Is the Quicktime Alternative legal??

Posted by: FireFox31

Is the Quicktime Alternative legal?? - 02/01/2006 03:14

I finally upgraded to Windows XP SP2 (from "Windows 98 Lite", but that's another story) and installed the K-Lite codec pack. But this Quicktime Alternative comes with a registration key already typed in. How is that legal? I'm uninstalling it....
Posted by: Dylan

Re: Is the Quicktime Alternative legal?? - 04/01/2006 15:23

Amusing... you'd like a QT codec that fits into the Windows architecture without requiring a special player and I'd like a WMV codec that fits into the OS X architecture without requiring a special player.

I like Apple products. I like them a lot. But I'm sure they would be just as "evil" as MS if given the opportunity. I guess they already are in the music download business.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: Is the Quicktime Alternative legal?? - 04/01/2006 16:02

Absolutely. I dislike WMV and QT files. Frankly, I'd be fine with Quicktime for the PC, but they insist on making stick its fingers in too many places of the OS by default, and then there's the fact that you simply cannot do full screen video, which makes absolutely no sense to me. Oh well, I really don't care these days because mplayer plays everything, full screen, and without any hooks into the OS whatsoever.
Posted by: tfabris

Re: Is the Quicktime Alternative legal?? - 04/01/2006 16:15

Yeah. What Dignan said about Mplayer.
Posted by: tman

Re: Is the Quicktime Alternative legal?? - 04/01/2006 16:51

Quote:
Amusing...

Amusing?

Quote:
But I'm sure they would be just as "evil" as MS if given the opportunity. I guess they already are in the music download business.

Yup. If you're a big enough company then you're going to be doing something somewhere which is a little suspect.
Posted by: tman

Re: Is the Quicktime Alternative legal?? - 04/01/2006 16:52

Quote:
How is that legal? I'm uninstalling it....

If it really does come with a key then it isn't legal. The QuickTime EULA probably forbids you from redistribution anyway. Whether the EULA is legal or not is up for discussion based on where you live.
Posted by: tman

Re: Is the Quicktime Alternative legal?? - 04/01/2006 17:00

Quote:
the fact that you simply cannot do full screen video, which makes absolutely no sense to me.

I always thought that was a stupid thing to only enable if you paid money. It gives the impression that Apple are out to screw people over since it is a fairly essential basic feature. What next? You only get mono sound unless you pay extra?

People have gotten around this "feature" on OSX by using AppleScripts which basically resize the QT window to slightly larger than your screen size. I assume you can do something similar for Windows.
Posted by: tracerbullet

Re: Is the Quicktime Alternative legal?? - 05/01/2006 02:59

Interesting, I never noticed a key already typed in. I guess, in theory, if it's a whole new program it's fine of the developer types a key in to start with. On the other hand if it's a hacked version of the Apple program, yeah I'd suspect it's not legal.

I have to admit, it doesn't bother me enough to uninstall it. I hate Quicktime with a passion, in regards to how it installs and puts it's sticky little fingers all over the place. For similar reasons I also use the "real alternative". I found "Foxit" as a pdf alternative and love that as well. I'm hoping someone will have a "macromedia flash" alternative some day, it appears that it's gone the same route - the latest version now puts a little icon in my systray and insists on telling me about updates.

I miss the days when (well at least in my imperfect memory) that programs simply installed and ran as asked, when asked, nothing more, nothing less.
Posted by: FireFox31

Re: Is the Quicktime Alternative legal?? - 06/01/2006 19:55

Quote:
programs simply installed and ran as asked, when asked, nothing more, nothing less.

And you all wonder why I run Winamp 1.55, ACDSee 2.4, AIM 3.0, EasyCDCreator 5, etc. RIP 12/31/05: Windows 98, Netscape 4.75, Acrobat 5, Photoshop 5.5, XingPlayer, MediaPlayer 6.4, PKZip 2.04g, etc, etc.

RealPlayer is no longer allowed anywhere near any computer that I manage. Acrobat is slipping in my favor with version 7's 25 meg auto-updates and tricky shell integration. And how DO I disable autoupdate and autoinstall on Shockwave; by right clicking on a Shockwave animation like I have to do for Flash? Ha, enforce THAT policy domain-wide.

But where does Quicktime put its fingers? Other than taking over more file types than I'd like (personally, but at work it's fine), I can deal with the OS integration that I see. Besides qttask.exe, what else does it do? Maybe QT is worse than I thought.
Posted by: tman

Re: Is the Quicktime Alternative legal?? - 06/01/2006 19:59

Quote:
Netscape 4.75

Is that even supported? A web browser is something you should always keep up to date unless you like spyware and general nastyness.
Posted by: FireFox31

Re: Is the Quicktime Alternative legal?? - 07/01/2006 22:01

Spyware can't run on programs without hooks and vulnerable add-on functionality. I'd love to see modern spyware infect old bare-bones Netscape 4.x.

And I've just found that QuickTime 7 is a prostitute compared to QuickTime 6. Having QT7's menus loaded with greyed out options labeled with "PRO" is just disgusting. I would downgrade, but cleaning up 7 is probably too hard.
Posted by: tman

Re: Is the Quicktime Alternative legal?? - 07/01/2006 22:15

Quote:
Spyware can't run on programs without hooks and vulnerable add-on functionality. I'd love to see modern spyware infect old bare-bones Netscape 4.x.

I'm more thinking of bugs in it. Like this buffer overflow in your version which could be used to run whatever the attacker wants or how about this one which isn't as major. Still want to run ancient software?
Posted by: FireFox31

Re: Is the Quicktime Alternative legal?? - 10/01/2006 01:50

Wow, that's a pretty blatant exploit. Almost as bad as the Eudora exploits I've seen. But hopefully, just as rare in the wild.

No, I've abandon my abandonware and have fully embraced my auto-updating, 3rd party bundling, recreates the icons and reverts the toolbars every time you're patching, crayola styling captors. Now I just need network traffic monitoring to see which are calling home...