A surprising breach appeared to open between leading Unix and Linux companies on Monday as Sun Microsystems’ chief executive called Red Hat “a proprietary Linux distribution.” The catcall was sounded in an eWEEK.com interview with Sun Microsystems Inc. President and Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Schwartz. Besides challenging Red Hat Inc.’s contention that it is the premiere Linux company, the remark casts the relationship of the companies into a more adversarial light.
Sun Sticks ‘Proprietary’ Label on Red Hat Linux
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Sounds like something SCO would say! They make some wild accusation, then give no evidence to back it up (because all the evidence is against the assertion).
And how does he get by saying that Solaris gives you better Linux compatibility than Red Hat Linux. That makes no sense whatsoever. And when since did Solaris become available on “200 platforms”? The last I knew it ran on exactly 2, Sparc and x86 with a x86-64 version under development. Heck NetBSD is pretty much the claim to fame to run on almost every platform imaginable and I don’t even think it runs on 200.
What kind of stuff is this guy smoking?
Isn’t everything Red Hat offers open source, with full published source? Proprietary?! God…
Is Sun’s Java Desktop System totally open source? I doubt it.
They bash linux industry before then getting into the linux industry. While they develop their own distro they also continue to bash linux and other linux makers. It seems to me that Sun does not have a game plan with Linux and offers little more then vapor-ware and insults to it’s rivals. They hate the fact that Solaris and their proprietary hardware will someday be replaced by lin-ten or lin-amd boxes.
proprietary (adj): Owned by a private individual or corporation under a trademark or patent.
Hmm. So RedHat owns the trademark to…RedHat.
Move along, nothing to see here.
This just reflects badly on Sun Microsystems and Johnathan Schwartz. I mean when did you hear RedHat complaining how proprietary Sun Microsystems has always been? Never. You know why? Because they’re more mature than that.
Besides you never know when you might want an alliance with Sun so you can waste their time and resources creating companies like iPlanet, that promised you the moon and gave you the opportunity to go look for a job that actually cares about their technology and employees.
Yeah, Johnathan Schwartz rules. He’s doing more for our little GNU Linux movement than us zealots could have ever accomplished on our own.
Just watch, I bet Sun will be the dot in dotcomcrash.
Informed of the comments, Red Hat spokesman Leigh Day offered that “Red Hat Enterprise Linux is licensed under the GPL, and we’re totally open source.”
“[Red Hat is] not proprietary,” Day continued. “We are fully committed to open source and our code reflects that. Red Hat has no proprietary software built in our distribution. Our core strategy is built on open source and we will not deviate from that strategy.”
That’s right. RedHat is too committed to working on their technology to even notice these flame wars. Sun could learn something from such a professional organization.
Not a troll but I feel that Sun seems to be doing all things under the Sun to save itself from going down
Sun gets pay-off from MS then starts to sound like SCO.
Well… isn’t that calling the kettle black? Solaris is a proprietery UNIX.
Is there somewhere I can download JDS for free? I’d like to try it but I don’t think there is a place. I could be wrong but JDS seems pretty proprietery right now as well.
I think there is a link between this article and the other posted a bit earlier where Microsoft taunted the “David” creators to opensource their product. To me it looks like they’ve decided in their deal to try use the “opensource ideals” as FUD against the companies that base products on it. Becoming even more strict in calling something “free” then RMS would, in the hope to get some FOSS zealots to repeat their claims. Something tells me this isn’t going to fly coming from them …
Please tell how us how this all IBM’s fault, or why these statements are justified.
This is pure posturing. Sun had reached a fork in the road. They avoided it for as long as possible but, in the end were forced to choose to fight Microsoft full out or become an appendage in all but name.
This is a salvo against a Microsoft rival, made on Microsoft’s behalf. Not the first and not the last. Any such attacks more closely tie Sun’s position, in the minds of market movers, to Microsoft. After re-defining themselves as not in opposition to Microsoft they have to be seen as a distictly seperate ally, or be seen as a potential aquisition.
With Red Hat you aren’t stuck paying for it if you don’t want to. If you want a barebones, compared to their enterprise products, Red Hat you can get Fedora. Fedora is even coming out on DVD so that you can burn a single DVD instead of having to cart around 4 DVDs. But I digress.
In terms of offering choice to customers, Red Hat has done probably more than Sun by a wide margin. They brought Linux into respectability in North America and made it possible to be taken seriously. I suppose the fact that Red Hat has put a pretty penny into GNOME, Sun’s desktop du jour, has conveniently escaped Sun.
This thing smells of typical Sun bullshit. Granted I thank them for Java, but that’s about it. Now with the news that mono is approaching beta, i’m losing more patience with them. Mono, IKVM and Classpath together will eventually eliminate the need for Sun’s JVM entirely.
More Sun thrashing here http://www.blindmindseye.com/bmeblog/archives/000170.php
I’m not the biggest M$ basher around, but this sounds fishy. Microsoft screwed up with SCO and have since refined thier tactics. I cannot help but think there is a high possibility this has something to do with thier recent deal, to attack linux and if you attack linux you start with Red Hat.
What is it with CEO’s and eating foot the last couple of months?
I cannot help but think there is a high possibility this has something to do with thier recent deal, to attack linux and if you attack linux you start with Red Hat.
I agree. Looks like Sun is slowly trying to set itself up as “the” Linux company, and by extension, bringing MS along with them. Sun is a Trojan Horse. I hope Red Hat (and sooner or later Novell) don’t underestimate the power of FUD — because it works. They need to start doing a bit of their own.
If Sun starts incorporating MS interopability (.NET, IE, Outlook, DirectX, Windows Media, Active Directory, VB. etc, etc.), they may very well turn out to be “the” Linux distro. For many businesses and users, it’ll be too convenient to pass on. I’ll be honest in saying that I, for one, will be using it, if they go that route.
If Sun becomes the number 1 distro maker, MS will never have any worries of a Linux threat again — because they’d end up controlling part of the mostly widely used implementation of it.
Anyways, that’s my theory.
Schwartz is right is some kind of way. Red Hat is a bundled and copyrighted Linux suite, which you aren’t allowed to copy and install without a license. So it is a proprietary kind of “service”. You can’t get the software without the service, unless you are doing the tedious task of compiling all the SRPMs Red Hat provides and building you’re own RH based distro (without the copyrighted stuff like logos etc.). And the pricing of Red Hat Enterprise Linux isn’t all that far away from Microsoft’s.
“Red Hat is a bundled and copyrighted Linux suite, which you aren’t allowed to copy and install without a license.”
May I correct you with that.
Red Hat, ever since, have made available on the internet the .iso images, packages, and the corresponding source codes of their distros. You may download, copy, and distribute it as long as you do not use the Red Hat name, since it is the one that they have rights to. As proof of this, you could see CDs being distributed all over the net like “Linux 9.0, Linux 7.3”, etc. That’s the Red Hat distro downloaded from the ‘Net. Red Hat may have discontinued the publicly-available Red Hat distro (in favor of Enterprise and Advanced Server) for now, but that is why Fedora exists.
I gues 2 billion from Microsoft buys words as well as court cases. How sad!!
Actually you are wrong. In order to use Redhat EL you have to purchase a support contract (because of trademarks), which is a good commercial model, you can stop it after a year… In which case you just receiving updates and the like, but it doesn’t mean you can’t install 1 copy of RHEL on 100 machines, you will just get no fixes, this too is a fact: You can download the source code in rpm format i.e; package.src.rpm and run rpm(most rpm based distros)/rpmbuild(RH/Fedora) –rebuild package.src.rpm and you will have a nice free version of RHEL, all you have to do is strip their logos and stuff out, so if you want RHEL then go download whitebox! If you want a good support contract go buy one from RH and you get a copy of Linux too!
Redhat is not proprietry!
What a joke. RedHat actually open-sources all their software. They have a promise on their site they only use patents for defense — a common practice. The only proprietary thing in RedHat is trademarked name and copyrighted logo’s. Which is used to define them as “RedHat” (brand recognition) and isn’t software (a name, and art).
But what i find so funny is that SUN pulled this trick before with IBM. IBM got them back with the Java statement which drew huge attention; SUN lost that small battle but tried to minimize the damage by saying they were “thinking about it” the past months and saying IBM should open up DB2 before SUN would think about it. I doubt they were “thinking about it”.
Now SUN tries it again, in their effort to draw attention in which they try to show how “bad” the current, big “Linux” companies are. Notice how they target the ones which aim for corporate environments; the smaller, home-user ones are left alone. Because these aren’t competitors.
OK, well, there’s a cliche about a pot throwing accusations about being black. I think this applies here.
Though I don’t like the route RH has recently taken, and they may be the closest thing to “a proprietarial Linux”, uummm, there are still Novell & Sun themselves attempting to proprietarialize Linux.
If it’s in regards to the backporting issue, Linux already said he’s all for it, Christ, get over it.
Perhaps this was part of the Sun/M$ bargain……..
Universally,
Shayne
redhat offers a good service, security updates, support and finally, a *TESTED* product with RHEL. *all* sources are available in mirrors as SRPMS form, if you want your own, ROLL YOUR OWN. there already IS forks of RHEL out there, one being White Box Enterprise Linux which is redhat enterprice linux re-rolled and fully compliant with RHEL. Only difference is that there is no Red hat logos etc, no support available, all updates are built from official RHEL update source rpm’s… so where’s the propitary, or even closed part?
For commercial company usage, RHEL is pretty much perfect. For freelancers, home hackers and so on, Fedora and White Box enterprise Linux are good choices since they don’t have support options to pay for. Home users rarely need corporate class support.
Unable to locate problem here, move along 🙂
You should mention like this $un/M$.
Use Mono and waste Java.
Hm, I did mention above, that I know, you can roll your own distro from RH Source RPMs without the logo stuff.
And no, you are not allowed to install the current Enterprise Linux 2.1 and 3.0 on more systems than you have licenses for, because of the copyright stuff. I am very sure about that, because Red Hat told me so.
RH doesn’t offer any ISO images anymore since they ceased their consumer product line. The closed/proprietary stuff about this is, that you cannot do anything enterprise-vice without the RH logo: no SAP, no Oracle certification or support. This is true for virtually all business applications.
Does RedHat’s kernel differ from the standard kernel from OSDL? It’s forked right? Answer yes. So Schwartz is right. The simple fact that RedHat sooner or later allows others to have their source code doesn’t change anything. It is proprietary.
It is interesting to watch the zealots get all knotted up over a simple statement of open standards vs open source. They can co-exist without anyone needing to loose lunch over. With open standards the playing field is level. This is all Schwartz was talking about. What is wrong with that?
If you truely want to move software technology forward, wouldn’t you want as many developers working on projects that move the technology ball forward? Oh, it’s not free, so that’s it. Well I hate to break it to you but RedHat is using a proprietary kernel to run their business on. Get over it. I see nothing wrong with it at all.
RedHat has their kernel, Sun has their kernel, IBM has their kernel … as long as the API is open and standardized then it makes no difference to the user. Who cares if you are running Sun’s kernel, OSDL’s kernel or RedHat’s kernel. All you care about is your apps work, right?
Zealotry gets you nowhere.
“The simple fact that RedHat sooner or later allows others to have their source code doesn’t change anything. It is proprietary.”
It depends on how you define “proprietary” and whether that is the best word. Certainly, the availability of third-party distributions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux tends to suggest that the usual rules of the Linux scene apply; for example:
http://www.whiteboxlinux.org/
“Oh, it’s not free, so that’s it. Well I hate to break it to you but RedHat is using a proprietary kernel to run their business on.”
Red Hat maintain their own kernel versions, yes, but even non-customers can get the sources for them, find out which stuff has been backported, and so on. Whether it’s wise for Red Hat to continue this in the long term is debatable, however, but screaming “proprietary” doesn’t further the debate. If Joe User rebuilds his kernel, does it help to go round his house and stamp “PROPRIETARY” on his forehead?
seems that the settlement money and the new “friendly” attitide between Sun and Microsoft has started to bleed through. Between this and the story that Sun’s servers will be “Windows Ready” Its pretty obvious that 2.1 Billion was Sun’s price to sell out.
everybody screaming that this is caused by a new alliance between MS and Sun need to finish reading the article. did you see the page two link?
Sun may rip on Red Hat, but it seems to be mostly due to the pricing and licensing.
its funny how one word taken out of context from a paraphrased article can get people so upset.
Horse,
So where is the problem? Maybe the redflag word proprietary waved in front of the zealots got them all worked up. But I don’t see any problem with what Schwartz said.
RedHat’s business is run on a proprietary kernel. That’s a fact. Who but the most technically astute ‘customer’ could make use of the source for anything. Much less use the source to maintain and fix problems. It’s RedHat money bet that no one can, so they happily charge for their proprietary kernel+support. They release the source to keep the zealots happy.
I think you missed my point. Sun’s whole argument is that open standards are the way to go, not necessarily open source. This makes it fair for everyone. If you want to use a ‘free’ kernel, go ahead, your choice. If you want to use a security audited kernel, again your choice. As long as the kernels interchange, who cares. Open Standards allows them to interchange, just as open APIs allow applications to be developed and run on the underlying OS.
I assume it isn’t wrong for a company to actually develop a software application that runs on Linux, and make money selling it. Or is it the desire to prohibit that as well.
Yer, yer, yer whatever. That deal had nothing to do with Linux. They’re even co-ordinating their PR activities now, and what make it even worse is that it is all pointless. Sun need not be afraid of Linux or anything else at all.
These guys haven’t sat still for more than 5 minutes in the past few years. One second Linux is something they shrug off as a cheap Solaris knock off, the next minute they’re selling PCs in Wal Mart.
Just because they aren’t Microsoft doesn’t mean they’re on “our team”. They play the same games with deliberately misleading product names. Just what in the hell is a “Java Desktop”? Seriously?
redhad IS. linux isn’t
Red Hat enterprise has restrictions. fedora dosent.
Although he shouldnt have even mentioned it will reflect badly but he is right–so go bash someone else you linux radicals. sun has been bashed by you open source people and they’ve done more than most any other company.
“sun has been bashed by you open source people and they’ve done more than most any other company.”
that’s because Sun contributes something to open source
— and those people don’t like them .. so they bashing.
most of the companies does nothing
— so those people don’t have any point to bash them.
i just afraid that, if things still going like this,
may be at some point open source would be an “untouchable”,
and no more company will like to contribute anything,
just to play safe to their brand.
—-
Re: Schizophrenic Sun
read the news.
the news said REDHAT.
poor.
redhat is a ‘Proprietary’ brand. their HTTP server and SQL server are branded for redhat and you cant redistribute Red Hat Enterprise.
With that being said– I’m sick of execs expressing their personal opinions as the opinions of the company.
Sun is merely competiting. There is no rule that one company can’t compete with another. RedHat’s profit soared once they took the right to redistribute and copy RHEL (you can just remove all their copyrights and trademarks and stil have a functional 100% compatible distro though-like whitebox project)
I’m sick and TIRED of people expressing their personal opinions and people thinking it represents a multibillion dollar company–just one guy–and im sicking of people not watching what they say. theres a reason for PR guys/gals and spokespeople.
This argument is laughable. Try and resell RedHat enterprise and see how long that lasts. WBEL removes all the RH proprietary software and allows download of what is left. If they didn’t they would get sued.
Open Standards are what makes sense. If you want to use OSDL then do it. If you don’t fine. All I care about is that whatever application I want to use runs.
Open Standards protect you since if any of the proprietary vendors, like RH and SUSE go out of business, you just plug in a compatible kernel.
So Sun states the obvious and gets reamed. Why…
In which case you just receiving updates and the like, but it doesn’t mean you can’t install 1 copy of RHEL on 100 machines, you will just get no fixes, this too is a fact:
This makes good business sense? If I need to run my business on RHEL, why would I run it with no fixes or support. Are you telling me that businesses now have to hire more adminstrators to just keep thier software up-to-date in house. Do you buy a car at full price with no warranty, so if the manufacturer does a recall, you are SOL and have to do the repairs your self if they send you the parts for shipping and handling?
Sometimes it is good to actually go out into the realworld and see how businesses are run. Managing IT at big company is not similar to managing one or two boxes at home. That is why companies pay redhat the Big Bucks, anywhere from $179/machine – $18000/ CPU.
While I question the use of the word “proprietary” by Schwartz and I think it was in bad taste. What he said, in a business sense is correct. Redhat forks the kernel and other opensource pieces of software, Once its customers have invested in heavily with Redhat it becomes very difficult to move out becuase they don’t follow the same standards as the other linux vendors, you software is not garaunteed to work with the others. Schwatrz coined the term “properietary open source” albeit in bad taste, but he never claimed redhat to be closed source.
Novell’s CEO recently also made a similar claim against Redhat. The problem is Redhat has mindshare in the US. Many times I have been asked if I have used linux version 6.2/7.0/9.0 and almost always someone clueless has confused Redhat’s releases with linux. So redhat is now being percieved as the Microsoft of the linux world, becuase they don’t follow standards and have a large customer base and mindshare.
This debate isn’t new, Redhat has been in the spot light for using non-standard software, Remember gcc 2.9.5??
Red Hat IS completely open source. Nothing prevents me from redistributing it, as it is covered under the GPL.
And their “proprietary” kernel isn’t. Nothing prevents me from lifting it verbatim and using it in my own distro. I can look at the source, see what they’ve done, modify it myself, etc.
Then only “proprietary” part is the trademark on the Red Hat logos. I can’t modify RHEL and give it to someone else under the Red Hat name. Hardly a problem. I can even redistribute the security fixes. White Box Linux, among others, do this very thing.
Sun is feeling the heat, and it’s trying to fight back. They realized that they have two choices: FULLY embrace Open Source and save Java, or throw themselves in the lot with Microsoft and try to save Solaris. They seem like they’ve chosen the latter, while half-assedly embracing Linux simply because there is demand for it, a fact which they must hate.
Either way, they’ll render themselves irrelevant in a few years.
I read the whole article a few times there is not one direct quote by schwartz calling Redhat “a proprietary linux distribution”. All the direct quotes by schwartz talk about how open source is not open standards and “proprietary open source”.
If you notice eWeek informed linus and redhat of the comments. There is not transcript of the interview anywhere. The only mention of “a proprietary linux distribution” is from a paraphrased text the author put in. This looks like either a misunderstanding or a deliberate instigation by the author of the article to create sensationalism.
I would like to see the full transcript of the interview in which schwartz said the exact words ” a proprietary linux distribution”.
“RH proprietary software”
Please name the proprietary software from RedHat which isn’t redistributable. According to the Free Software definition it needs to have the 4 freedoms; afaik all software RedHat develops and distributes is therefore NOT proprietary. Prorietary != custom kernel; all the source which is different than the main kernel (whatever revision) is Free Software (GPL).
Hello? Really, some people don’t get it. It is the specific RedHat brand and the RedHat art. The same is true for SUN and most likely SGI.
The Sun shill strikes again! Keep shilling Raptor, one day your SUNW shares will leap off of the perforated roll near the toilet and you can celebrate.
>> I read the whole article a few times there is not one direct quote by schwartz calling Redhat “a proprietary linux distribution”.
“CIOs figuring out that open source does not equal open standards. Open standards, which Sun has always supported, are better. Proprietary open source [like RHEL] can come back and bite you.”
> Redhat forks the kernel and other opensource pieces of software
RedHat don’t want to fork Linux. Stop this.
RHEL 3 : RedHat backport features from Linux 2.6 :
http://www.redhat.com/software/rhel/kernel26/
Now that Linux 2.6 is out, RedHat don’t need to do this :
http://lwn.net/Articles/80290/
Where do you see a long terme fork ?
kernel-2.6.5-1.327.src.rpm from FC2 test 3 :
Linux-2.6.6-rc1 : 6198469 lines
$ cat *.patch | diffstat | tail -1
308 files changed, 16775 insertions(+), 1368 deletions(-)
0.27% of “fork”.
Think that RedHat have more dev in upstream than in the RHEL.
would SUN like it if i’d make a distribution based on SUSE called “Java Desktop System” using the SUN logo. They wouldn’t like that, would they? would SUN like it if i’d make a distribution based on SUSE called “Nova Desktop System” using the SUN logo but except of S’es i use N’s. They wouldn’t like that, would they? How would SUSE like it if i’d make a distribution based on SUSE called “SUSE”. They wouldn’t… got my point?
The trademarked name and the copyrighted art defends that. It is only in defense of the brand. Btw, even “Linux” is trademarked. Even the Mozilla organisation doesn’t allow a heavily Mozilla-modified browser to be named “Mozilla”. Same for Mozilla Firefox. Does that make it “proprietary”?
Now, please give me the examples of proprietary software -excluding trademarked brands and copyrighted artwork parts- included in any RedHat Linux distribution?
“We Are Not Proprietary,” Protests Red Hat – Torvalds Agrees
http://www.linuxworld.com/story/44616.htm
Noone remembers that when Redhat first announced that they would quit supporting home users and hobbiests, and go corporate that a Redhat PR guy, in response to dissent from the community, said that people wanting a desktop system should just use Windows and stay away from Linux altogether. About 3 days later they announced the buggy, multimedia dead, Fedora so they could use the community they just screwed as beta testers. A lot of people say a lot of things. So what if Sun dogged on Redhat they deserve it. Sun just had a major legal victory over MS and you guys try to say they sold out.
“SUN dogged at IBM claiming they’re not into Linux. Because of that SUN deserves criticism over Java”??? Wtf?? “Have you ever pirated music? If so, you deserve dying of a painful cancer.” Don’t you think that kind of arguments are rather flamebaits?
And yeah i remember what RedHat did. At least they’re supporting Fedora, and i wouldn’t say it is “multimedia-dead”.
—-
Here’s a Groklaw post concerning Schwarz recent views
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040426120752778
you people are making too much of a fuss over what some execs said. no its not some official post.
oh yeah- let me think. Maybe you shoudl harass sun over open sourcing some technologies that THEY invented–and take advantage.. good god
sun’s so evil aren’t they? I’m sure if sun never existed you’d have a couple of technologies that are very very impotant to millions of people that woudlnt be here. and you woudl have open office and other cool things.
Sun loves open source. Linux is competition. Linux will be the new monopoly that cannot be stopped.
i somewhat agree coz rh is modifying default directories of linux to its own. just take a look at the static routes file, rh has changed it many times? linux dist should be as standards as possible
http://www.redhat.com/software/rhel/faq/#six
Pretty clear I think, and I wouldn’t call it propreitary.
As for the kernel: the 2.4.xx kernels were heavily modified, they had the O(1) scheduler, different VM code, low latency, and a load of other patches. The 2.6.xx have been close to mainline (about a dozen smallish patches), probably because 2.6 is a lot more mature, feature-rich, stable, scalable yadda yadda. Besides the devs who were maintaining the custom 2.4.xx kernel probably had a horrible time backporting stuff
I’d expect the 2.6 kernels to get closer to vanilla kernel.org, since the lightweight auditing framework patch was merged upstream, and DBUS might make it in future. That’ll leave just exec-shield and tux.
And I hope the Sun COO will stop making so much noise. A ton of good programmers work there, are good members of the community and this guy just ruins it all by starting silly pissing contests. You’re selling PCs loaded with Linux at Walmart. What the *hell* do you mean you don’t have a Linux strategy?
This just reflects badly on Sun Microsystems and Johnathan Schwartz. I mean when did you hear RedHat complaining how proprietary Sun Microsystems has always been? Never. You know why? Because they’re more mature than that.
Oh, cut the crap. All you hear from Red Hat is them whining and whinging about how java is proprietary. If there was *EVER* a company of whingers, it would be Red Hat and their grandstanding at every opportunity they get; whilst is happening, SuSE was getting on with running their busines and delivering solutions to customers in a timely manor.
As for what SUN is trying to occomplish, it is a sad state of the education system in the US if 90% of people don’t understand what statement SUN is trying to make.
I agree. Looks like Sun is slowly trying to set itself up as “the” Linux company, and by extension, bringing MS along with them. Sun is a Trojan Horse. I hope Red Hat (and sooner or later Novell) don’t underestimate the power of FUD — because it works. They need to start doing a bit of their own.
If Sun starts incorporating MS interopability (.NET, IE, Outlook, DirectX, Windows Media, Active Directory, VB. etc, etc.), they may very well turn out to be “the” Linux distro. For many businesses and users, it’ll be too convenient to pass on. I’ll be honest in saying that I, for one, will be using it, if they go that route.
Thats not too far fetched. Take away active directory and possible DirectX, and you’ll find that Microsoft will have multiple revenue streams, when Linux is moving foward, they make money, when Windows moves forward, they make money, either way, they’re going to make some money in the process.
Is this good or bad? depends who you are. Lets take Media Player, people use that for a number of reasons, me, I don’t want to goto http://www.real.com and be FORCED to register for spam just to watch a video on line, I’ll simply download Windows Media Player and be done with it.
Every completitor who has whined about Microsoft has done NOTHING to improve their product, and Real Networks is a PRIME example of this, making it as inconvienient as possible for someone to download the free player. No wonder I hear users complain that before they installed Real Player, everything on their computer was working perfectly, and now they’ve got 100s of bloatware and spyware installed afterwards.