RealNetworks goes Open Source

REALNETWORKS SURPRISED WORLD+DOG Sunday by announcing open sourcing of audio and video multimedia software. Code-named Helix, this initiative promises access to some of RealNetworks' software for Open Source developers. Mind you, they are not opening all of their source immediately, as codecs (encoding and decoding modules) will remain proprietary for now -- yet they might reconsider this later.

This is an astonishing departure for RealNetworks, which had previously kept its media server software proprietary, like Microsoft, and charged end-users for its full-featured client media players, unlike Microsoft which "gives away" Windows Media Player with its expensive Windows OS systems.

Most interesting is that RealNetworks also appears to be targeting Microsoft with reverse-engineered server software to stream Windows Media Player, Quicktime, and other formats. Microsoft's initial spin was that this indicates broad acceptance for its proprietary multimedia format, but is said to be reviewing its options, i.e., looking for some way to scuttle this initiative and throttle RealNetworks, presumably.

Since RealNetworks claims it used a scrupulous clean-room approach to reverse-engineer serving Windows Media Player, and Microsoft can't really afford to play its customary hard-ball games in the marketplace while the US Antitrust case remedy is still being considered, there might not be much Microsoft can do here... at least not for a while.

However, RealNetworks' proposed "public" and "community" software source licenses have yet to be reviewed by the OSI and FSF, and questions about how they will make available proprietary software modules such as codecs still remain to be answered. We'll just have see how this plays out.

Multimedia is a confusing welter of competing formats, codecs, servers, and client players. If RealNetworks can provide good software tools to Open Source developers (such as the talented volunteers who write the excellent free MPlayer), they'll gain a lot of goodwill and community assistance. If they also distribute a user-friendly and flexible media player that's capable of handling most popular multimedia formats, then they might really be onto something good. µ

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See Also
RealNetworks is "middleware" - witness