I wanted to personally let you know of a milestone announcement that 
happened this week the will dramatically improve the landscape for digital 
audio and video on Linux. Here are the two press releases: Red Hat 
agreement and Novell agreement. Below is a Q&A that should answer most 
questions.

Q: What was announced?
A: On June 28, the Linux desktop industry leaders, Red Hat and Novell 
announced with Real a deep product development and distribution agreement 
that will enhance the rapidly maturing Linux desktop 
experience.  Specifically, Red Hat and Novell will standardize on the 100% 
open source Helix Player as the leading multimedia framework for their 
Linux desktops, and will help qualify and distribute the superset 
RealPlayer 10 with their upcoming Linux desktop offerings.  As part of the 
announcements, within 30 days, Real will add the GPL as a licensing option 
the underlying Helix Player.

Q: For whom is this announcement important?
A: Two audiences:
1) Enterprises and organizations that are looking for a complete, secure 
and highly affordable enterprise desktop solution, now will have access to 
the web's best audio and video via RealPlayer 10 for Linux and
2) Applications developers who are looking for a standardized GPL-licensed 
AV framework - Helix Player

Q: When will the Helix Player and RealPlayer 10 for Linux be available?
A: Both the RealPlayer 10 and its underlying open source framework, Helix 
Player, are beta today and will be "Gold" or final this summer

Q: What's the difference between the Helix Player and the RealPlayer?
A: The Helix Player is the completely open source media player that is 
developed within the Helix Community. The RealPlayer adds to the Helix 
Player the non-open source components such as RealAudio/RealVideo, MP3 and 
Flash.

Q: Are these agreements exclusive?
A: No, however Red Hat and Novell, join Sun Microsystems, Turbolinux and 
Real working to ensure that the open source community standardizes on the 
Helix Player as the base framework for other AV-based applications and the 
RealPlayer is the default streaming media player with the Linux Desktop.

Q: Why did Red Hat and Novell choose to bundle RealPlayer over other 
Linux-based media players?
A: Several factors but predominately that Real created and leads the 
streaming media market and Real's increasing investments in Linux, open 
source and standards

Q: What content can the RealPlayer play back?
A: The RealPlayer for Linux will let users enjoy the most varied and 
popular business, educational and entertainment content on the Internet. 
Specifically, it plays RealAudio, RealVideo, MP3, Flash, and Ogg 
Vorbis/Theora just to name a few of the formats and codecs it supports.

Q: How much does RealPlayer 10 for Linux cost?
A: RealPlayer 10 for Linux is free.

Q: Does Real have an open source license for the RealPlayer?
A: No. The RealPlayer is free for personal use but is not available in 
source code. The underlying Helix Player project is available as open source.


Kevin


---------------------------------
Kevin Foreman
General Manager, Helix
RealNetworks, Inc.
E-mail: kevinf at real.com
http://www.helixcommunity.org



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