Darwin Streaming Server: Open, Functional and Free
The Darwin Streaming Server is surprisingly compact, installing in only 9.3 MB. While the QuickTime Streaming Server 3 comes as part of the Mac OS X Server, all other platforms (including Mac OS X) naturally require a download.
Acceptance of the Apple Public Source License (APSL), and the creation of an Open Source Projects member profile, are required in order for you to be able to download. If you are planning on distributing a streaming solution built around the Darwin server, you should read this licensing information carefully, even though the license is quite lenient. In short, the APSL permits modification and distribution of the source and the deployment of applications built around the source as long as copies of the license, source code and notices regarding any modifications made are included.
Binaries and source code of the Darwin Streaming Server are available for download for FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris and Windows NT/2000, as well as the source code. There is also a Streaming Server 3 (not labeled as Darwin) download available for Mac OS X Standard as binary only. Regarding the Linux release, though billed to only support Red Hat 6.2 or greater, it also ran successfully on both Slackware 7 and the current Debian release, and will probably run on any Linux distribution running glibc 2.x or later.
The download is small at 3035KB. Before installing, be sure to read the short readme HTML file included, for system requirements. One requirement worth mentioning is Perl. Perl is not required to run the Streaming Server itself; however, it is required to run the Streaming Admin Server and other associated utilities.
On the Mac with OS X, installation is very simple and consists of opening an archive file and launching an installer application, and then another installer application for the Admin Server. The only catch here is that you need to be an Administrator on the machine to complete each of the later steps of the installation.
On the other platforms, installation is done by executing a very simple install script and takes no time at all. The script for Linux/Unix, which must be run under the root account, is a bit too simple though — it installs everything to pre-determined locations without prompting the user. This installation is quite smooth if you are content with the default locations for everything. However, installing to someplace other than the default locations is a bit tricky. Please see the tutorial, "Configuring the Darwin Streaming Server" for detailed installation instructions on custom installs.
At the end of the installation script, the Streaming Server and the Streaming Admin Server start automatically. In addition to the aforementioned readme HTML file, a PDF user manual is included with the download. Overall, it’s a good document, but a few areas are high-level overviews and left me wanting more gritty details.