Jeff & Others in the desktop-discuss OpenSolaris community: I know that a few weeks ago we talked about doing a joint-press release with Fluendo since they are soon going to release new GStreamer plugins for the following formats, so that Solaris users can purchase them to support the following media types:
+ Windows Media Audio (wma) + Windows Media Video (wmv) + ASF (Advanced Streaming Format - used by Windows Media) + MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) + Win-RTP (Realtime Transit Protocol) + MPEG2 and MPEG4 plugins are also avilable for Linux, and would require some effort to port them to Solaris. If Sun or Solaris users are interested in making this port happen, perhaps we could find funding somewhere? Note separate discussion on this list about an IPP->mediaLib bridge for details about the work involved. I know that this isn't possible since Sun doesn't do such joint press releases with small companies like Fluendo, but perhaps we could do some other things to generate some excitement about new features like this being available for Solaris? In addition to the Fluendo plugins, we plan to integrate GNOME 2.16 into Nevada in build 53 (this might slip a build or two if stopper bugs are found by QA, but currently things are looking good for build 53 integration). Once this integration happens, users will find that when they insert removable media that nautilus will automagically place an icon on the desktop so that the user can browse the device in a natural fashion. People who use Windows/MacOS/etc. expect that removable media support is integrated cleanly into the desktop and starting with GNOME 2.16 they will find similar support with Solaris. Previously Solaris used vold which didn't work well with most modern removable media. Furthermore, we have added many new media applications to GNOME such as rhythmbox (an iTunes like player), sound-juicer (CD ripper and player), and with RealPlayer we now have a desktop that has far more reasonable media support in Solaris than ever before. It seems like even if we do not do a press release, all of these exciting new features should be given some hype once GNOME 2.16 is finally integrated (hopefully with build 53). Ideas: + Perhaps marketing could send emails to lists like desktop-discuss at opensolaris.org and other mailing lists where we could generate some hype. + Get people to blog the new features, perhaps send an email to the bloggers list (bloggers at sun.com) asking people to blog how well they like the new features, etc. + Perhaps update the GNOME website (http://www.sun.com/gnome) to highlight OpenSolaris and some of these new features. Why doesn't this website mention OpenSolaris at all already? + Likewise update the OpenSolaris website with similar hype: http://opensolaris.org/os/project/jds/ + Other ideas of how we could get people more interested in thinking about Solaris/OpenSolaris as a modern desktop environment? Jeff, I am hoping that as the Solaris desktop Marketing representative, you will be interested in having some input and being involved with making our GNOME 2.16 release exciting with ideas like this? Thoughts, comments? Brian
