[fluendo-announce] Press Release 1: Launch

[fluendo-announce at lists.fluendo.com]

Fluendo, new GStreamer-based streaming media company, launched.
Fluendo funds Xiph.org Foundation for Theora development.

April 16, 2004 - Barcelona, Spain

Today marks the official launch of Fluendo, a company dedicated to
creating streaming media services using free software technology.

Fluendo intends to develop a free software streaming media server
that can provide an all-in-one solution to serve both live and
pre-recorded media content to any existing platform.

"While there are commercially backed streaming servers available for
other platforms than Linux, these servers are proprietary, limited in
features, and costly to buy, license, or keep running.  A lot of
internet companies already have a complete Linux-based rollout and
would love to replace their last non-Linux systems if the software is
available", CEO Julien Moutte says.

The streaming server will make it possible to do streaming using only
freely available and patent-free codecs. Proprietary formats will
also be supported in the end product and available under the licenses
the patent holders specify.  Fluendo will also offer support and
custom development contracts to content providers.

Fluendo is building their services on top of the quickly maturing
GStreamer streaming media framework.  It will assist the GStreamer
community in further stabilizing and developing the framework.

Funding the Xiph.org Foundation

One of the missing components in enabling free software media
streaming is a competitive open and royalty-free video codec to
complement the already existing Vorbis free audio codec from the
Xiph.org Foundation.  

This is why Fluendo has funded the Xiph.org Foundation to complete
the Ogg/Theora bitstream specification.  This is one of the remaining
steps before Theora 1.0 is released.  Once the bitstream specification
has been completed the format will be frozen for the 1.0 release and
all future versions of Theora will maintain compatibility with the 1.0
format, opening the door to widespread use of the codec for media
distribution.

"Any company that bases their core product on commodity technologies
obviously does well to choose completely open, royalty-free
technology. Technology that's open allows businesses to concentrate on
delivering what clients and consumers want," says Chris Montgomery of
the Xiph.org Foundation.  "We are heartened to see Fluendo supporting
the open standards they use and expect Fluendo to flourish in the
years to come."

The Xiph.org Foundation is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to
providing tools for a free, open, and level playing field for digital
media.


To receive announcements from Fluendo, please subscribe to our
announcement mailing list at
http://lists.fluendo.com/mailman/listinfo/fluendo-announce

For more information:
Julien Moutte
julien at fluendo.com

http://www.fluendo.com/

For more information on GStreamer:
http://gstreamer.net/

For more information on the Xiph.org Foundation:
http://www.xiph.org/