Sexy Sexy Penguins

So I am sitting in my hotel in Los Angeles, preparing to head back to Utah, its 2:37am PDT and I have been meaning to post the rest of my experience at FUDCon.  First off, I’d like to thank Mo and Ray for letting me stay at their home with them.  They were great hosts!  I’d also like to re-thank Max and Paul and the FedoraProject for sponsoring me out to Boston on such short notice.  I still feel grateful to be part of such a great community!

FUDCon F10, for me, was a time of realization.  Understanding what it is to get involved in projects that scratch that itch.  For providing services toward something I’m good at, into a larger community who could really take advantage of that service.  And while I am still feeling my way through the Fedora world, I think a few things are clearer now after reflecting on this last FUDCon.

I want to record and stream audio and video.

I’m thinking that along with the Fedora Talk project, I could configure and use tools to provide a non-interactive streaming server for certain events/presentations.  What I am thinking of here is things like FUDCon keynotes and sessions.  In fact, I plan to purchase a higher quality microphone / mixer combo to better record the audio at the source.

Video and screencasting in real-time seems a bit more of a challenge.  Putting that together with the streaming audio seems like a fun project and scratches several itches I’ve been experiencing lately.

I need to learn how build better RPMs

Spot taught a great session at FUDCon F9 in Raleigh about RPM packaging, and Rex Deiter talked this time about becoming a package maintainer.  I’ve got a few packages that I’d like to get into the fedora tree, and I think by the end of this year, that can happen.  I’m okay at packaging, but haven’t ever submitted a spec file to spot.  While I’m nervous about how ugly the first package will look, I’m also excited at the prospect of learning better and more efficient ways of building useful tools for the masses.

I think everyone should build their own spin of Fedora

After the 5+ hour session on Friday’s hackfest regarding the spins website and what the spins SIG has already accomplished, I’ve taken some initiative and started to create content to help the prospective spin enthusiast.  I’m a big fan of the Eee PC and am looking forward to purchasing the 901 in the winter.  Until then, I’m planning on helping improve the spin process so we don’t fail to release spins again.  The custom and official spins ‘built with Fedora’ can be so much more prolific if we just provide the right tools to build a spin.  It really should be nothing more than, here’s my kickstart, build me an iso.  This would of course have to follow the general standards for acceptable software.

The relationships (FUDBuddies) made at FUDCon are up my alley

I met Rex Dieter, Mo Duffy, Ray Strode, Dennis Gilmore and Ian Weller this time.  We had great conversations about the world and of course Fedora.  I also got to talk more to Toshio, Greg and J5 who I had met previously at FUDCon F9.  I indeed learned a bunch from Toshio about TurboGears too.  Its something I’ll treasure for releases to come.

To end this post, I’ve got some audio of the olpc session and paul’s keynote, as well as some photos I’ve posted around the interweb, enjoy.  Paul’s keynote will also be up on our new FedoraTV Miro channel, check it out!

Cheers,

Clint

Tags: audio, boston, f10, fudbuddy, fudcon, spins, streaming, video

This week’s Program of the Week is a bit ahead of its release. The package is Codec Buddy, and is currently slated for release in Fedora 8 tomorrow.

Codec Buddy, with a little help from the Fedora and Fluendo development teams has grown into something that could be great. I see Codec Buddy really helping those who want to use and play non-free media sources from within Fedora. If you are currently running rawhide, you probably already know about this, but very soon, many other people will start to understand how Codec Buddy works as well.

One of the goals of the Fedora Project is to be free of any proprietary software. Though I don’t see that many people using Fedora without at least a few proprietary components, media codecs, drivers, etc. Maybe one day…we can always hope.

To that end, I am a big media buff. I regularly watch TV shows and movies that use proprietary codecs. As an example, most people don’t realize that using the reverse engineered DVD encoding provided by DVD Jon could be considered illegal. Fedora doesn’t want to be encumbered by these risks, and truthfully, I don’t blame them one bit. Considering that my backlog of mp3s and DVD rips will require an additional bit of software not normally included with Fedora, I think this is a great software solution. Give the user what they want without compromising the integrity of the project.

Codec Buddy is provided to help the average Joe understand the world of media formats. Its job was originally to provide a short description of why Fedora doesn’t include this in its distribution. Then point to where one might find more information about these formats. Codec Buddy has been altered a little, but attempts to accomplish the same thing using the Fluendo website.

Fluendo is the company that employs many of the individuals that work on the gstreamer project. Its quite a noble project, providing media codecs (installable formats) for many of the audio and video we like to use every day. Its great to have open source companies like Fluendo helping open source grow.

Codec Buddy works by launching a small application when someone tries to access a media codec not currently on the system. For instance, I’ve attempted to play a show I’ve downloaded.

Launch Totem

Open the file

Start the video

As the video attempts to play, a prompt appears, indicating the media isn’t supported. Codec buddy then provides a few options to enable playback for this particular media format.

The available items are MP3 Audio Decoder, MPEG Playback Bundle and MPEG4 Part 2 Video Decoder. By default only the MP3 Audio Decoder, which is also the only codec that will be installed without payment, is checked. The other two codecs are available for a small fee, which helps Fluendo to provide these codecs.

Clicking the “Get Selected” button will immediately start the download of the MP3 Audio Decoder (if it was selected).

A license agreement then appears, make sure to read this and if you agree, click Accept.

Once the agreement is complete, its time to purchase the remaining codecs. Choose Start Web Browser and in a few moments, the Fluendo website should appear. This should allow you to purchase the remaining codecs needed for the video I want to watch.

The Fluendo website has a good list of available codecs beyond the choices available in Codec Buddy.

The purchase will seem similar to many others on the web, add things to the cart, and pay.

Fluendo is a good start. I’m sure there will be many people interested in purchasing these codecs here. However, I believe however, that the biggest problem is that most people can get these codecs for free on Windows, Mac and even other Linux distributions. So far, the thing I feel is missing here is the explanation for why charge for these codecs and who benefits.

Fluendo is a great resource and provides some kick-ass codecs. If there is no explanation as to why we need to pay for something that one can get for free. Potential customers who don’t understand the reasoning behind it might go elsewhere, or worse even, choose another distro or operating system.

I love fedora for the freedom it gives me to choose my path. I love fedora for its focus on making sure things are free and open, both monetarily and in liberty. I love fedora for trying things like Codec Buddy, I want it to succeed. I hope that with a few suggestions, both fedora and Fluendo can make Codec Buddy the informational tool that it was originally intended.

Cheers,

Herlo

Tags: audio, codec buddy, f8, mp3, mpeg4, video