Linked by snydeq on Mon 1st Jun 2009 16:27 UTC
Qualcomm showed off a previously unannounced Eee PC running Android at Computex in Taipei. The machine has a 10-inch screen, built-in webcam, and a universal 3G radio that supports all UMTS and CDMA networks on all frequencies used around the world. The 'smartbook' runs on Qualcomm's Snapdragon, a 1GHz ARM processor core that marks a shift away from Intel Atom x86-based netbooks. A second Android-based netbook -- a prototype by contract hardware maker Compal Electronics -- was also demoed at the show. Google, meanwhile, declined to discuss what steps it is taking to adapt the smartphone OS for laptops.
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Member since:
2005-07-13
Software patents as a concept are ridiculous, but that doesn't justify pretending they don't exist. Bliski is going up for review with SCOTUS, which is hopefully a good thing in terms of reinforcing the level of ridiculousness, but for now the reality is that patents are a minefield for any commercial company distributing products in a jurisdiction where they are held valid. Just ask SanDisk, who had their MP3 players seized under an injunction by a German court, for not paying licensing fees. Philosophical arguments on the part of free software are legitimate, but they don't negate reality.
Considering the w32codecs are lifted from Windows and therefore MS code, you're correct, they will generally fall foul of copyright law in any jurisdiction.
Clean room coding doesn't magically protect one from patent infringement. OSS implementations of patented codecs are still patent infringements. Note, as I said above, I think software patents are BS, but they are a legitimate obstacle for any commercial organization hoping to leverage OSS in a business model. At the end of the day, multi-billion dollar organizations like Asus can't simply dismiss the risk of patent infringement because the community decides they're invalid. Microsoft just got hit with a $200M judgement because of some freaking company that claims a patent on interpreting XML in documents. It's pathetic, but any commercial organization has to take that risk/liability into concern.
The mainstream vendors simply can't ship a netbook with ffmpeg as a solution for codec compatibility, the exposure/liability is to high. I only bring this up because I find that, too often, the free software community is too willing to point to solutions like this and say "problem solved". It's not solved. It won't happen. The community is free to download "illegal" codecs at will, but manufacturers can't include them, and that simply adds an extra roadblock.
Asus et al. will have to shell out for licenses, much as fluendo does, if they want to legitimize the popular proprietary codecs on a free platform.
The market has become too addicted to YouTube et al., with videos on demand. As long as the content providers and purveyors support proprietary codecs, it will hinder widespread FLOSS adoption.
It would be better for the community to only accept standards like OGG. Sure, it sucks compared to the alternatives, but sacrifice is required if the community truly wants open standards. Dirac may help, if they can get it straight as well. And if users aren't willing to sacrifice in order to accept free codecs, then the proprietary ones have pretty much justified their existence.
But in the mean time, it helps nothing to pretend that the patents are meaningless just because they are vacuous in some jurisdictions and not others. The vendors will not adopt the OSS work-arounds. This is an issue that needs to be addressed as aggressively as the ODF issue was, at gov't levels.