resolve your problems overnight?

Re:Hmmmmmmmmn,

Noooo, missed my point - there may be those hundreds of developers that work on the kernel, but it took the very select few, that had the proper experience and knowledge of the code and design, to track it down and fix it. The team of kernel developers could have been 5000, or it could have been 5. Sometimes, it's not the hands and the eyes, it's the right hands and the right eyes. Experience is very important in a complex codebase.

Re:Hmmmmmmmmn,

OMG!!! They could have been the one's who put it there deliberately in the first place!!! We all know that nvidia works with the government... they've probably put backdoors in the chipsets too! Damn I gonna rip out my nvidia graphics cards and not put them in until I have personally verified each line of code, and every single transister on the chip schematics, and every single transistor and wire and line of code that controls the machines that make them... THEN I'll know I'm safe. It's a good job I have as much experience with GPU design as nvidia and ati, as that means I'll definitely find whatever's there.

Re:Hmmmmmmmmn,

Perhaps because of security fears?

"the NVIDIA Binary Graphics Driver for Linux is vulnerable to a buffer overflow that allows an attacker to run arbitrary code as root. This bug can be exploited both locally or remotely

You say that as if it were a current problem. This has actually been fixed in the last 3(4?) driver revisions, including a bugfix only release to a previous branch of the drivers.

Fluendo = "Streaming Penguin"?

I guess a native binary blob is slightly better than a MS coded binary blob

It's significantly better, actually. Not because it's technically superior (although it may be), but because it can legally be rolled into a commercial version of Linux. Right now, you can't legally distribute a Linux distro with multimedia support (at least not in the U.S.), because they depend either on MS DLLs (obvious copyright problems) or patent-encumbered free implementations (which can't be distributed with the distro for legal reasons).

This makes Linux into a second-rate desktop OS, even if you're willing to pay for it, because it means key features don't work out of the box. There have been exceptions to this from time to time (Xandros, Lindows), but they weren't well accepted by the community, possibly because they tried to leverage their use of proprietary codecs as an advantage over other Linux distros, rather than against Windows -- not a good way to make friends.

A company which wasn't involved in the actual production of a distro, might be in a good position (assuming it dealt with everyone on the same terms) to produce codecs that could be incorporated into (a non-free, pay-per-copy) version of any distro. E.g., someone could take Ubuntu, add the codecs (paying Fluendo, obviously), and sell the result as a package, suitable for pre-installation. I don't think this would violate GPL either, if the codecs were built in a way that didn't require linking or otherwise producing a "derived work."

In short, Fluendo could be in a position to be ESR's "Streaming Penguin." [catb.org] In that paper, he discusses some of the major problems facing Linux as a marketable desktop OS, and the lack of modern multimedia capabilities are a real deal-breaker. In fact, the lack of multimedia capabilities are more of a weakness, than simply being free-as-in-beer is a strength; people are obviously willing to pay for an OS that works, but one that doesn't work out of the box (or works only after fiddling around with some shady instructions involving PLF mirrors) won't fly, even if it's free.

While people here on Slashdot may not regard having to manually install LAME, Xvid, Flash, and the Win32 codecs as a significant problem, it's one of the many reasons why you can't go out and buy a Dell pre-configured with Linux as a home computer. Even if there wasn't Microsoft trying to torpedo it before it gets going, I'm not sure customers would accept anything that didn't work right, right out of the box. Fluendo could, if they play their cards right, be a big benefit to the adoption of Linux.

Re:Hmmmmmmmmn,

2) I guess a native binary blob is slightly better than a MS coded binary blob.... but frankly, it's still just a binary blob. You have no idea what its really doing.

A few things:

a) It is infinitely better than a windows dll because it works (my machine is x86_64. windows blobs won't work there)
b) I don't have windows. How can I get windows binary blobs without buying windows or breaking the law?
c) True, I don't know what it's really doing, but it comes down to trust. I have personally met spoken to some of the fluendo/gstreamer folks and I trust them a hell of a lot more than some unknown devs at MS who I'll never even know the names of let alone meet and talk to.

*makes popcorn and pops open a beer*

and settles back for a nice round of productive but gentlemanly discussion over the need for massive deployment of closed source modules in Linux.

Correction:

"Fluendo to TRY to sell proprietary codecs for Linux."

Look at all the flak NVidia's binary-only drivers take from the GNU-types, and those are FREE.

Don't troll.

NVidia's lamented product is a binary only driver with a binary only kernel component. A codec is application software. The nvidia software runs on the bare metal, interacting with your machine in god knows what ways. The codecs are fairly self-contained. It's not really compariable.

Re:Correction:

I can choose between open and close source drivers for nvidia... feels pretty free to me.

I can write software and choose to release it open or closed source... that feels pretty free to me.

Erm... nvidia can too.

"Freedom to disagree" anyone? Oh no... it's YOUR way only, that's freedom!

but?

Aren't there native OSS libs for mpeg4 playback already? Might need a binary for wmv but not for mpeg4.

Tom

Re:Yes, they're part of ffmpeg

But ffmpeg can't be distributed legally in all countries. These codecs are for sale for those people who want be legit - usually companies - common crowd will still stick with gstreamer apps/plugins or mplayer/vlc/ffmpeg combo. I see this Fluendo step as very contributing to choice I can make on Linux system - I can say boss that these codecs can be easily installed in public terminal which aim to provide video serices for example. Just buy a license and vola, you are set.

And kudos to ffmpeg team. I use Totem with gstreamer bad/ugly/ffmpeg combo and I can say - hats off to you guys. Quality is very good.

Re:Yes, they're part of ffmpeg

The FFMPEG devs have always done an excellent job at bringing Free video support to Linux. Thanks to them most video can be played on Linux without propreitary codecs. There is a downside, though: patents. FFMPEG isn't licensed, so it's not legal for distributions to distribute FFMPEG in countries dumb enough to allow software patents (USA, Japan, others?).

The Fluendo stuff could be a good thing if distros would ship with it. Then video would finally work "out of the box". For those like myself who avoid binary blobs and try to only use things that are truely Free will still have the option of using FFMPEG.

Re:Yes, they're part of ffmpeg

And ffmpeg is not perfect. When it comes to WMV files it still has problems. It cannot decode J-frames and some forms of WMA are not supported.

It also tends to be a bit buggy, with various bugs popping in and out depending on exactly when you check out the code. It also does not have regular released versions like other software.

I just recently had to convert several hundred gigabytes of various videos people have uploaded with varying degrees of success. WMV caused problems, and I cannot get 3gp audio files to decode (possibly due to the fact that I'm running 64-bit.

It also is flakey when dealing with AC-3.

-Aaron

Good luck with that

I suppose the market is Linux distributors who can't bundle MPlayer for legal reasons. Can't see anyone buying this directly, though.

They'd probably be legally unable to be as good as MPlayer, (a universal video player, home page [mplayerhq.hu], debs [debian-multimedia.org]), as licensing some codecs will require signing up to agreements to play nicely with DRM. MPlayer is good because there's none of that nonsense: it just works, for every video that I've tried.

Re:Good luck with that

Why does everyone says "in some countries"? Germany, US, Canada, Australia is "some country" now? :)

Honestly, FFMPEG is illegal in MAJORITY of IT world. Why it is so hard to say that? It is patent minefield.

Sounds great. If...

Rah rah. I like people trying to sell commercial things on Linux. This will only work if they are johnny-on-the-spot when it comes to updates. I would hate my purchased codecs to keep me from updating gstreamer, the kernel, or whatever. In fact, I should not even have to *think* about my purchased codecs when I run a yum, apt-get, or up2date.

I'll just wait here for the Free Software fire-breathing demons of zealotry. It's quite cold right now and my furnace needs a break.

I have a better idea

Stop encoding media using proprietary codecs!

Nice try, but...

I think someone should point them to the ffmpeg changelog [mplayerhq.hu]. Actually it does open lots of proprietary formats and VLC uses the same codebase for his own engine.

World Domination

If you are from the ESR tribe you will see this as a positive step towards world domination.

http://catb.org/~esr/writings/world-domination/wor ld-domination-201.html [catb.org]

ESR, et al, believes the ability to play codecs such as these is so vital to the 2008 world domination deadline, that we should put up with these binary blobs. For a while, at least.

Lindows is supposed to be working on this also.

There is a market

First of all, look at the Open Sound project. They filled a niche by selling drivers for certain sound cards that had more features compared to the OSS drivers.

Second, I think that it is even easier to sell these kinds of things today. They can make a deal with somebody like Novell or Xandros who want to provide their users with a fully functional fully LEGAL linux desktop. This will help them to do that.

I don't see this being so popular with non-commercial distros like Debian because its a different set of users. But with commercial distros like Xandros (who already offer things like Codeweavers Office), I think its a great fit.

Breaking news.......

finally porn has been ported to *nix.

This could help acceptance of the Linux desktop

I hate DRM as much as the next person, but this is good news. Acquiring and installing proprietary codecs is a dark art that is major obstacle to wider acceptance of the Linux desktop.

Given some further development, I can see a few opportunities:

• distros like Suse and Ubuntu could integrate their package management systems with Fluendo and offer fully legal point and click codec installation for a small (compared with the Windows anti-virus tax) fee
• suppliers of Linux based PCs and laptops could offer products that play nicely with the rest of the web
• system builders might be able to start offering Linux-based media centres build around applications like MythTV

As someone who absolutely refuses to pirate software unless I have no choice, I'd be prepared to pay a few ££ extra to stay legal.

This is good for everyone

A lot of people will complain about this, but I think it is good. The more software, of any kind, that comes out on Linux, the better. The more software that eliminates some of the work to get a system up and working, the better. The more shrinkwrapped software for Linux on store shelves, the better. As Linux gets more visibility, and day to day tasks become easier, more people will adopt. This will drive development for Linux. Hopefully some of those adopters, especially the younger ones, will get involved in Linux, see what it has to offer, and become contributers. They may or may not move to a fully open system, but some of them will, and the more people who do, the better. The more weight behind Linux, the more power the community has, even if that weight was gained, at least initially, through propriety software.

FFMPEG

I haven't scrolled to the bottom yet to see if this is redundant, but FFMPEG has recently added WMV9 and VC1 decoders. http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/ [mplayerhq.hu] It works fine for all of the Legacy content that I have. They also have MPEG/2/4 and a whole bunch of others. The only codec that I seem to be missing is Indeo 5

BBH

I don't know

Their bundled price right now is 28 Euros, so about $36.19.

Would I pay that? I don't know. To be perfectly honest, I haven't actually _bought_ any software for a PC in a very long time. Keep in mind that this exact same functionality is _free_ under Windows.

- Necron69

why we are releasing these codecs

I see a lot of people confused about why we are releasing these codecs when there are things like the open source ffmpeg codecs etc.
Our goal is not to provide the community with codecs which there is absolutly no support for already as
that would be foolish. Our goal is to provide a 100% legal option which I know a lot of companies who have or
want to deploy linux desktops have been looking for. These companies like open source, but they also have policies in place
which hinders them from deploying solutions which have clear patent issues hanging over them in their country of operations. This is unfortunatly
the case with most multimedia codecs and even though we have spent a lot on resources on Xiph codecs here at Fluendo and are now working with BBC
on Dirac there is still some way to go before the need for non-free codecs are gone.

So for those in a situation where they can freely use gst-ffmpeg and similar options, more power to you! For those who the lack of licensed codecs
has been a hinderance or problem for adopting Linux (or Solaris) desktops at your company or institution or even private use, then we hope our plugins will be a good solution.

Christian Schaller
Fluendo

I think you're on the right track...

Speaking for myself, I've been using Linux for a while now and, these days, it is the primary OS I use on my home desktop computer. Windows is still there, but for legacy programs that I still need and I switch off the internet whenever I start Windows (it's WinME).

If you can give me a Linux distribution that is supported and comes bundled with legal implementations of all the codecs at a reasonable price point, I'll buy it. Throw in something like Cedega for games or Crossover Office for other apps (if I even need it at this point) so I can get rid of my Windows installation entirely and that would be an ideal solution for me.

Proprietary, non-free applications are going to be essential to getting Linux into the mainstream. Software sellers aren't interested in an OS they can't sell software to run on.

Great, but not what I hoped for

I guess plenty of people (or companies) will be glad to have a 100-percent legal alternative to using Windows DLLs, but what the community badly needs now is a legal DVD player. Right now, the only way to watch DVDs on Linux in most Western countries is breaking the law (i.e. the DMCA or its local equivalent), which is clearly a no-no for most users, including myself. The saddest things is that the software is available (PowerDVD Linux), but Cyberlink will only sell it to OEMs. Couldn't someone strike a deal with them and release it ?

And yes, I'm aware that Mandriva includes it, but it's not my distro of choice (and I'm not sure the RPM would work as-is on other distros).

Ah, somebody's been paying attention!

Looks to me like somebody has been paying attention to ESR's World Domination 201 [catb.org] article.

Putting aside whether you like it or not, sometimes you have got to admit the man has a point :)

Obligatory Ogg Theora Post

Use Ogg Theora [theora.org]! It's a free and open spec.

How Much is That?

Could they please provide their prices in American dollars?

Not everyone lives on the other side of the pond, you know.;)

What makes this better than ffmpeg etc?

What codecs are these guys going to release that arent:
A.Supported by ffmpeg/libavcodec/whatever else through open source implementations
B.Supported already through binaries on linux (such as the RealPlayer binary codec libraries)
or C.Not used enough for people to actually care about support

Redundant

MPEG2 and MPEG4 have LONG been supported by ffmpeg, mplayer, xine, and vlc. As for Windows media, libavcodec in mplayer has supported decoding Windows Media 7 and 8 natively for some time now, and just recently support was added for WMV9 (aka VC-1, the latest Windows Media codec used on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray) using, again, a fully open-source decoder.

Beat G.729 for Glory

How about an alternative codec to G.729 [wikipedia.org], that isn't constrained by the G.729 patent? That means a different algorithm, but which still gives the high quality and low network/CPU bandwidth to "telephony" audio that makes it the favorite for VoIP? With the patent, G.729 codecs are all proprietary, licensing fees costing at least $10 per simultaneous call leg capacity. Which is the greatest ecomomic bottleneck to the growing revolution in packetized voice: an $800 server with an $80:mo ($1000:y) FTTP connection can use otherwise free SW to carry up to 400 call legs, which cost $4000 for the codecs.

A $free codec competitive with G.729 were available, it could unleash "phone servers" the way that multi-IP httpd unleashed webservers, powering the entire Bubble that got you to read Slashdot.

A little late?

I am able to play every type of media on my system using open source codecs including WMV3, MPEG4, and everything else via ffmpeg. They might of had a shot a few years ago but who would want this now?

Good for non-i386 Linux

This is very good news for people with non-i386 Linux systems. For example Linux on SPARC, Alpha, ARM or PPC. Windows DLLs only run on i386.

I wonder if these Codecs could also be made to run under Solaris or BSD or other open source OSes?

Even for the people who use i386, this means there would be a legal codec so the big distos could include it with video players out of the box

Cool

Without going off on some religious tangent, I just wanted to say that I am appreciative of this support for the linux community. I'm pretty happy with my windows binary codecs, but if this works well and has a fair price I may pick it up to show my financial support for companies which support linux.

Still no legally licensed CSS playback

I like to see that businesses are popping up around Linux and that licensed, legal software is becoming available for media playback. However, one of the major issues is still not resolved: there is no legal way to play back CSS protected DVDs. It seems the same company is planning to provide a player, but the original plan to publish it in the second half of 2006 did not seem to hold :)
There are similar issues with mp3-encoding and many video encoders.

Re:Not worth it for WMV

Many WMVs I've seen look like shit. It's not the fault of the codec, it's just many idiots feel the need to re-encode videos over and over again. Same problem with Google Video and YouTube. So many things there have been re-encoded so many times all you can really see are blury objects behind the encoding artifacts.

Re:Not worth it for WMV

All the WMV videos I have seen look like shit; why would I pay for a codec?

Ah...now see, you're probably trying to view them on a linux system using wine to wrap up the native windows codecs. That could well be the reason why your WMV experience is up-til-now sub-optimal. I read somewhere about a company that was going to sell some native linux codecs. I *think* they were called Fluendo or something like that. Anyway, that should sort you out.

Hope this helps, /Lissajous

Re:This is a good idea

If wide spread mass adoption of Linux is going to be a reality then things like common MPEG-2/4 video just has to work.

And what doesn't just work in ffmpeg? Which is used in mplayer, vlc, gstreamer (available as a plugin gstreamer-ffmpeg)?

Re:Anyone surprised that

If you read Fluendo employees' blogs, they've been working on these codecs for a year or so. Also, when you license Windows Media from MS they give you the source code AFAIK. All Fluendo did was port MS's code to GStreamer; they didn't try to reimplement it.

Because it's easier than emigrating

Why pay for something that can be played natively by lavc, and by extension mplayer et al?

Because it's easier than paying damages when you are sued for patent infringement and lose. Because it's easier than moving to a country that does not recognize patents on communication methods that are defined by a novel data processing algorithm and relocating all your customers as well.

Re:DRM, codecs... same thing

Yes, it's not as if we don't have enough codecs out there. If a given piece of media can't be viewed with a legal and free codec, I just don't need to see it. There's plenty more things to view out there that don't require restricted codecs. Rather than accomodate proprietary restrictions on media play, we should avoid them and help restricted codecs to die out. Making them available on Linux suggests that it is Linux' problem that a codec won't run on it, rather than the codec's problem. In either case it's the users problem, but covering up the fact the codec is restrictive is doing noone any favors except those who wish to exert proprietary controls over media-- and while they may have that right, we also have the right to ignore them. As soon as some Madison Avenue exec realizes that their ads are missing a segment of the market by using a restrictive codec, they'll toss it and use something else, and ad men can be pretty darn influential in media production...

Vote with your feet-- against restricted codecs.