From dlehn@vt.edu Mon, 4 Oct 1999 22:32:16 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 22:32:16 -0400 (EDT) From: David I. Lehn dlehn@vt.edu Subject: [Livid-dev] Red Hat Chat I asked about DVD support during the Monday night chat on chat.cnn.com with Donnie Barnes, Director of Technical Projects at Red Hat. My connection to the site went dead shortly after this so I don't know if there was any more info on this topic. <CNN_Host> Question from: <taaz> #auditorium -> Donnie: Will RedHat help with, or ever include, Linux DVD video playback support considering there are tricky legal issues with the open source nature of the project? <Donnie> That remains to be seen. Currently the only way to do DVD playback is via closed source players *only*. That means we could never make a player a part of the base distribution, but could possibly include one on our vendor CD (a disk set of thir d party demo and free apps). <Donnie> If an open source player is released and we can sort out the legal issues, we'd be more than happy to ship one. I'd run out and buy a new laptop with a DVD player immediately. :) -dave --- David I. Lehn <dlehn@vt.edu> | http://www.corepower.com/~dlehn/ Computer Engineering Graduate @ Virginia Tech in sunny Blacksburg, VA
From pvolcko@concentric.net Tue, 5 Oct 1999 08:41:08 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 08:41:08 -0400 (EDT) From: pvolcko@concentric.net pvolcko@concentric.net Subject: [Livid-dev] Re: [LinuxDVD] Red Hat Chat Interesting you should ask this question of him. LSDVD made a proposal to Red Hat for financial support, but as he said Red Hat doesn't do closed source apps and could only offer placement on the Vendor disc once we had something made. Sadly, if the livid project is successful in making an open source player of some kind I don't think we will be seeing them (or any other distro) putting it in the distro. At least not until the DVD Forum and all the other technology licensors sign off on it, which is a long shot. Paul Volcko LSDVD On Mon, 4 Oct 1999, David I. Lehn wrote: > I asked about DVD support during the Monday night chat on chat.cnn.com > with Donnie Barnes, Director of Technical Projects at Red Hat. My > connection to the site went dead shortly after this so I don't know if > there was any more info on this topic. > > > > <CNN_Host> Question from: <taaz> #auditorium -> Donnie: Will RedHat > help with, or ever include, Linux DVD video playback support > considering there are tricky legal issues with the open source nature > of the project? > > <Donnie> That remains to be seen. Currently the only way to do DVD > playback is via closed source players *only*. That means we could > never make a player a part of the base distribution, but could > possibly include one on our vendor CD (a disk set of thir d party demo > and free apps). > > <Donnie> If an open source player is released and we can sort out the > legal issues, we'd be more than happy to ship one. I'd run out and > buy a new laptop with a DVD player immediately. :) > > > > -dave > --- > David I. Lehn <dlehn@vt.edu> | http://www.corepower.com/~dlehn/ > Computer Engineering Graduate @ Virginia Tech in sunny Blacksburg, VA > > > > _______________________________________________ > LinuxDVD maillist - LinuxDVD@linuxdvd.corepower.com > http://linuxdvd.corepower.com/mailman/listinfo/linuxdvd >
From shane_smit@calderasystems.com Tue, 05 Oct 1999 09:53:25 -0600 Date: Tue, 05 Oct 1999 09:53:25 -0600 From: Shane Smit shane_smit@calderasystems.com Subject: [Livid-dev] Re: [LinuxDVD] Red Hat Chat pvolcko@concentric.net wrote: > > Sadly, if the livid project is successful in making an open source player of > some kind I don't think we will be seeing them (or any other distro) putting > it in the distro. At least not until the DVD Forum and all the other > technology licensors sign off on it, which is a long shot. > > Paul Volcko > LSDVD I don't agree. Every linux freak on the planet wants to be able to play his DVDs without booting into an evil M$ product, and the distributors know this (I would know :). I could say that even an alpha of this kind of project would be included in our distribution. It is very important for us to support all kinds of hardware, and there is a huge bottleneck in DVD support. Do not think that these messages, or this project, is unimportant in the least. -Shane Smit Caldera Systems, Inc.
From pvolcko@concentric.net Tue, 5 Oct 1999 12:05:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 12:05:07 -0400 (EDT) From: pvolcko@concentric.net pvolcko@concentric.net Subject: [Livid-dev] Re: [LinuxDVD] Red Hat Chat > > Sadly, if the livid project is successful in making an open source player of > > some kind I don't think we will be seeing them (or any other distro) putting > > it in the distro. At least not until the DVD Forum and all the other > > technology licensors sign off on it, which is a long shot. > > > > Paul Volcko > > LSDVD > > I don't agree. Every linux freak on the planet wants to be able to play > his DVDs without booting into an evil M$ product, and the distributors > know this (I would know :). I could say that even an alpha of this kind > of project would be included in our distribution. It is very important > for us to support all kinds of hardware, and there is a huge bottleneck > in DVD support. Do not think that these messages, or this project, is > unimportant in the least. > > -Shane Smit > Caldera Systems, Inc. It's not unimportant. Not by a long shot. But for a distro to include this "officially" there come into play a lot of legal and licensing issues. If the distro is made by a corporate entity the stakes get all the more higher for that company in including this kind of software. Putting the reverse engineering of CSS and DVD-Forum stuff aside... there are patents on MPEG-2 and AC-3 technologies. For an individual or a small group (as we have here) to create a decoder or encoder for these technologies and make it public is one thing. There has been a lot of discussion about those issues already. We have been fortunate that Dolby hasn't gone to anyone and tried to get their money for the ac-3 decoder thats available. Something that has been brushed over kind of, though, is that there is a difference in the eyes of these licensors between a decoder and the use of that decoder in a player software application. MPEG-2 and AC-3 both have "system" level licensing where the royalties start kicking in. If a distro added this to the offical list of apps in it's image (especially if they are making any kind of money on it or what it is included with) you can be positiive that the second Dolby or MPEGLA hear about it there will be some lawyers making some phone calls and tracking down who to start squeezing for money. Not to mention a distro company would make a much "jucier" target than a lowly group of developers who aren't making any kind of real money most likely. I think that it is good to see support from the distro companies and non-profit distro organizations (I'm not sure where Debian falls in that scheme), but at the same time I think distros would be well advised to either keep this stuff out of their official distributions unless they are willing to get into some legal hassles. Paul Volcko LSDVD PS... all of that was for a free and unlicensed app. I think it would make a lot of sense for a distro company/organization to help fund a project to make a fully licensed and legal player application (such as LSDVD intends to be).
From aholtzma@ess4.engr.UVic.CA Tue, 5 Oct 1999 09:19:04 -0700 Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 09:19:04 -0700 From: Aaron Holtzman aholtzma@ess4.engr.UVic.CA Subject: [Livid-dev] Re: [LinuxDVD] Red Hat Chat It would seem that Shane Smit (shane_smit@calderasystems.com) said: > I don't agree. Every linux freak on the planet wants to be able to play > his DVDs without booting into an evil M$ product, and the distributors > know this (I would know :). I could say that even an alpha of this kind > of project would be included in our distribution. It is very important > for us to support all kinds of hardware, and there is a huge bottleneck > in DVD support. Do not think that these messages, or this project, is > unimportant in the least. > What he's trying to say is that regardless of demand, our hacked together implementation is potentially on shaky legal ground in the US at least. I don't think Red Hat would want to touch that with a ten foot cattle prod. cheers, aaron
From pvolcko@concentric.net Tue, 5 Oct 1999 12:46:39 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 12:46:39 -0400 (EDT) From: pvolcko@concentric.net pvolcko@concentric.net Subject: [Livid-dev] Re: [LinuxDVD] Red Hat Chat > I think that it is good to see support from the distro companies and > non-profit distro organizations (I'm not sure where Debian falls in that > scheme), but at the same time I think distros would be well advised to either > keep this stuff out of their official distributions unless they are willing to > get into some legal hassles. Sorry... meant Caldera in there. I've just spent the last week installing three different distros and.. well... my apologies. Paul Volcko LSDVD