Wednesday, August 6, 2003

Real Helix Player -- 4:29 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

RealNetworks made an announcement at LinuxWorld about plans for their Helix Player, an open-source media player that will support SMIL 2.0, RealAudio (G2 and RA8), RealVideo (G2-RV9), MP3, Ogg Vorbis, and MPEG4. News.com.com.org.net.info.edu has more details. It's not clear if they are actually opening the source to RV9 or RA8 or not, although I doubt they will. If it means getting a media player that is better than the lame RealOne for Linux and the annoying RealOne for Windows, then I'm all for it. The first milestone is supposed to be released in the fourth quarter of this year. Thanks Linux Today.

Half-Life 2 Antialiasing Resolved -- 9:52 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

According to this (I assume) hacked-together IRC interview with the Half-Life 2 team, antialiasing has been fixed on all video cards. Previously, they announced that their method would not work on any NVIDIA-based cards properly and that the problem could not be fixed with drivers. The whole time I was saying to myself, "Hmmm, sounds like Valve's problem to me." I guess I was right. Thanks Blue's News.

By the by, I love that site's light gray on dark gray motif.

SuSE Sides with Red Hat -- 9:39 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

SuSE has issued a press release indicating that they have thrown their hat (har!) in with Red Hat, supporting their Open Source Now initiative (story). This is especially significant since SuSE is (was?) partnered with SCO in United Linux. Thanks Slashdot.

Tuesday, August 5, 2003

SCO Sets the Fee -- 7:24 pm CST, Update by The Master

More on the SCO linux deal: SCO has announced the pricing for their Linux Binary License. This license is for commercial (ie: those with real money that can be frightened by lawyers) users of any Linux 2.4 or greater kernel BINARY (IE: using source means you're a target). The intro price will be $699 for 1 CPU (thanks Yahoo). The pricing structure is as follows:

• The promotional fee for the client (desktop) license is $199.
• The promotional fees for server licenses are:
  Right to use SCO IP in a Linux distribution
  Promotional License Fee:
  • with 1 CPU $699
  • with 2 CPUs $1,149
  • with 4 CPUs $2,499
  • with 8 CPUs $4,999
  • Additional single CPU $749
• The promotional license fee for embedded devices (hardware print servers, some routers and switches, etc.) is $32 per device.

SCO recommends you should not use custom kernels, or distribute any code created from custom kernels. Such BS.

J.t.Qbe comments: Interesting development, isn't it? Let's see: SCO is demanding exorbitant prices for licenses in order to avoid problems, but hasn't yet demonstrated that any such problem exists. SCO execs are dumping their stock now that the prices have risen (due to fools who think that they can make a quick buck by buying in). Lawyer-types and management-types who don't know the facts will hear this stuff and start to fear getting involved with Linux. Does anyone else want to bet that Microsoft is hiding in the shadows here? After all, what better way to destroy Linux than from the inside?

On the other hand, my company is steadily migrating infrastructure from Solaris to Linux. I asked my manager yesterday whether or not the SCO issue has been discussed and what impact it might have. He said, "No one's even mentioned it." Still, if the lawyers start getting nervous, there's always FreeBSD. . .

A.T. Hun comments: Of course, the only reason why BSD is safe is because somebody already tried this stunt with them and was shot down. This fee structure shows how clueless they are. It's like they were all sitting around a table smoking pot and saying, "Let's charge them $699. Bwhahahaha! Pass me the M&M's."

J.t.Qbe comments: BSD's situation was somewhat similar, and the remedy was to replace the tainted code. I wouldn't be surprised to see the same thing happen with Linux, if SCO can even demonstrate that some of its IP actually HAS found its way into the kernel. Personally, I think it's just a bunch of hot air and FUD.

Past Two Days' News

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