RealNetworks Debuts Open-Source Media Player
RealNetworks Inc. Wednesday announced the launch of the Helix Player project, an open-source effort to deliver an open media player for Linux, Unix and Solaris. In addition, Kevin Foreman, general manager of the Seattle, Wash., company said the Helix Player will feature the company's RealAudio and RealVideo binaries to take to Linux, Unix and Solaris the same type of media playback capabilities that Windows and Macintosh environments enjoy with RealNetworks' RealOne Player, which is available for free. Foreman spoke to eWEEK at the LinuxWorld confence here.
Foreman said RealNetworks is looking to add to the ranks of the Helix community, which includes both commercial and open-source developers. Indeed, Foreman said the Helix community has grown to more than 20,000 developers as of this week, which marks the anniversary of the launch of the Helix community effort. Helix is a platform and a community for the standardization and expansion of digital media.
The Helix Player will be an open-source, collaborative effort, Foreman said. The media player is being built on top of the Helix DNA Client following freedesktop.org standards and the GTK+ toolkit. GTK is the GIMP Toolkit, and GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program.
