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Desktop Linux provider Linspire Now Natively Supports Latest Versions of Windows Media

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Desktop Linux provider Linspire Now Natively Supports Latest Versions of Windows Media. Many popular music sites remain inaccessible as Microsoft's Digital Rights Management restricts Linux playback.

SAN DIEGO, November 18, 2004 – Linspire, Inc. today introduced native support for Windows Media Player versions 8 and 9 on its operating system. Beginning immediately, all Linspire versions in all languages will include Windows Media support – users will now have in-line playback of audio and video on popular sites like FoxNews.com and Movies.com, all with codecs legally licensed and fully integrated for the Linspire operating system. With this distribution, Linspire is the first Linux distributor in the world to fully support Windows Media 8 and 9 audio and video file formats.

“Fully supporting Windows Media files means Linspire users have instant gratification when they want to watch a video embedded in a Web site or hear a clip of a hot new song,” said Michael Robertson, CEO of Linspire, Inc. “This new capability gives desktop Linux functionality critical to satisfying mainstream consumers.”

Making Windows Media work on Linux systems required more than two months of engineering effort. Previously, Windows Media files would typically work on users' machines only if they found and installed unlicensed codecs online then patched them into their operating system. In contrast, Linspire licensed the codecs directly from Microsoft, then made substantial changes to make the Windows Media code work on Linux-based systems. The engineering required porting the complete Windows CE Windows Media code to Linux.

This support makes it possible for desktop Linux users to experience a host of audio and video clips that are transmitted in Windows Media format. Web sites that are now playable by desktop Linux machines include everything from news (CBS News, Fox News) to comedy (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart) to weather (Yahoo! Weather). The new support also allows audio and video to be played inside the browser without spawning a new window, as many Windows Media files on Linux would in the past.

The new license does have its limitations, however: Linspire cannot legally support all Windows Media file types. Linspire is unable to play content that is encoded with Microsoft's Digital Rights Management (DRM) software. Since most online commercial music stores like Napster, Musicmatch and Buy.com implement DRM on all of their files, it is impossible for desktop Linux users to use these sites. Linspire requested a DRM license to complete their support of Windows Media, but was rebuffed by Microsoft, who said they will not license a general computing platform.

“It's disappointing that Linux users are barred from popular music services by Microsoft's unwillingness to license DRM to Linux companies,” Robertson said. “Microsoft is clearly trying to use their operating system monopoly to strong-arm control of the music industry and lock out competing Linux companies.”

For more of Linspire CEO Michael Robertson's comments on Microsoft, Digital Rights Management, and Windows Media on Linux, see this week's Michael's Minute newsletter at http://www.linspire.com/mediamm.

For more information about Linspire, contact:

Heather MacKenzie Linspire, Inc. 858-587-6700, ext. 263 858-587-8095 Fax [e-mail:pr@linspireinc.com]

About Linspire, Inc.

Linspire (www.linspire.com) is an affordable Linux-based operating system designed specifically for desktop and laptop computers in homes, schools and businesses. Linspire uses innovative CNR technology that allows the installation, updating and management of more than 1,900 software programs with just one click from Linspire's CNR Warehouse (www.linspire.com/warehouse). The Linspire operating system is also offered in Spanish (www.linspire.com/espanol), Italian (www.linspire.com/italiano) and Japanese (www.linspire.com/livedoor).

Linspire is a trademark of Linspire, Inc., a Delaware Corporation. Other marks used herein may be the property of their respective owners.

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Comments (7)

attiladehun ·
I seem to recall a distribution called TurboLinux which hit the streets several months ago that offered PowerDVD AND Windows Media Support as well, before this press release hit the streets.

This is nothing more than the fruition of the settlement wherein Microsoft bought off Roberts, allowing them 4 years to distribute legally the codecs they were including already. The chutzpah of this latter-day Barnum is nothing short of amazing.
babyfishmouth ·
From the TurboLinux site at http://www.turbolinux.com/products/10F/:

"Enjoy playing Windows Media-based content, including Windows Media Video 9 and all other versions of Windows Media Audio except for Windows Media Audio Pro."

It looks like TurboLinux doesn't support WMA9
techieMoe ·
From what I gather of the Linspire forums, Linspire got licenses for all codecs that weren't DRM-encumbered. They tried for the others but Microsoft scoffed at them.
attiladehun ·
Linspire got the "rights" do use the codecs they had already included in xine (the win32 codec package we all obtain from mplayerhq.hu). Microsoft said in effect, you already ship them out, now you can do it LEGALLY. Yippee freaking skippy! They take code from someone else, slap a big "L" on the front, claim it is an inspiration from heaven, and pass it on (for a fee, of course) and the Barnumisms never stop. The sellout got Roberts 20 million bucks, so spend it on more advertising. What a complete and utter crock, and a disservice to Linux/Unix in general.
babyfishmouth ·
You said:

"They take code from someone else, slap a big "L" on the front, claim it is an inspiration from heaven, and pass it on (for a fee, of course) and the Barnumisms never stop."

What programs are those? The only ones I know of that have "L" in front of them are Lphoto and Lsongs. If you're alleging that this are actually other programs in disguise, download the sources from their site and take a look at them and please tell us all what programs they *really* are.

According to their developers, Linspire got the source code to the Windows CE versions of the codecs and rebuilt them for Linux. If you install the revised Mplayer, sure enough you end up with libwma3.so and libwmv3.so, and the Windows DLLs are gone.

I don't think Roberts sold out - a huge company with unlimited resources sued him, and then paid him $20 million to get out of it. Sounds like a smart business move to take the deal.

As to the legality of the Windows DLLs distributed by mplayerhq.hu - surely you don't advocate the illegal use of copyrighted materials, otherwise there'd be nothing preventing Microsoft from using GPL'd code without honoring the license, which is based entirely on copyright law.
mojavelinux ·
Look, I am definitely fighting the free software front just as much as anyone else, but to be successful, it is necessary to turn some heads. No matter how much effort a team puts into something like the mplayer plugin, if a site like Yahoo Launch attempts to block Mozilla and Linux users, it makes it pretty hard to get widespread adoption. Michael Robertson is playing a very important role on the advocacy front, getting these companies to recognize this community. Sometimes you have to make compromises to make it happen in the short run, but once recognition kicks in, we boot libraries such as WMA in favor of the open source counterparts. It sounds dirty, but to win you have to know how to negotiate.
bstadil ·
If anyone think Linspire is sailing a little too close to the wind check out these guys from Brazil http://www.freedows.com/

covered over at TheInguirer

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=19808

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