Sponsored link
Serve your customers, not your servers, with VERIO Linux VPS. Full-access test-drive here.
| Weekly edition | Kernel | Security | Distributions | Search |
| Archives | Calendar | Subscribe | Write for LWN | LWN.net FAQ |
GStreamer's MP3 for Linux
GStreamer's MP3 for Linux
Posted Jan 2, 2006 22:14 UTC (Mon) by piman (subscriber, #8957)Parent article: GStreamer's MP3 for Linux
This plugin offers no real benefit for free software that the existing MAD plugin didn't. More likely, it's slower and lower-quality than MAD. And gstreamer-mad is already in most distributions' "external" repositories.
(Log in to post comments)
GStreamer's MP3 for Linux
Posted Jan 3, 2006 1:25 UTC (Tue) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]
What evidence do you have that Fluendo's plugin is slower or of lower quality? After all, they are a company that specializes in streaming audio and video. In the absence of benchmarking, we don't know the answer, but even if there is a quality problem, there is no legal barrier in Fluendo's way if they want to improve it.
GStreamer's MP3 for Linux
Posted Jan 3, 2006 1:53 UTC (Tue) by piman (subscriber, #8957) [Link]
Fluendo says: "The other drawback is that our code is probably not yet of the same end quality as mad’s." -- http://thomas.apestaart.org/log/index.php?p=333
Is that good enough for you?
GStreamer's MP3 for Linux
Posted Jan 3, 2006 20:04 UTC (Tue) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]
Note the word "yet".
GStreamer's MP3 for Linux
Posted Jan 3, 2006 12:25 UTC (Tue) by job (subscriber, #670) [Link]
Exactly. I don't get it. If I'm and end user, I still have to install extra software to play my MP3s so the situation hasn't improved one bit. If I'm a Linux distributor I wouldn't be interested in anything that restricts redistribution. So no gain.
I may be talking about things I don't understand now, but since it is apparently legal to discuss and distribute source code because sites such as sourceforge can host decoders, can't a Linux distribution just fetch and compile an mp3 decoder as part of the automated post-install?
GStreamer's MP3 for Linux
Posted Jan 3, 2006 12:41 UTC (Tue) by louie (subscriber, #3285) [Link]
"If I'm a Linux distributor I wouldn't be interested in anything that restricts redistribution. So no gain."
Wha...? That's a fairly optimistic, naive view of Linux distributions. Every for-profit distro (that is, most of them) have been dying to have a well-supported, legal mp3 solution for their enterprise desktop products for years. Assuming the quality is good and the pricing is right, this will likely be in every enterprise desktop distro within a year.
Tangentially, the 'this is still a problem for derived works' argument is accurate, but gstreamer have written some licensing language which authors of gstreamer-derived players can use to supplement the GPL and indicate that they are OK with the use of binary-only/non-GPL compat gstreamer modules. I believe most gstreamer-based players use this exception language, so the problem is covered. I do wish LWN had actually asked the gstreamer guys about this before posting this article- sloppy research on their part.
GStreamer's MP3 for Linux
Posted Jan 3, 2006 18:40 UTC (Tue) by piman (subscriber, #8957) [Link]
> I do wish LWN had actually asked the gstreamer guys about this before posting this article- sloppy research on their part.
Or, sloppy reading on yours; from the article: "There is some discussion of whether it would still be legal to include rhythmbox, which is GPL-licensed with no plugin exception, in such a work."
GStreamer's MP3 for Linux
Posted Jan 4, 2006 21:56 UTC (Wed) by spot (subscriber, #15640) [Link]
RHEL already "includes" RealPlayer, which has licensed mp3 support. The reason there are quotes around the "includes" is because it is provided to customers as an unsupported addon, since Red Hat doesn't have RealPlayer source.