Martin O’Donnell pointed out an article on CNET News.com that reports that Red Hat and Novell are adding the Real Networks open source Helix Media Player to their respective Linux distributions. According to the article, these two companies will also work with RealNetworks to help integrate Helix with their operating systems and applications.
Martin said, “This is really important. Everyone that competes for consumers with {Microsoft} needs to get into Linux desktop distributions.”
I agree, but as a full time Linux user, I would add that having any working version of a Real Networks media player as part of the major Linux distributions would help make Linux a much more credible desktop competitor. Fedora, a rapidly-maturing successor to Red Hat Linux 9, is taking a different approach by actively removing components potentially covered by software patents. As such, I doubt that the Helix player will make it into Fedora Core 2 anytime soon.
The deal between Red Hat, Novell, and Real Networks covers Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop and the SUSE Linux Desktop, two distributions that many people expect to be deployed more and more in corporations and government, as an alternative to Microsoft Windows. It’s unlikely that this announcement will have a significant impact on the home PC market unless super-cheap desktops and laptops really take off.