Real Player alternative

[Sparky]

Think that you've laid it out pretty well. Some thoughts:

1. The Real codecs, IIRC, include handling the identification of the
user - through transmission of a unique ID stored in the registry
(rotuma). This ID is generated randomly during installation of Real Player.
Transmission of the rotuma is done at connection time to the streamer;
not via a separate call to Real.

I appreciate you pointing this out. I haven't been able to find any
information regarding a codec transmitting unique user id. Would you
please point me to any resources you have?

2. Real, RA, and JetAudio each use Real codecs.

3. I don't know, but suspect that RA is warez, and is tolerated by Real
- because its use contributes towards Real's market share. Real gets
fees from the BBC regardless of the legitimacy of the user; high use keeps
Real a player in the streaming game..

4. The trouble with using RA (IMHO) is that it is technically illegal,
and can get you into a crack if your box is ever confiscated.

No. In July of 2002;

Realnetworks released several pieces of their source code, including the
those for a number of RealNetworks codecs. More information is
available at helixcommunity.org.

RealNetworks provides three licensing schemes:

(GPL) Gnu Public License
(RPSL) RealNetworks Public Source License
(RCSL) RealNetworks Community Source License

For research and development, there is no charge, fees, etc. It is
free. For commercial redistribution, those products developed and
released under GPL and RPSL are, similarly free. This includes codecs.
For products developed under RCSL, there are royalty fees.

Given the above, it is quite possible - even probable - that the Real
Alternative codec is developed and distributed *legally.*

Also,
because most RA users have the same rotuma, it is easy to connect that
rotuma with your IPA (unless you use an anonymizing proxy). IF you're
going to use RA, suggest that you scramble the rotuma.

Again, I'd be interested to understand this better.

5. Highest quality is probably via RealPlayer. Though it is bloated,
with precautions and regular hygiene, it is no more a tattletale than RA.

....

RealNetworks lost my vote back in the the '90's when they began
blatantly stealing personally-identifiable information from users. This
resulted in lawsuits, an investigation by Truste as well as the FTC. I
don't care how "high" the quality of their products are. Thank you no.
(http://www.aluminumstudios.com/spyware/#realmedia).

It is wonderful that the codecs have been open-sourced. That's as far
as I go.

In summary:
1) There is *no* evidence that RealAlternative (RA) is warez
2) There *is* evidence that RA is compiled and distributed legally
3) RealNetworks' codec source was *open-sourced* three years ago
4) MPC (a player) is open source (sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/)



regards,

-Sparky

 

[Thorsten Duhn]

Hy,

In summary:
1) There is *no* evidence that RealAlternative (RA) is warez
2) There *is* evidence that RA is compiled and distributed legally
3) RealNetworks' codec source was *open-sourced* three years ago
4) MPC (a player) is open source
(sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/)

when I first mentioned warez here in this thread it was a reaction
on JCs thought, that RA is only a repack of RealPlayer files. And
my main argument against was the loss in playback quality, which
is still my main reason against RA.

I just tried to install newest RA without destroying my working
system (it wants to uninstall RealPlayer and asks me to close
Mozilla, but what if I don't want plugins? I unchecked MPC in
setup dialog, and found it in a new folder installed neverthe-
less.). At least, guess what, I am not able to find any license,
not during install, not on my system.

I'm not sure about Real licenses, but GPL requires a copy of the
GPL to be distributed along with the program, and code must be
published as well.

So many questions, no answers at all. I don't see any advantage
in RealAlternative at all...

Regards,
Thorsten

 

[Thorsten Duhn]

Hy,

I unchecked MPC in
setup dialog, and found it in a new folder installed neverthe-
less.

okay, my error, it was not this installation of RA that created
this files...

Sorry,
Thorsten

 

[Sparky]

Hy,



when I first mentioned warez here in this thread it was a reaction
on JCs thought, that RA is only a repack of RealPlayer files. And

And I just want to set the record straight. RA is not warez.

my main argument against was the loss in playback quality, which
is still my main reason against RA.

Great. That's the best argument out there for not using a product.
Let's just avoid tainting products with inferences of illegality.

....(stuff deleted>

I'm not sure about Real licenses, but GPL requires a copy of the
GPL to be distributed along with the program, and code must be
published as well.

You can read the Real licenses. There are three. One of which is GPL.
And, no, the source does not "have to be distributed along with the
binaries." The source must be made available. That's a big difference,
fwiw. See the GPL faq:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DistributeWithSourceOnInternet
But I don't know what license realalternative is released under.

So many questions, no answers at all. I don't see any advantage
in RealAlternative at all...

I beg to differ Thorsten, there are plenty of answers. Mine refer to
the misconception posited that the RealAlternative codecs are not legal.

Regards,
Thorsten

regards,
Sparky

 

[Richard Steinfeld]

So many questions, no answers at all. I don't see any advantage
in RealAlternative at all...

Hi, Thorsten.

I see four advantages of using MPC along with Real Alternative:
1. It works, and it's not bloated nor an installation Death Star.
2. The audio quality is definitely _good enough for speech comprehension_.
3. It's the only way that I know of to be able to receive Real-encoded
non-commercial radio content from distant cities without severely
damaging our computer installations nor opening up ourselves to unwanted
program behavior and invasive DRM (JetAudio).
4. In thinking back to a much earlier discussion about this, it appears
to be quite safe to munge the "Rotuma" file, thereby being able to cloak
our identities and the software will still work perfectly well.

In other words, even though we don't have the answers that we want, this
combination appears to work, work reliably, and be safe. I think that
we've batted this around enough to all agree that this is the state of
affairs at the moment. Anyone disagree?

And since Real technology is pretty poor for music work, let's just not
even consider it, accept it for speech, and move along to other
technologies for music.

I wish that Mr/Mrs/Ms Gabest would reveal him/her/itself. I mean, after
all, we could thank him/her/it. It's a bit clumsy, crypticly
documented (if at all), but hey: the thing works.
OK?

Richard

 

[Sparky]

I wish that Mr/Mrs/Ms Gabest would reveal him/her/itself. I mean, after
all, we could thank him/her/it. It's a bit clumsy, crypticly
documented (if at all), but hey: the thing works.
OK?

Richard

Agreed.

-Sparky

 

[John Corliss]

Oh, damn: I forgot! (egg on face).

Eh... what did you forget? You've got me pretty confused at this point.
Did a message get cancelled?

 

[John Corliss]

John Corliss wrote:

(clipped)
I mean, what the hell: it's Apple making a product for Microsoft systems
-- what do we expect? It's like Osama filling in for the pope. Gimme a
break, for god's sake.

LMAO! Ainiduhtroot.

 

[John Corliss]

Agreed.

-Sparky

Yep, me too. And by the way, I just F3ed my registry in Regedit for
"rotuma" and found two entries. Deleted the values (they were very long
strings of characters). If it messes anything up to do this, oh well.

 

[Roger Parks]

I appreciate you pointing this out. I haven't been able to find any
information regarding a codec transmitting unique user id. Would you
please point me to any resources you have?

Hmmm.... there were three links; I can find only one now.

IIRC, it was part of the connection/handshake process - not imbedded within
the codec itself. Can't find the page that sniffed the handshake with
various streamers - but here is an (earlier) analysis that describes the
function of the rotuma, and the spying that occurs as part of a handshake
- though in this case he sniffed when connecting to Real for various types of support.

http://www.computerbytesman.com/privacy/realjb.htm

But a distinction between "codec" and "libraries" is blurry. I'd guess
that the Real "codecs" (.dll s) have logic that require this handshake
before they'll stream. That would explain why Real Alternative has
the same "rotuma" and other registry information in the same Registry
key(s).

I've forgotten, but suspect that JA does as well

No. In July of 2002;

Realnetworks released several pieces of their source code, including the
those for a number of RealNetworks codecs. More information is
available at helixcommunity.org.

RealNetworks provides three licensing schemes:

(GPL) Gnu Public License
(RPSL) RealNetworks Public Source License
(RCSL) RealNetworks Community Source License

For research and development, there is no charge, fees, etc. It is
free. For commercial redistribution, those products developed and
released under GPL and RPSL are, similarly free. This includes codecs.
For products developed under RCSL, there are royalty fees.

Given the above, it is quite possible - even probable - that the Real
Alternative codec is developed and distributed *legally.*

Certainly possible........ 'twould be nice if the RA (QTA) folks would
indicate that somewhere - as is usually done in such situations.

Others have visited the Helix page and concluded that RA probably
is not licensed under any of the plans. Operative word would be
licensed.

If the source was wide open and freely available without licensing,
I'd presume that a lot of folks would be using it in their streamers.

RealNetworks lost my vote back in the the '90's when they began
blatantly stealing personally-identifiable information from users. This
resulted in lawsuits, an investigation by Truste as well as the FTC. I
don't care how "high" the quality of their products are. Thank you no.
(http://www.aluminumstudios.com/spyware/#realmedia).

Agreed - it is a slimey outfit.

IIRC, the overt spying was trimmed back with the release of RP8 after
the lawsuits, and during a period when individual privacy was again
valued (pre 911). Today, of course, spying on individuals is totally
acceptable - as an extension of drm, homeland security, and other
mentalities.

I'm interested in -how- it occurs, and trying to minimize it. Scrambling
the rotuma once eliminates specific info. it may contain, but still allows
tracking. Scrambling it -frequently- reduces the usefulness of any rotuma/IPA
tracking summaries that are created; scrambling the rotuma and using an
anonymized IPA would further reduce those summaries. My belief is that
the "tracking" occurs with RA and JA as well as RP with a scrambled rotuma.

The more "traditional" cookies are probably a functional red herring -
they work fine, but if you muck about you can eliminate them and believe
that you're o.k.

In summary:
1) There is *no* evidence that RealAlternative (RA) is warez
2) There *is* evidence that RA is compiled and distributed legally
3) RealNetworks' codec source was *open-sourced* three years ago
4) MPC (a player) is open source (sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/)

Sure agree with number 4.

 

[Richard Steinfeld]

Eh... what did you forget? You've got me pretty confused at this point.
Did a message get cancelled?

I mean, I forgot which Roger I was referring to. I even forgot that I
referred to any Roger. Did I? Was it me or the other "virtual" Richard?

Seriously, now: the entire "Roger" issue is now moot: feast your eyes on
_this_!

http://www.buriedtruth.com/spysoftw...-archive/spyware-newgroup-archive-p-1571.html

Herein you will be able to see our former thread on this subject. Wow. I
think that I'm going to edit and print this for myself.

Richard

 

[Richard Steinfeld]

Yep, me too. And by the way, I just F3ed my registry in Regedit for
"rotuma" and found two entries. Deleted the values (they were very long
strings of characters). If it messes anything up to do this, oh well.

Which brings up another question: if you delete these registry values,
are they rebuilt or do they stay gone forever (wishful thinking)?

Can we delete the Rotuma file itself? Will this, too stay gone?

If we make these changes, will the program still work?

Richard

 

[Thorsten Duhn]

Hy,

You can read the Real licenses. There are three. One of which is
GPL. And, no, the source does not "have to be distributed along
with the binaries." The source must be made available. That's
a big difference, fwiw. See the GPL faq:
<http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DistributeWithSourceOnInternet>
But I don't know what license realalternative is released under.

okay, there may be circumstances, where the code does not have to
be distributed, but that's not the point. What license is RA under?
You don't know either. What is this product based on? Which (open
source maybe) code, what files borrowed from another product?

That's my remark, this product we're talking about does not contain
any informaition about it's origin. And when it's based on open
source, this is against that license (AFAIK only "public domain"
can be used without any reference to the original sources), I would
avoid using or even advertize (here or on a web page) this stuff.

When you wanna support open source, dump behaviours like this!

Btw. along RA there is also a "QuickTime Alternative", does anyone
know if there is also an open source code base for this, QA maybe
could be based on? Have not tried yet.

Regards,
Thorsten

 

[Thorsten Duhn]

Hello again,

I have to add: as my argumentation began with the quality
problems of the RA codec, I do *NOT* believe of RA as warez,
as I don't believe, it is based on original RealPlayer files
or open source code without respecting that license. (Or the
open source is that bad quality like Fraunhofer mp3 ISO
implementation was times ago, which several bad mp3 encoders
were based on, which was not only slow but also had buggy
mp3 output...)

But to code such a codec from the scratch you'll have to do
reverse engeneering, which I do not believe as fully legal
also. RA is at least in the twilight zone. And therefore,
a product appearing just somewhere unknown with no furter
informations along, with no known real life coder, this
attitude is from the warez scene. And I don't like that here
in the proud freeware community.

Nice day,
Thorsten

 

[John Corliss]

(clipped)
Seriously, now: the entire "Roger" issue is now moot: feast your eyes on
_this_!

http://www.buriedtruth.com/spysoftw...-archive/spyware-newgroup-archive-p-1571.html


Herein you will be able to see our former thread on this subject. Wow. I
think that I'm going to edit and print this for myself.

A good read alright. Now I'm even more suspicious of RA.

 

[John Corliss]

Which brings up another question: if you delete these registry values,
are they rebuilt or do they stay gone forever (wishful thinking)?

I'm going to go to the ABC News site and play one of their files. Then
I'm going to run Regedit and check.

Just did it. Files wouldn't play.

Can we delete the Rotuma file itself? Will this, too stay gone?

I did a search on my hard drive for "rotuma" and got no results.

If we make these changes, will the program still work?

Nope. Appears that RA needs to come off of my system.

 

[John Corliss]

I'm going to go to the ABC News site and play one of their files. Then
I'm going to run Regedit and check.

Just did it. Files wouldn't play.



I did a search on my hard drive for "rotuma" and got no results.



Nope. Appears that RA needs to come off of my system.

By the way, I just F3ed in Regedit for "Rotuma" and yup, the ID code had
been regenerated in at least two locations. I had modified the value to
nothing previously.

 

[Sparky]

Hy,



...<stuff deleted>...What license is RA under?
You don't know either. What is this product based on? Which (open
source maybe) code, what files borrowed from another product?

That's my remark, this product we're talking about does not contain
any informaition about it's origin. And when it's based on open
source, this is against that license ...<stuff deleted>...

When you wanna support open source, dump behaviours like this!

Yea;

Thorsten, very good points. Mystery (undocumented) code from a mystery
(willfully so) coder, especially if using a gpl or related license, goes
against transparency. I was arguing the "innocent until proven guilty"
line but, really, the example (RA coder & code) in this case doesn't
bear scrutiny.

Thanks for sticking with this thread instead of flaming out. I'm better
informed for it.

Btw. along RA there is also a "QuickTime Alternative", does anyone
know if there is also an open source code base for this, QA maybe
could be based on? Have not tried yet.

Regards,
Thorsten

regards,
-Sparky

 

[Brook Humphrey]

Btw. along RA there is also a "QuickTime Alternative", does anyone
know if there is also an open source code base for this, QA maybe
could be based on? Have not tried yet.

Honestly guys klite codec pack has been around for a couple years at least.
All they are doing is grabbing a bunch of codecs and repackaging them so
you dont have to use the bloated/spying front ends that come with them.

They have not claimed otherwise since the begining to the best of my
knowledge.

In other words for the most part it's a bunch of dll's with default settings
to make them work combined with some nice lite players that dont spy on
you.

They are not most likely recompiling code since if you actually checked out
helix player or codecs you would see right in the license to get it that
you cant redistribute it once you have it. Either way it is not really
legal to give out the codecs.

Real most likely just tolerates it since it puts the codecs into more users
systems or they dont know about it yet(unlikely). As for the others I would
say it is most likely about the same.

 

[Richard Steinfeld]

John Corliss wrote:

snipety snip

By the way, I just F3ed in Regedit for "Rotuma" and yup, the ID code had
been regenerated in at least two locations. I had modified the value to
nothing previously.

So, now that the codec set (it's beginning to behave like an actual
program itself, isn't it?) has regenerated its Rotuma, did the (program,
whatever) revert to being able to play the streaming content?

Are the regenerated Rotuma contents restored to the previous value, or
has a new ID been assigned?

I sense that we've almost gotten to the bottom of this.

Thanks.

Richard