I wasn't aware that the Helix license was a Free Software license. Last I recall the FSF was "in the process now of determining whether their license qualifies as a Free Software license."
...You may be right. I attended a recent developers meeting where they were discussing the issue. I get the impression that if they hear demand for GPL compatibility, it'll help them make the license changes necessary.
They seem to really want the player to be freely distributable, and want to make it available to the GNOME project.
Windows may play the audio data by reading the CDDA and playing it through the sound driver, but I'm not aware of any Linux player that will do the same.
I think ALSAplayer will do this. It's the only audio player I know of that will play any audio source forwards and backwards (including playing CDs). I am inferring from this capability that ALSAplayer is actually playing the ripped audio stream from CDs.
Sounds about right.
