As a Brit the whole “Netflix” phenomenon has largely passed me by, but I do know that Linux support for the on-demand video-streaming service is a long-held ‘want’ for many readers.
The good news is that a native Linux client is, according to Netflix engineers, in the works.
The news come via Benjamin Kerensa who, at this years Open Source Convention 2011 (OSCON), spent some time with a couple of engineers from Netflix.
“…when I called Netflix out for not having a solution to make Netflix Instant work on all Linux systems they told me that in fact Netflix has some engineers working on a proprietary client for Linux that should be available in the next 12 months.” Ben writes on his blog.
“The engineers from Netflix were hardcore Linux users themselves and advocates of Open Source and shared my frustration that Netflix had not made headway a lot sooner. They indicated that although work is underway it is not a priority project which is why it may take up to 12 months. For obvious reasons (non-disclosure agreements etc.)
I cannot divulge the Netflix employees names but I’m happy they did even tell me of this excellent progress they are making and how internally they are standing up for the Linux community.”
This is, if true, awesome news and will once again put Linux one step closer to parity with other operating systems in the eyes of service providers.
Excited?
Thanks to David