Linspire Supports Latest Windows Media Versions
Previously, Windows Media files would typically work on users' machines only if they found and installed unlicensed codecs online then patched them into their operating system. In contrast, Linspire licensed the codecs directly from Microsoft, then made substantial changes to make the Windows Media code work on Linux>-based systems. The engineering required porting the complete Windows CE Windows Media code to Linux."
Posted Nov 18, 2004 23:25 UTC (Thu)
by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330)
[Link] (1 responses)
"Previously, Windows Media files would typically work
on users' machines only if they found and installed unlicensed codecs online
then patched them into their operating system."
This is, of course, inaccurate; while unlicensed codecs were required, it was never necessary to modify the operating system in any way to make use of the codecs.
It should be no surprise to Linspire that Microsoft would refuse a license to their DRM code.
Posted Nov 19, 2004 0:06 UTC (Fri)
by chill633 (guest, #16013)
[Link]
He was pointing out that he *knew* they were lying back then and this just proves it.
The "patch them into your operating system" is a bit misleading. There is/was no standard way to load codecs into Linux. It depended on your player: Xine, MPlayer or what have you.
With Linspire, it is fully licensed and they do the "what have you" for you. They also have a fully licensed DVD/CSS codec that is plugged into Xine on Linspire. It is rather slick and this seems to be their niche.
Posted Nov 18, 2004 23:46 UTC (Thu)
by dhess (guest, #7827)
[Link]
http://nanocrew.net/blog/technology/wmv9linux.html
(I'll be more excited if the standards committees leave WMV9 out in the cold, though.)
Posted Nov 19, 2004 7:35 UTC (Fri)
by ngiger@mus.ch (subscriber, #4013)
[Link]
As a PowerBook owner running GNU Debian I suspect that this should probably be called "work on Linux x86 systems".
More expectec was "The new license does have its limitations".
So may be it would (at least for LWN) to retitle it the announcement
It think it would be a good thing to mark all this publicity for products under a non-free License by prepending a "[Non-Free]" to their headers.
I am puzzled by the following Linspire claim:
Linspire Supports Latest Windows Media Versions
It wasn't a surprise. Reading the entire article uncovers that back when Michael was running mp3.com, he had a discussion with then chief of Microsoft's Media dept who told him "any where, any time" as far as their codec licensing plans were. Inexpensive and open to all. His response then was "yeah, right".Linspire Supports Latest Windows Media Versions
The hell with that, I'm excited about this:Linspire Supports Latest Windows Media Versions
" Making Windows Media work on Linux systems required more than two monthsLinspire Supports Latest Windows Media Versions
of engineering effort."
"Linspire brings more non-free SW to a free OS."