Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Apple Businesses

Streaming Server for Linux 97

Posted by justin++ from the no-client-:( dept.
Apple has released the source to their Open Source Streaming Server. It now supports Linux in addition to MacOS X, which can only help Linux in the server market. The software has been released under the APSL, and can support 2000 connections on a(n admittedly loaded) G3. Does anyone know if Apple is working on modifying the APSL to meet the concerns about the revocation clause expressed by many people in the free software community?
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Streaming Server for Linux More

Streaming Server for Linux

Comments Filter:
  • Copylefted, but nascent at this time: http://free-expression.org [free-expression.org]

    --

  • Examples:

    Power Computing. It was competition. So it was removed.

    Didn't the clonemakers overstep the bounds of the licensing agreements?

    Quicktime. It once was just a nice free client. Now it's got a 'Pro' edition. Plus the fact that Apple is gripping the codecs like they're made of pure gold.

    Does Apple own all the codecs, or are other companies also guilty of hoarding them? My guess is that Apple's hands are, to some extent, tied.

    Whatever. I, too, am pissed at the lack of a client and at the miniscule possibility of running BeOS on some fancy (hypothetical for now) quad-G4 box. I can't do a thing about the latter, but what can we, The Big Bad Linux Community, do about the former? Wasn't there a petition a while back about getting a QuickTime client?

    --

  • The subject says it all. That's why Apple had to buy out PowerComputing when it did. If the PowerTower Pro G3 had been released, Apple would have sold about 1/4 the G3s that they did. Here's why:
    1) The PTP G3 was based on a Tsunami logic board, like the one in the 9600/300 and /350. The PowerMac G3 was based on the Gossamer logic board. The Gossamer board had a 66Mhz main bus and 3 PCI slots, the Tsunami, while only running at 50Mhz on the main bus, had 6 PCI slots.

    2) Like all the other Power machines, it would have been cheaper.

    Thus, every G3 sold to a high-end customer (which are the ones who needed the power offered by the G3 chip), would have come from PowerComputing. And if Apple matched them on price, they'd have made much less profit than they would have otherwise. That would have been disasterous. Here's why:
    Apple's comeback strategy as laid down by Gil Amelio (who's whiny but a generally competant manager and a very good engineer) was entirely based around the G3, which was the best selling computer in Apple history until the iMac (which is itself a form of G3). The incredible speed inherant in the chip's architecture allows for faster computation at lower speeds than the 604e that the previous generation of PMs and PTPs had been based on, and that means easier engineering (which is cheaper, allowing higher margins) and, above all, cheaper cache memory. The 604e/350 and the G3/233 both had 512k backside cache running at 2:1, and memory that can handle 117 Mhz I/O is way the hell cheaper and easier to come by than memory that can handle 175Mhz I/O. Again, higher margins, more profit. Apple pulled out of it's profitability nosedive by the skin of it's teeth. Without every last bit of cash that they made off the first G3s, Apple probably wouldn't exist today. Certainly, they wouldn't be an independant company.

    So, that's why Apple had to buy PowerComputing, and why they did so when they did. Neither UMAX nor Motorola nor Daystar was planning to release a G3 based machine until after their contracts were to come up for renewal, but Power was, and so *had* to be dealt with in the short term. All Steve Khang, the CEO of PowerComputing, wanted to to make some quick money and get back to making Wintel machines (he was the engineer who designed the Leading Edge clone back in the 80's). So, when Apple offered 200 mil, he and the board took it and ran. Most of the rest of the Power execs used the experience to springboard themselves into better jobs elsewhere. Joel Koher, then Power president, is now CEO of MicronPC, for instance.

    So now you know.

    Don Negro
  • Apple fixed many of the original problems with the APSL in v1.1 ... what are the problems now?

    From my reading of it:

    - The only cause for "code suspension" is if someone uses a patented-technique in their code. In such a case Apple may re-write the affected portion, or fight it legally, but in the end *it's up to the courts*.

    - The only cause for "Termination" is if you sue Apple for patent infringement, break a term of the license, or a court says that the license is legally bogus.

    These seem like reasonable and acceptable limits. What more do you want?


  • Apple doesn't own the codecs. It licenses them.
  • To compile under redhat 6.0, just #ifdef out the #include line and it seems to work just fine.
  • The clone situation isn't quite as simple as the clone vendors whined about. All of the clone vendors were making use of Apple motherboard designs and ROMs for a ridiculously cheap fee, on the order of 50 bucks or so a pop. Essentially Apple was paying the clone makers to tighten a noose around its neck. The main clone makers (PowerComputing and Daystar) were supposed to increase the market share in areas where Apple knew it was weak: Entry level computing (PowerComputing) and multiprocessor systems (Daystar). Instead all the vendors went after the same slice of the pie as Apple was after, so as a result while there was more competition the market share didn't actually increase.

    Since Apple makes its money from hardware this was a win for the clone vendors at the expense of a loss for Apple. It was also a short term win for the consumers for at least in the short term they'd get faster and cheaper computers, in the long term I doubt very much Apple would be around.

    Around this time Steve Jobs entered the scene and looked at the licensing situation and realized Apple was doing itself in. Negotiations were done with the main companies and at least one of the companies leaked the negotiations to the press. Graduated licensing: compete in new markets and its cheap, cut out Apple's legs and its going to be prohibitively expensive for you. PowerComputing didn't feel it could compete in this manner and refused to sign. Eventually all negotiations were cut off.

    PowerComputing probably underestimated the value of the low end market. Had they signed the new agreement when it was offered they could have introduced their version of the iMac and a few years earlier (and it would probably have had a floppy) and made a lot of money. The most unfair thing Apple did was terminate the license agreements early for at least one vendor.

  • This is a big slam against Microsoft! (Score:4)

    by Bretai ( 2646 ) on Thursday July 08, 1999 @12:58AM (#1814007) Homepage
    Everybody wants into the streaming media business, Apple is no exception, neither is Microsoft. Does anybody remember a couple a months ago when the CEO of RealMedia was screaming bloody murder because MS signed a bunch of agreements with them, and then *bundled* it's own player into IE50?
    That tells you how serious the big players are about this market. Both MS and RealMedia want to give away the players for free, and then make bank selling the servers. So it looks like Apple wants to do the opposite: free servers and charge for quicktime, interesting.
    I disagree on RTP/RTSP they're workable protocols, certainly better then ATMesque "QoS" (Don't get me started) but it's just that as soon as the big money ID'd this as an important market, all of their "hired-gun" programmers (read:lobbyists) started showing up for all the standards meetings, and screwed everything up. Exact same thing happened to VRML back in the day. The ironic part is that none of the fancy reservation protocols can take the place of just plain old tactic of builing "headspace" into the network.(but i digress...)
    The point is that Apple's move is going to throw a wrench in MS's hopes of owning this market. It's going to be hard for anyone to charge for a server, when there is a "Name-Brand" server available for free.
    Meanwhile, I'm streaming MP3's, onto my system, as I type, and they sound great. Even without anyone's big fancy server or reservation protocol.
  • Power Computing was bleeding Apple dry.

    Here's how David Every [mackido.com] explains it:

    So this pirating Apple's market goes on for a few years, and in comes Steve Jobs, who, after retaking control of HIS company, realizes that the licencees (especially Power) are just killing Apple. They are getting to use Apple's R&D and competitive advantages, and giving little back. The volume isn't high enough that the licensees are paying for what they are taking.

    However, Apple has a major new release coming out, OS 8, and the cloners want it -- and the licensing agreement only applied to System 7 and variants. So now Apple has some leverage in the negotiations, Steve starts talking about the terms. He wants to raise the licensing fees, because A) Apple is literally losing money on each motherboard they ship to the licensees, and B) Apple needs to make money, badly. The licensees, (with the exception of Umax, who wasn't stupid, and Daystar, who had such a small niche market anyways, and was about to get out of the business altogether, as it was a money pit for them), start telling Apple that Apple has to drop the OS licence prices, and a lot of other demands, and this is with them about to start making CHRP - based Macs, which will cut Apple out of the hardware licenses completely, and leave them only the software licenses for revenue from this. At this point the writing is on the wall for Jobs, and the licencees. It's dead, the question is just how it is going to happen. All this is happening right into MacWorld Boston of that year, 1997. So far, Apple is trying to be, from their point of view, fairly reasonable, and Power is negotiating a way to end the program in a way that won't drive them out of business.

    Which was happening anyways. Only after Power went belly-up did the details on just how badly that company was being run come out. That company had been doomed long before the end of the Mac licenses. But everyone likes to 'forget' that fact, and just blame Apple for it.

    Then comes the epic fit. The day before MacWorld opens, Power has a press conference, and basically tries to get the User community riled up by saying, "See how big bad Apple is screwing you? They won't let us build G3 Macs, and they won't let us build laptops, and they just suck. So all of you go tell them they suck until we get our way" Needless to say, this blows up in Power's face, and Steve goes back into the negotiations, and basically dictates terms of surrender to Stephen Kahng, the CEO of Power. Power accepts, the program is shut down, and 'the baby has been knifed'.

    J.
  • (ahem) As one of the "lobbyists" involved in RTSP, I have to ask what you are talking about. If you look through the discussions on RTSP, most of the changes to the protocol (there were many) happened as a result of taking the original RealNetworks/Netscape proposal, and making it more consistant with other IETF protocols (HTTP, RTP, etc.) The end result isn't perfect, but it's an open and extensible protocol that's pretty easy to understand if you understand HTTP (since it shares a lot of HTTP's structure).

    I'd really like to know what you think we "screwed up". Actually, I'd prefer if you posted your comments to "confctrl@isi.edu", which is where the discussion of the RTSP protocol design takes place. The archive of this list can be found at ftp://ftp.isi.edu/confctrl/confctrl.mail.

  • I liked what linux today was doing with the interviews from the conference in Austin. The beginnings of something cool. Yeah I know it was crude, but it was nice not having to deal with Real Audio.

    Can any expert out there tell us what Quick Time offers that mpeg does not? Is it just that MPEG requires hardware decoding to look decent?
  • What OS were you running?
  • As for the Be thing, I think Be is full of it. All that whining about not having hardware specs, etc. Come on, LinuxPPC and NetBSD managed to get it to run without any problems, what's up with Be?

    I tend to agree. I suspect that Be, as a small company, really only had the resources to do (and support) an Intel port OR a G3 port, not both. The Intel market is about a hundred times more viable, so they made a wise choice in choosing it, but didn't want to piss off their old PPC customers, so they made a big deal out of Apple not releasing the specs to them, to make Apple the bad guy. All the while, they probably were planning on phasing out PPC support anyway; Apple just gave them a convenient scapegoat.

    As others have pointed out, there are many pieces of hardware that have Linux and *BSD support without having a single spec to work with. It can be done, it's just costly in terms of time, which Be couldn't spare.

  • That's because it's a closed-source OS. If it was open, they could grab fixes from the Linux camp or vice versa.

    If Be wanted to develop for G3s, they could figure out what works and specify "these systems only." Kind of like what Apple is doing with OS X.

    -- Dirt Road

  • To me this project is an overwhelmingly positive development. Not because of the open source angle, and not because of the linux suppoort (although that's very nice).

    Real Networks makes you pay for quality authoring tools, and they make you pay for server software on a per stream basis.

    Apple makes you pay for quality authoring tools, but the streams are free.

    That's HUGE. If Real Networks doesn't follow suit, they will lose, because ISPs will offer one price for QT streaming and another price for Real Networks streaming. Publishers will go the cheap route.

    Apple has the right to test the open source waters however they see fit. Their license sucks, they're open sourcing some relatively minor products (compared to OS X, this server is minor), and they'd prefer it if every linux user bought a mac to author QT on.

    But they're learning how to make open source work. They say that the open source community has doubled performance and added linux support. Those are wins for Apple. They will be noticed, and it will affect their future decisions.

    The more democratic pricing model than what's offered by Real Networks is the fundamental good news in this product. You can serve as many streams as you want for free, as long as you've got the bandwidth, and bandwidth is getting cheaper all the time.

    This kind of license (or something better) is a necessary precondition of a true grass roots net radio movement.

    It is an overwhelmingly positive development.


  • The codec does not belong to Apple. The license it from Sorenson. If you want to, you can call up Sorenson and license it too. Go for it. As to "buy it out and pretend it's free", that's Microsoft's strategy. Apple didn't buy Quicktime, it invented it. Apple did buy NeXT, but there was no streaming server in NeXT.

    Unfortunately Sorenson will not allow their codec to be licensed or ported for an OS in which Apple has not made available a QuickTime client. This includes Linux.

    I found this hard to believe but Norman Doyle normd@s-vision.com [mailto], director of software development at Sorenson confirmed it on the public QuickTime-Talk list (QuickTime-Talk Digest V1 #138, June 15 1999), http://www.lists.apple.com/quicktime -talk.html [apple.com].

    Quoting Norman:

    Apple and Sorenson Vision currently have a "you scratch my back and I'll scratch your back" relationship. It's beneficial for both companies but also to many of you. We are very supportive of QuickTime and will only port our codec to those systems that are supported by QuickTime

    For more background on this see Mark Podlipec's comments on his attempts to get the sorenson codec ported to Xamim http://xanim.va.pubnix.com [pubnix.com]/


    Apple seems completely uniterested in allowing QuickTime to be ported to Linux or other free nixes. Charles Wiltgen the QuickTime Technology Manager cwiltgen@apple.com [mailto] is seemingly completely unconvinced of any benefit to Apple of allowing a QuickTime client on Linux. His standard response to the question about a Linux client on the quicktime-talk list is quoted below:

    Linux is a fine topic for this list if it involves serving
    QuickTime movies. Otherwise, it's not.


    If QuickTime on other platforms is critical to you, let your
    platform vendor know that you need them to license QuickTime --
    refer them to me, and I'll hook them up with the the Apple people
    they'll need to talk to.

    If you have more thoughts on the subject, please take it to a
    different forum, or email me privately.

    See: QuickTime-Talk Digest V1 #133, June 12 1999

    If you've got a well reasoned response about why it is in Apple's interest to make or allow a QuickTime client for Linux please write to Charles. I'd base it on Linux desktops eating away MS share instead of Apple's.

  • The no-client :(-dept. It sucks. Why can't we get to see a client? Or just a codec? Apple is getting worse, simple fact. Anyone inside the Mac market must have figured out Apple's latest strategy: Buy it out and pretend it's free.

    The codec does not belong to Apple. The license it from Sorenson. If you want to, you can call up Sorenson and license it too. Go for it. As to "buy it out and pretend it's free", that's Microsoft's strategy. Apple didn't buy Quicktime, it invented it. Apple did buy NeXT, but there was no streaming server in NeXT.

    Power Computing. It was competition. So it was removed.

    No, it was a mistake on Apple's part, so it was corrected. Apple still generates most of it's profit in hardware. Power Computing was licensed to sell MacOS-based systems, and they were not playing by the rules. If Apple had not ended cloning, all the clones and Apple too would have gone out of business.

    PPCLinux. It didn't suit Apple. So specs were withheld. Same with BeOS (sorta.. Be is a diff case)

    That's a BS lie passed areound by Be Inc. so that they can only develop new stuff for Intel. LinuxPPC runs on every Mac Apple sells, including the B&W G3s and the iMac. Why can LinuxPPC do it and Be can't, especially when the LinuxPPC source code is open-source? Sounds to me like Be is at fault here.

    Quicktime. It once was just a nice free client. Now it's got a 'Pro' edition. Plus the fact that Apple is gripping the codecs like they're made of pure gold.

    There is still a free Quicktime client. You're faulting Apple because they want to make money? How dare they, you say! Apple is a company, and their goal is to make money. Next you're going to be upset because they won't give you a G3 for free!

    Then there are the legalese issues on the ASPL. I'm no lawyer so I can't touch on them. But I hope they're reviewed and fixed.

    Apple revised their open-source license, and most people in the OSS community are happy with th new form of it.

    Plus, whatever happened to that issue with OSX/Apache crashing..?

    Well, if you followed Apple news, you'd know that this has been fixed in the Mac OSX Developer Preview 1 (see MacOSRumors [macosrumors.com] from the other day for info on DP1, it sounds awesome).

    Anyway.. I just have to say that Apple is really annoying me. I thought underdogs were the friendlier ones? But Apple doesn't seem to think so. Their playing monopoly with only a few of the cheaper streets and some houses. MS at least can't DO anything monopolistic right now, the DOJ is all over them.

    Monopoly? Why, because they open-sourced their next generation OS (Darwin) and a high-performance RTP/RTSP server? Sounds pretty consumer/user friendly to me!

    Well there's my ramble for the night/morning. As nice as Apple is being with the limited amount of Open Sourcing they're doing, they still aren't quite coming off friendly. How would we react if MS opened a small part of a program to Open Source and kept everything else under raps, including continued monopoly plays? Food for thought.

    If they open-sourced the whole thing, they'd go out of business. They are open-sourcing more things than you hear about though. What about OpenPlay? Thanks to that, OpenPlay will exist on linux (being ported by Loki now for use in Myth II), and we'll have a cross-platform (Mac, Windows, and UNIX/Linux) network gaming transport layer that's free for everyone. That's a good contribution from Apple you don't hear about often.

    Cut Apple some slack. They're still the best thing going in the commercial realm, and OSX is gonna rock.

  • Don't get me wrong --I'm really happy apple is releasing something to the community. But it seems to me this could seriously affect their sales of OSX. My guess is that they are banking on making more money of Quicktime than off of server sales, anyone agree?


    Well, the truth is that no one is making big money with streaming media except content providers and bandwidth providers. I work for the biggest US news organization on the net, and streaming video is great for us. It turns out that clickthrough rates on video ads are 20x as high as on static banner ads. So we can sell a video ad for more money.


    As to selling servers, the onl people who actually buy them are small sites like porn sites and smaller news orgs. The largest companies are actually paid by Real and Microsoft to broadcast in their format. Ever wondered why CNN only archives video in NetShow format? They paid for the priveledge.


    I wish I could say more, but I don't know what's public information and what is private, so I'll keep my mouth shut. Suffice it to say that right now, marketshare is Apple's biggest goal. There was not a good, free streaming server to run on all those gazillions of Linux boxes out there, so Apple is providing one in hopes of becoming the de-facto standard. It's a good plan IMHO. BTW, everyone go download the Apple Streaming Server 1.1 -- it compiles on Linux on Intel! Now, if only I can get it to work on LinuxPPC!

  • With 1.1, the removed the nasty termination clause.


    Actually, no. In 1.1 they properly defined "covered code" and "larger work", and loosened the requirement to send updates to their site (so that the license isn't invalidated if their site goes down).


    There is still vague language in the termination clause that can cause the entire license to be terminated if there is a legal dispute. The license to all of the code - not just the part being disputed. All of the license - not just saying that you can't distribute it.


    IMO, this needs to be fixed.

  • Be is run by a bunch of lazy idiots. If they could get their OS to run on machines in the past without specs AND LinuxPPC AND YellowDog can get their OS to run on any Mac (even G3s and iMacs) without any specs then why can't Be make it run on G3s?


    Because Linux can get away with partial support for a long time.


    If a Linux distribution works on some but not all G3-based systems, Linux advocates will download it or buy it anyways. If it works, great. If their system is a variant that isn't yet supported, well, they haven't lost that much. Sooner or later the hardware specs are reverse-engineered and it works. By that time, Apple has introduced another hardware variant, and the cycle continues.


    BeOS caters to a different audience. They aren't people who like being into cutting-edge software development - they're working on other things (various types of art and other media-related work). They want to put in the CD and watch it go. They aren't going to pay money for a CD that might or might not work on their system.


    Linux can afford to come out with incremental patches that support progressively more systems, because that's the way Linux works and what users are used to. Be can't. They make a single, polished release, and possibly a maintainence release a few months down the road. That's it. Those have to support all hardware until the next major release comes out.


    With Apple not giving out specs and possibly changing specs at whim to foil reverse-engineering, Be can't guarantee that their releases will work. So, they can't sell for G3-based systems.


    If the specs were given, it actually wouldn't take that much more work to support both platforms. BeOS was originally written with that in mind, and so were most of the drivers under BeOS. But, Apple isn't cooperating and Intel is, so Apple support is shelved.

  • PPCLinux. It didn't suit Apple. So specs were withheld. Same with BeOS (sorta.. Be is a diff case)


    That's a BS lie passed areound by Be Inc. so that they can only develop new stuff for Intel. LinuxPPC runs on every Mac Apple sells, including the B&W G3s and the iMac. Why can LinuxPPC do it and Be can't, especially when the LinuxPPC source code is open-source?


    Click on "user info" above and see my previous response.


    If Linux doesn't work on a particular G3 system, the user thinks "Oh well, we haven't reverse-engineered this one yet. I'll wait for the next patch.".


    If BeOS doesn't work on a particular G3 system, the user thinks "This CD that I paid for doesn't work. BeOS sucks.".


    Be _has_ to be able to guarantee that its OS will work on all or nearly all systems - and will continue to work without modification until the next major revision is released. Without Apple's cooperation, they can't do that.


  • Q: Why did Be develop an OS for the PowerPC?
    A: They thought they could sell BeOS to Apple.

    Q: Why didn't Apple buy BeOS?
    A: They bought NextStep instead.

    Q: Why does Be now have better x86 than PPC support?
    A: Intel bought part of Be Inc.

    Q: Why does this keep coming up on Slashdot?
    A: Good question!
    --

  • Yeah, Apple couldn't afford Be. What did Gasse want for his beta code? $500 Million? How much is Apple worth?

    Meanwhile, if I recall correctly, Apple got a robust, mature, multiuser NeXTStep OS and WebObjects (and Steve Jobs) for $400 Million.
    --
  • I am using Debian and /mnt is a really old Slackware with glibc installed:

    % locate socketbits.h
    /mnt/usr/glibc-2.0.6/sysdeps/generic /socketbits.h
    /mnt/usr/glibc-2.0.6/sysdeps/unix/s ysv/linux/socketbits.h
    /mnt/usr/include/socketbit s.h
    /usr/include/socketbits.h

    So it seems socketbits.h is part of glibc2.
    Alejo.
  • Didn't the clonemakers overstep the bounds of the licensing agreements?

    No. IIRC, this was simply a difference in strategy between Gil Amelio and Steve Jobs.
  • Beggars cannot be choosers. Basically, linux needs every single bit of help it can get from Apple and every other
    commercial company.

    Um, we are not beggars. We don't need every single bit of help we can get from any commercial companies.

    I don't think you understand. We got to where we are without any commercial companies help. Once we reached the level of stability and reliability that was acceptable to commercial companies they started comming to us. Yes, we do "sign" petitions to let companies know that there are a significant number of people out there that would pay for their software if it was ported to Linux. I don't see this as begging at all. It's more like doing those companies a favor by clueing them in on an untapped market.

    You know, Apple.. if they wanted to.. could really screw linux to the wall in a commercial sence by just porting
    MacOS X to Intel.

    And how would they do that? Would they make the complete OS open source? Would they still charge for their OS? Why would small businesses (those that are primarily using Linux now such as "mom and pop" ISP's) switch to using a proprietary (at least parts) OS that they'd have to pay out the wazoo (relatively speaking) for when they can get a stable, reliable, OS that does what they need done for free?

    "Why bother with the diffulticies of Linux when you can have the power of UNIX with the ease of use of the
    Macintosh. - Now on your Intel PC"

    That may work for the desktop, but not for servers. And, as I said above, it wouldn't sway the majority of current Linux users. Actually, I don't personally care if Linux ever makes major inroads in the "desktop" market. I use it on my desktop, and I have all the programs that I have a need for. If others have issues with using Linux on the desktop, use another OS. Or wait until it is made more "user friendly." So for all I care, let MacOS X "take over the desktop."

    It probably wont happen any time soon... but it could... so be affraid.

    Er, afraid of Apple?!?

    Ummm... which rules are these? Are these the rules that say you have to give away millions of dollars worth of
    R&D away for free, with no hope of renumeration? No Thanks. Those rules suck.

    Well, welcome to the real world!
  • Power Computing. It was competition. So it was removed.

    If cloneing was allowed to continue... Apple would not be around. The cloning issue is dead and done.. Go find a different issue.

    Quicktime costs millions to maintain and build. QuickTime is still free but if you want the pro version... you pay. Apple still looses money on QuickTime.

    I haven't been able to crash apache yet.

    Apple is a comercial company which is in the business of making money. Which is EXACTLY what DedHat will be as soon as it finishes its IPO.

    Linux is becomming comercial.

    Deal with it.

    P.S. Welcome to the real world.


  • Apple has little credibility with the Linux community.

    Ummm... and Apple really gives a shit about the Linux community?

    Think about it this way...

    Apple could have said... "No.. Fuck the linux community. We are not going to release any of our source at all."

    Beggars cannot be choosers. Basically, linux needs every single bit of help it can get from Apple and every other commercial company.

    You know, Apple.. if they wanted to.. could really screw linux to the wall in a commercial sence by just porting MacOS X to Intel.

    I have tried the DR of MacOS X Client and it beats the shit out of Linux in terms of consistancy, ease of use and functionality. I can see the advertisements now.

    "Why bother with the diffulticies of Linux when you can have the power of UNIX with the ease of use of the Macintosh. - Now on your Intel PC"

    It probably wont happen any time soon... but it could... so be affraid.

    Like I said before, stop bashing companies that are trying to help you.

    they'll play by our rules

    Ummm... which rules are these? Are these the rules that say you have to give away millions of dollars worth of R&D away for free, with no hope of renumeration? No Thanks. Those rules suck.


  • Hmmm.. silence.

    I think I made my point with my previous comment.




  • See the problem with the Linux model of "get the software for free... pay for support" means that there is no incentive to make the software better... more intuitive... simpler.... easier, because it is in the "support peoples" interest to keep it all confusing and complicated.

    Answer me this...

    How many /. readers would have a job in a Linux support position it linux was as easy to use/understand/configure/maintain as the mac???

    answer.... probably not many. Hence the fact that it is not very profitable being in the Macintosh support area. I speek from a position of authority here because I have been doing Mac support for about 6 years now and I can tell you... if I had been doing Winblows or Binux support I would be a wealthy man.

    CASE POINT : Tim O'reily. Do you think he really wants Linux to be really easy and simple.

    Short Answer.... NO.


    By the way? How much do the guys at RedHat expect to make when they go public??? 20 million... 200 million?

    Not bad for using other peoples hard work.


    Basically... Stop baggin commercial companies cause for free software to exist... there has to be commercial companies. Even LINUS himself has admitted this. He even WORKs for a commercial company to put food on the table. Free software does not do this.



  • For many companies, including ISPs, educational institutions, etc, the cost of an OS is irrelevent. To spend $400 or so on a server OS is completely worth it if it will be easier to use/maintain. In the scheme of things, having someone work for just a few more hours on a linux than on a Mac OS X server defeats the cost savings of linux.
    Unless you know what you're doing and have a capable staff, linux is easy to buy into and expensive to keep up with.

    --Andrew Grossman
    grossdog@dartmouth.edu
  • Just for clarification, Apple doesn't own the Sorenson codec. Apple is licensing it, and the terms of the contract are that the company is not allowed to license it to anyone else.
  • They have lots of other things to work on... I'm sure they'll consider it sometime down the road (especially with Darwin). But I doubt it's high on the priority list...

    The legal issues were pretty much solved with APSL 1.1 ... (which was released about a month after 1.0) no one has complained since.

    The OSX/Apache thing is still there... but it's not really an issue because it doesn't really affect normal Apache operations. Apple is working on a fix for Serer but MacOS X Developer Preview 1 is already immune to the bug, so I suspect they aren't too worried.
  • Don't get me wrong --I'm really happy apple is releasing something to the community. But it seems to me this could seriously affect their sales of OSX. My guess is that they are banking on making more money of Quicktime than off of server sales, anyone agree?
  • I agree. Apple wants QT to be THE standard for delivering video web. They know they won't put a dent on the server market anytime soon. So why hurt QT by strapping the streaming server to OS X Server? Besides, I think Apple needs the support of the Linux community in order to suceed with any open source plans. This might be one way of getting favor.

    --
  • The no-client :(-dept. It sucks. Why can't we get to see a client? The specs for the file formats are public. Go write one. Or just a codec? Which Codec? MPEG? JPEG? DV-NTSC? MS RLE? TIFF? Oh, you mean Sorenson, sorry Apple doesn't own Sorenson. If you want source for Sorenson go complain to Sorenson... Power Computing. It was competition. So it was removed. Power Computing was dieing. They didn't like the new licensing agreement for OS 8. Apple bought the pieces. PPCLinux. It didn't suit Apple. So specs were withheld. Same with BeOS (sorta.. Be is a diff case) Be was an Apple licensee. They didn't agree to the new terms. They stopped getting info. Then there are the legalese issues on the ASPL. I'm no lawyer so I can't touch on them. So you're saying "I don't know what the license says, but I know I don't like it"? But I hope they're reviewed and fixed. Version 1.1 of the license has been out for quite a while. It fixed the problems. Plus, whatever happened to that issue with OSX/Apache crashing..? You mean the extreamly obscure bug that could cause some systems to fail after thousands of concurent processes are started? It's fixed in DR 1 for OS X client. For OS X Server, you have the source, why haven't you fixed it yet? Anyway.. I just have to say that Apple is really annoying me. Translation: I hate Apple, I don't know why, I just do.
  • Linux is becomming comercial. Deal with it. P.S. Welcome to the real world.

    What is it with this attitude? Why is that so many people think the "real world" is an excuse to exploit and to expect it from others?

    Let me tell you about the "real world". In the real world, Apple has little credibility with the Linux community. If they want us to take them seriously, they'll play by our rules.
  • give this man/woman/child a 2!
  • to sell developer tools. real says: heres the free client, buy our server, ms says heres the free client and server, buy our os, apple says here's the open-source server, buy our development tools and fuck macromedia. in a nutshell i believe that sums up the thinking behind apple open-sourcing their qt server.
  • sure i've got no problem with it -- im just pointing out WHY they are doing it. apple isn't sitting around going 'gee it would really be great for the open source community if we contributred this code' they are saying 'gee if we opensource the server then it will be ported to linux/bsd [already done] , then people will use it then we will have half a shot at competing with real and ms.' smart strategy if you ask me. also, i believe they are going to move into the market for high-end creation tools and compete with macromedia. this is how the game is played...
  • Just downloaded it and followed the instructions. Seems that I don't have a file called 'socketbits.h'

    Am I missing something more than just this file?

    Thanks Apple. Wonderful software you have here...

  • I'm using RedHat 6.0
  • Bretai writes, "Both MS and RealMedia want to give away the players for free, and then make bank selling the servers."

    Don't know about the MS product, but for years, RealNetworks has had a free version of their server. You have to hunt for it, but it's there. Its specs vary, but the version I grabbed some time ago permits up to 60 streams, which is plenty for anyone except for those simulcasting a TV station or something.

    I think everyone in this market has realized that there's no money to be made in small servers. The small servers are most useful in grabbing marketshare & mindshare. I.e, if I downloaded RealPlayer so that I could listen to something on a Geocities site, RealNetworks gains a seat for its player.

    In addition, Real does offer a "Plus" version of the player, just as Apple has QT "Pro."

    So it seems the business model is to offer free versions of both server- and client-side apps (to build up market share), holding back enough features on both sides so that "serious" customers will be willing to pay for licenses to enhanced products.

    I wouldn't doubt Apple left itself some wiggle room in the server license to create a "Plus" version of the server some day which they can charge for.

    Either that or Apple has decided that on the server side the money is to be made in services, not licensing. Which is to say the Red Hat business model of charging installation support, etc., may be migrating from OSes to other apps. Which would be interesting.
  • If BeOS doesn't work on a particular G3 system, the user thinks "This CD that I paid for doesn't work. BeOS sucks."

    Actually, I have to disagree. I think I do prefer the previous hypothesis that Be uses it as an excuse to pursue the intel market. I'm a be developer, so I get each version when it comes. One of the guys I work for wanted to try it out. Now, be R4 didn't support a whole lot of intel boxes, but it did support his motherboard - it didn't support his Tulip-based ethernet card, even though it was listed on the (very small) "supported chipsets" list.

    Be's response was "oh. damn. uh, send us a bootlisting". I won't get into the ugliness of that, but suffice it to say, the end result was just "oh well" and partition delete. They didn't seem terribly concerned - "try the next version". It struck me as funny, of course, because there are perfectly good GPL tulip drivers (becker) out there they probably could have used.

    But so in general, I think they'd do fine reverse-engineering the few G3 models out there, and just stating the few models they do support. As with their intel releases : wait on the next version for more drivers and motherboard support. Be is good enough about their releasing schedules and release upgrading such that this is much more of a viable option.

    Besides, Be's always been that kind of company.
  • >2) Apple's ONLY crown jewel these days is
    >Quicktime. Thats it. Mac OS is no longer unique,
    >there are MANY windowing environemts now. The
    >Newton, they killed it.

    Yes there are many windowing environments available, there just aren't very many GOOD ones. I look at it this way, if you want to spend hundreds of hours screwing around with your desktop to get it to look like the bridge of the Enterprise, have fun. Personally, I have work to do.

    cheers,

    Matthew Reilly
  • Some people seem to be fundamentally confused as to what QuickTime is, so allow me to explain.

    QuickTime is, first and foremost, an *architecture* by which varying media types can be handled in a similar and organized fashion. It is an extensible architecture, as "codecs" (compression/decompression algorithms) can be freely added to the architecture.

    Most people do not realize this, but QuickTime is designed to handle many media types, including text, midi, audio and video. It does this very well, and for desktop use, is by far the most advanced media architecture available--hence the almost 100% use of QuickTime is professional non-linear editing studios around the world.

    So to answer some people's questions: Apple does *not* own the codecs in QuickTime, and as such, cannot give them away. It licenses them from companies like Sorenson.

    I truly hope that QuickTime is ported to Linux and the BeOS and other desktop operating systems, as it is truly a superior media handling architecture. I'm an advocate of open source software, but as a business person, I can understand not OSS'ing the crown jewel of a company. If that were to happen, the company would no longer exist, and development would stop.

    Sure, OSS developers all over the Internet would start working on it, but part of what makes it powerful is its closed design. Yes, it is an open architecture. But is has a very strict development cycle, which keeps it rock-solid. I once worked in high-end video production, I know that the flexibility and stability of QuickTime is of the utmost importance. It's just not found in any other media architecture.

    But regardless---say there is a port of QuickTime to Linux. It would be pretty much useless without the codecs. QuickTime would not be hard to port... it's just a shell. But without codecs, well, it's just not useful.

    As much as I don't like to say this, I don't think open source is a Good Thing for all software.

    Why can't we all get along? Apple isn't an evil company, contrary to what some people here say. We have a lot to thank Apple for.... many great technologies like PCI and SCSI, for example. Sure, they may not have invented these things per se (they did invent QuickTime), but if Apple had not popularized them, do you think we'd be using them everyday? Things like the GUI?

    Apple, at the very least, had the foresight to say "hrmm, that looks like a good thing.... let's try and give it to normal people."

    I'm not an Apple zealot (or any other OS for that matter), but I recognize the strengths and weaknesses of all the choices. I have several systems on my desk each running a different OS. Each has different tools for different tasks, and I like it this way.

    OK, enough of my rant.
  • You can't expect Apple to wake up one morning and open source every bit of software they own and sell their machines at cost. Steve Jobs would probably thrown in an asylum and the stock holders would lynch him.

    When Apple takes steps towards Open Source, as small as they may be, praise them, and encourage more of the sort. If we truely want open source to grow, we can't just pull the "you didn't do it my way so fuck you" approach.

    I realize there is concern about diluting open source standards, but voice such concerns with constructive criticism. If there are certain things (such as contract clauses) that are a problem for the community, and it wouldn't be financial and/or legal suidicide for Apple to correct them, inform the right people and things will get better. We have proof of this.

    While Apple is certainly a for-profit company, and they have an interest in keeping some of their secrets as secrets, they are certainly no Microsoft. They are not trying to own the planet, nor destroy every other choice out there.

    While the press may twist things in and out, Jobs and crew do basically seem to have good intentions. Jobs doesn't even take a paycheck (well, $1/yr to get benefits). And they do listen. I've received more than one personal email response from Jobs on issues that concerned me about the company's direction.

    Additionally, Darwin and the open sourcing of QTSS was not purely a marketing move. Avie Tevanian (VP of Software, ex-NeXTer) was the one who really felt that Apple/NeXT should give back to the Open Source community for all the stuff they took in -- gcc, Mach, Apache, etc.

    Despite the fact that they need money coming in, and have some bad habits to kick, Apple is certainly no Microsoft.

    - Scott

    ------
    Scott Stevenson
  • I am not sure that I know what I am talking about but I believe that file only exists on redhat distros. Does anyone else know...?
  • Oh. Sorry. I said redhat because I know I have seen it on rh 5.1, 5.2, and have never seen it on Debian or Slackware.
  • Okay I see it's quite futile to please anyone on this forum. No matter what is announced everyone in the Linux community will find it offensive, lacking, or insufficient. As much as I admire the Linux community for having a rebel attitude similar to the Mac community, it's starting to seem like there's a Linux "not-invented-here" attitude brewing. You guys have all kinds of open source code being spoonfed to you.. use it. Give developers feedback and give feedback to the companies providing you the code. As we all know, bitching and whining about source code graciously handed to you won't make companies feel any more compelled to continue. If you want some more change, instead of flaming and bitching why not put up a highly visible, public petition/forum which Apple may pay attention to. Please no flames.. only constructive criticism (besides, this discussion is moving way too far away from the original topic). I've been fascinated by UNIX ever since the good ole days when they replaced the green VAX terminals at SDSU with X Terms.. cool except configuring the sucker was a nightmare compared to a desktop computer OS.

    -----
    Linux user: if (nt == unstable) { switchTo.linux() }

  • I believe Apple didn't make enough profit from the clone makers, since they attacked the market segments where Apple were strong, making Apple lose even more money. At that time, things were looking a lot worse for Apple, too, the stock was down at somewhere around 13 bucks, (wish I bought some back then!)with confidence in the company at an all time low, so they needed every penny they could get. They couldn't wait for the cloning to pay off. Of course, that doesn't rule out that Jobs wanted the cloning to stop, and the two happened to coincide. My guess that if Jobs would come up with a cloning deal today (fat chance, I know. :P), things would look different.

  • Apart from the friggin splash screen, I don't mind there being a Pro version, for those who need it. If Joe Average would have put out a separate piece of software reading and playing the same formats, noone would whine about it being shareware.

    When it comes to Power Computing, I believe Apple wanted to get to their sales functions, which were apparently very efficient, and I think were used as a base for the Apple store. They didn't buy out any of the other clone makers, so I don't think it was only to remove the 'threat'. They could have just cancelled the contract as with everyone else.

    I do think Apple is at least trying. Even though they might not have gotten it right just yet, at least give them the benefit of a doubt. They have to get it right this time, or they'll be out of it, and I think they're smart enough to realize that. One can't blame them for past mistakes forever.

  • Quite the contrary, UDP is very useful still. With multimedia you don't need to guarentee that all the packets get to the destination, just that the packets are only used in the correct sequence. You drop packets that arrive late. With standard TCP net congestion can really kill your stream due to all the retries to make sure everything gets where it's going.

    This isn't always the best, for example, if you require everything gets to the destination. Even then, though, if you have a generously sized buffer, you can store packets and request for a missed one, thus potentionally saving time on retransmits. This can be useful in pausing a stream temporarily as well.

    This makes UDP very good to use for real-time streaming. Besides, any contribution to open source should be welcomed... if you don't like the contribution, just don't use it! ;-) There are already a few existing servers, do a few searches on freshmeat. However, something that Apple wants to include in their flagship server software should be carefully looked at too.
  • >The OSX/Apache thing is still there... but it's not really an issue because it doesn't really affect normal Apache operations
    Oh god, not this again. The system would hard-lock when this happends! That meens someone could crash this multi-user unix system. On MacOS or Windows 9x that would be no problem because these systems don't attempt to stop you from crashing the computer. On a unix system this is a serious problem. I should be able to give anyone an acount on my box and if I set up permissions right they can't do anything harmfull. They could NOT stop the machine from working. However with this bug that is not so. A malicious user could write a program to exploit that bug and bring down the computer. If it still hasn't been fixed then Apple has something to learn about the unix market.
  • Does anybody remember a couple a months ago when the CEO of RealMedia was screaming bloody murder because MS signed a bunch of agreements with them, and then *bundled* it's own player into IE50?

    Does anyone remember how MS payed big bucks to license the Real Audio 4.0 format and then totally changed the format in 5.0 turning MS's investment to shit? I just love how everyone out there loves Real Networks because they are not MS while Real Networks is the one with the proprietary CODECs and lousy customer service. I am not a big fan of MS but in the streaming media market MS has a far superior product (by using MPEG 4 CODECS, much better than G2) and their server AND client is free.

    Both MS and RealMedia want to give away the players for free, and then make bank selling the servers.

    Not true MS makes money off of selling Windows NT to run their streaming media server which is free. Apple is doing the same thing by giving away the streaming media server to sell OSX and Mac hardware although they are a bit better by allowing their streaming video server to be ported to other operating systems.


  • The story as it appears at Wired [wired.com] quotes Chris Cutter, an Apple spokesman as saying, "[This] just continues to add to the ubiquity of QuickTime."

    Maybe, maybe not. IMHO, it will become ubiquitous when users of platforms other than Windows and Mac are able to actually able to display this nifty content.

    After all, what good is a server that streams content that your users can't see? Answer: no damned good at all.

Slashdot Top Deals

We are each entitled to our own opinion, but no one is entitled to his own facts. -- Patrick Moynihan

Close