OSNews:

OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/23233/Jobs_Patent_Pool_Being_Assembled_To_Go_After_Theora Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2013, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 18 Jun 2013 05:19:55 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com Hey! http://www.osnews.com/thread?421860 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421860 Pandora, I have this rectangular solid object over here, with some kind of lid on the top. I was wondering if you would be so kind as to open it... Fri, 30 Apr 2010 21:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (fretinator) Comments Flash for Future? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421861 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421861 That sound not good. We will definitly see what is there in the bush, but until then we should stay where we are...

To summarize: There is no future for Theora... ?

Flash oder H264 ? Or could i say pest or cholera? Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (churlish_Helmut) Comments I'm sick of this http://www.osnews.com/thread?421864 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421864 thats it. I'm just sick of it. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Boldie) Comments H264 is the future http://www.osnews.com/thread?421865 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421865 The MPEG-LA portfolio is so broad that it is terribly unlikely that there will be any pure codec - VP8 included - that will not fall under it's umbrella. Even if VP8 is close it will get tied up in litigation.

H264 is the future. At least the near future. IE, Chrome and Safari will support it. FF will have to fall in line, work around it (use OS services?), or fade into obscurity.

No doubt some Linux distributors will simply bite the bullet and pay the fees to make it available in the US. It's the smart business move.

]{ Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kristoph) Comments Apple is so uncool http://www.osnews.com/thread?421866 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421866 FUD, They (Apple, Microsoft and MPEG-LA) are just trying to intimidate and prevent the adoption of Theora. Lets see if they actually sue any company that distributes the Theora Codec. They are too scared they may open the above mentioned Pandora's box.

Jobs is acting as a front man for this. He is beneath contempt and so uncool. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (chemical_scum) Comments RE: H264 is the future http://www.osnews.com/thread?421867 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421867 VP3 (Theora) of which VP8 is a descendant predates H.264.

If there are any patents surrounding Theora, Google now own them. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc) Comments arggh, f*ck patents http://www.osnews.com/thread?421868 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421868 Animated GIF is the future. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (barkholt) Comments RE: arggh, f*ck patents http://www.osnews.com/thread?421869 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421869

Animated GIF is the future.

Not far from what I was thinking...

I'm guessing uncompressed RGB bitmap frame motion video is probably patent-free still

Now we just need more bandwidth to stream it and larger disks to store it on! Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (umccullough) Comments RE[2]: arggh, f*ck patents http://www.osnews.com/thread?421871 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421871 I have an idea.

Just give me each frame as a bitmap, I'll print it, staple the damn stack of paper, and make a flipbook machine.

Fcuk this patent bullshit. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom_Holwerda) Comments Which patents? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421872 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421872 It is all just crap until they say which patents and where Theora infringes. Show us the code SCO, show us the code. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ShadesFox) Comments RE[3]: arggh, f*ck patents http://www.osnews.com/thread?421876 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421876 Hello, I am John Barnes Linnett, and I do believe that you are infringing upon my most innovative patent "The Kineograph a new optical illusion" http://www.flipbook.info/history.php#linnett

Please remit the payment of 1 Guinea forthwith. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc) Comments RE: Which patents? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421877 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421877

It is all just crap until they say which patents and where Theora infringes. Show us the code SCO, show us the code.

It's not at all unlikely that patents are actually being violated. And those patents are probably not frivolous ones, either, or something that could be worked around easily. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (vivainio) Comments RE[4]: arggh, f*ck patents http://www.osnews.com/thread?421880 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421880 Steve Jobs, you're a f***ing prick. Maybe another organ will go bad some day. Go to hell, Apple.

Sorry, had to let that out; Apple has really been pissing me off a lot lately, and I don't even own an Apple product. I'm seriously contemplating whether I should even bother getting a Mac now... I'm heavily leaning towards "HELL NO" right about now.Edited 2010-04-30 22:44 UTC Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (UltraZelda64) Comments RE: Apple is so uncool http://www.osnews.com/thread?421882 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421882 Agreed. This is classic FUD maneuvering, and I think nothing will come of it except to harm the prospects for Theora. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Torrance) Comments And thus, the true face is revealed :-) http://www.osnews.com/thread?421884 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421884 Had MPEG-LA, Apple, and the rest of the mob have a slam dunk case, they would have already tried to sue (theora is not new). This is classic FUD.

Thom, I already stated that Jobs real face, is a true representation of 1984 (guess which side ... *hint* no not the rebel one :-) ) Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Shkaba) Comments RE[5]: arggh, f*ck patents http://www.osnews.com/thread?421885 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421885

I'm seriously contemplating whether I should even bother getting a Mac now... I'm heavily leaning towards "HELL NO" right about now.

Why are you even contemplating this?

You don't need a Mac. The things you can do with Mac that you can't do with Linux, you sure as hell can do with Windows 7. Your soul will thank you later ;-). Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (vivainio) Comments Theora may infringe some patents... http://www.osnews.com/thread?421887 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421887 ... but Theora is also based on Google-owned technology. Unless Apple and whoever else is part of the "Theora sabotage cabal" really feel like taking on Google and the army of lawyer and revenge patents that it certainly has, I suspect that these threats are no more than an attempt to spread FUD. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 23:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (madcrow) Comments Patent absurdity. http://www.osnews.com/thread?421888 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421888 All I have to say. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 23:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Lazarus) Comments RE[6]: arggh, f*ck patents http://www.osnews.com/thread?421889 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421889 Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer must be breaking out the ol' champagne lately, now that it's Apple who's Evil and everyone prefers Microsoft.

How soon we forget. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 23:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (patrix) Comments "legal move against Theora" http://www.osnews.com/thread?421890 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421890 If Theora is covered by patents, assembling a patent pool is not a move against it. It's a process to reveal unknown patents. And unknown patents are the ones companies like Apple or Nokia are actually afraid of -- not a well defined set of patents that they could license and then be OK.

In a way it's even beneficiary to Theora, because those patents may actually not be vital and Xiph could use the MPEG-LA's patent list to code around them.

Imagine the following potential outcome:
The MPEG-LA's research finds out that the Ogg container uses patented techniques, but those are not used in Matroska.
Measure to save Theora: Mux the streams into MKV containers.
Applications that use GStreamer or similar media frameworks wouldn't even notice the difference, because they understand Matroska already.

Within one week the patent situation would have been resolved.

Sticking the head in the sand and pretending like nothing is happening (=ignoring potential submarine patents) is not a way to help Theora. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 23:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Fettarme H-Milch) Comments RE[2]: Which patents? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421891 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421891 But it is quite likely that any patents being violated have overly broad claims.

Overly broad claims are just standard practice for any patent.

Of course, by the time the court cases to actually decide are finished, the patents will have expired anyway. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 23:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (zlynx) Comments HARDCORE! http://www.osnews.com/thread?421892 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421892 Dude, this is HARDCORE stuff right there! Nuke the MPEG-LA! ;-)

I must say: I am shocked. I am totally on your side now, Thom. Google should be militant now and open sorce VP8 tomorrow AND switch over YouTube to Flash + HTML5 with VP8 tomorrow. Apple would be screwed, then. Them Android phones (and webOS) could just use hardware accelerated Flash and Apple would stand alone, totally naked! I can't stop smiling by that thought.

- Written on a Mac Pro Fri, 30 Apr 2010 23:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (wargum) Comments Apple's and MS stake in MPEG-LA http://www.osnews.com/thread?421893 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421893 Anyone have any info on Apple's and Microsoft's stake in MPEG-LA?

From many of the comments it makes it sound like Apple/MS are controlling interests and its directly Steve J. and Steve B. doing this.

Whether VP8 predates h.264 or not, it appears MPEG-LA also holds tons of patents to various levels of MPEG-4, MPEG-2, VC-1, ...., and as messed up as patent law is in the USA this truly could be trouble for Theora. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 23:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Headrush) Comments Google's Patents http://www.osnews.com/thread?421894 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421894 Does Google benefit in any real way from software patents? Depending upon how Bilski v. Kappos is decided, Google could just sue to try and overturn the whole idiocy behind the very idea of a software patent. It seems like patents cost Google and other companies more than help them. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 23:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (asupcb) Comments RE: HARDCORE! http://www.osnews.com/thread?421895 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421895

Google should be militant now and open sorce VP8 tomorrow AND switch over YouTube to Flash + HTML5 with VP8 tomorrow. Apple would be screwed, then. Them Android phones (and webOS) could just use hardware accelerated Flash and Apple would stand alone, totally naked! I can't stop smiling by that thought.

Personal sediments aside, I'm afraid to tell you Apple wouldn't be screwed. You open it up and Apple could use it also. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 23:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Headrush) Comments Tired of a software industry encumbered by patents http://www.osnews.com/thread?421896 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421896 Patent law should not apply to software - PERIOD. These laws generally do nothing to protect innovators. Instead, they protect companies with huge wallets to lock-down markets and stifle the industry.

Every menial idea in software can be awarded a patent. A new programmer or start-up risks infringement by merely entering the industry with a few lines of obvious logic!

At the very least, there should a "put up or shut up" IP law where -> if you insinuate or claim that another party treads upon your patents, you (the patent owner) are required to immediately and openly disclose which specific patents are being violated. Failure to disclose this information voluntarily or immediately upon request would absolve the alleged infringer.

I honestly don't care who came up with the idea of "swipe to unlock," "one-click" shopping. You should be able to innovate by evolving existing concepts---that will keep software moving forward. The best implementation wins out, as opposed to the biggest company with largest patent portfolio. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 23:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Fusion) Comments Possible salvation http://www.osnews.com/thread?421897 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421897 There are a few possibilities:

1) Apple is lying

2) There are patents, but they can be worked around

3) There are patents, but they will be invalidated

4) Apple is telling the complete truth

Unfortunately, I think it may be 4. However, there may be a solution:

Dirac is another open source codec (supposedly it rivals H.264, at least for high resolution), and there are no known patents against it. Fortunately, Dirac uses a completely different compression method (wavelet) than Theora and H.264 and almost all other codecs. This means that there are probably fewer, if any, patents on which it infringes.

The other possible defense (which could also apply for Theora, but it would be harder), is to get support from OIN and similar groups. I can imagine that if OIN and all similar groups, as well as Google, pooled their patents together, they would be able to come to an agreement with the MPEG-LA.

And on a side note, all these idiots should cease to exist. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 23:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Zifre) Comments RE: Flash for Future? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421898 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421898 Flash video nowadays *IS* H.264.

You could always fall back to VP6, but the quality there isn't good for the bitrate. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 23:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bhtooefr) Comments RE: Possible salvation http://www.osnews.com/thread?421899 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421899 What you think there are no patents that apply to Dirac? AFAIK wavelet techniques are patented up the wazoo---there's bound to be at least some overly broad patents out there that cover something needed to implement it efficiently. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 23:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kahen) Comments RE[2]: HARDCORE! http://www.osnews.com/thread?421900 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421900

Personal sediments aside, I'm afraid to tell you Apple wouldn't be screwed. You open it up and Apple could use it also.

No! Their iDevices only have hardware acceleration for H.264, like everybode else. But if YouTube would only give you that inside a Flash container, Apple would be screwed. Their beautiful devices could only decode VP8 in VGA like resolutions. This would be so DOS like

Got it?

The only way they could overcome this would be implementing Flash Player, which they wouldn't. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 23:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (wargum) Comments RE: Flash for Future? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421901 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421901 Effective FUD. Jobs was deliberately vague. Don't count on any actual legal action ever being taking. If these empty threats work, it wouldn't be needed.

The real question is why this sudden aggression? Are Apple really that scared of Theora that they need to ask for help from their friends in the Evil League of Evil?Edited 2010-04-30 23:44 UTC Fri, 30 Apr 2010 23:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Carewolf) Comments RE[6]: arggh, f*ck patents http://www.osnews.com/thread?421902 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421902

Why are you even contemplating this?

I wouldn't be, if I didn't have this high level of interest in software and operating systems to begin with. To be honest, I don't give a rat's ass about Apple's hardware (the list of complaints I have about it never ends...). It's the OS as well as the software running on top of it that interests me (even though I have many complaints about that too).

You don't need a Mac. The things you can do with Mac that you can't do with Linux, you sure as hell can do with Windows 7. Your soul will thank you later ;-).

True, but really, it'd be more of a toy to me. I guess I'm just a geek... heh. No matter how bad the price, lock-in, restrictions, attitude of the company and various other aspects are, it's always hard to reject playing with a new toy (piece of software). It's like a curse or something. It sucks, really. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 23:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (UltraZelda64) Comments RE[2]: H264 is the future http://www.osnews.com/thread?421903 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421903

VP3 (Theora) of which VP8 is a descendant predates H.264.

If there are any patents surrounding Theora, Google now own them.

On what basis do you assume that? you assume that none of those, inadvertently, on patents held by third parties? the patent world is such a minefield it wouldn't surprise me that if you wrote a 100,000 line application that it doesn't at least step on a couple of patents inadvertently. One only needs to look at the numerous patents Microsoft has tripped over when developing - patents whose language is so broad almost anything you could imagine would get covered by it. I don't blame, therefore, vendors being weary of Theora or any claimed-to-be-patent-free project when there is the risk there that they don't wish to take. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 23:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kaiwai) Comments RE: Which patents? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421904 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421904 From what I read out of the message, it looks like they'll tell us alright... in the form of lawsuits against people/companies/distributions/whatever distributing Theora codecs. They'd rather sue than get this straightened out in a more responsible and respectable manner. Fri, 30 Apr 2010 23:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (UltraZelda64) Comments RE[3]: H264 is the future http://www.osnews.com/thread?421906 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421906 Then a game of global thermo-nuclear war it is.

Perhaps if all the companies destroy each other then maybe patent reform might come about.

It's been 10 years. Why only now? I think the minefield of which you speak is so complicated that even the MPEG-LA are having difficulty scouring the Theora design for infringements and trying to put together a water-tight case which could stand up to Google and their portfolio.

Does Theora violate some broad patent? Almost certainly. Would said patent possibly be voided if it were brought up in court and scrutinised? Possibly. So it's not just a case of the MPEG-LA saying that Theora violates their patents, they know they must also beat a games of chess ahead of time with an opponent whose moves predates their own. Sat, 01 May 2010 00:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc) Comments RE[2]: Which patents? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421907 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421907 "In recent news, president Obama explained the new patent reform bill to the Senate. Quote: 'You either bring it on or you shut the f--k up! We just cannot accept these patent threads anymore! God bless America!'. We registered thunderous applause from both democrates and republicans."

-dreamsEdited 2010-05-01 00:14 UTC Sat, 01 May 2010 00:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (wargum) Comments RE[2]: Possible salvation http://www.osnews.com/thread?421908 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421908

What you think there are no patents that apply to Dirac?

I'm sure there are patents. I bet that Hello World infringes on patents. I'm just hoping that any patents that Dirac infringes on are obscure/old enough that no one will ever know. The BBC is not aware of any patents on which Dirac infringes.

AFAIK wavelet techniques are patented up the wazoo

I am not aware of this. Do you have evidence? IIRC, wavelet compression was patented a long time ago but the patents have expired. Sat, 01 May 2010 00:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Zifre) Comments RE[3]: HARDCORE! http://www.osnews.com/thread?421909 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421909

Their beautiful devices could only decode VP8 in VGA like resolutions.

VGA like resolutions? Isn't that basically what a phones screen resolution is? Is there really any point in being able to decode higher resolutions? Sat, 01 May 2010 00:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Zifre) Comments RE[4]: HARDCORE! http://www.osnews.com/thread?421910 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421910 On the iPad, yes! Sat, 01 May 2010 00:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (wargum) Comments RE: Which patents? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421911 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421911

It is all just crap until they say which patents and where Theora infringes. Show us the code SCO, show us the code.

Amen to that. I'd also throw in the current patent threats MS is making against Android to be in the same vein. Sat, 01 May 2010 00:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Sean Parsons) Comments FSF tactics are pathetic http://www.osnews.com/thread?421912 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421912 Insulting Jobs in a letter is not going to change anything.

I will not argue here that it is ironic you find the Apple Store more open than Flash.

Oh but you will take the time to make a snide comment? Was this a letter or a forum post?

Dear Jobs,

You are a hypocritical prick. Please use a codec other than the one you like.

Oh and you should open source OSX.

- The FSF Brain Trust.

Now there's even more patent concerns with Theora. Of course Jobs is likely bluffing but that doesn't matter. All he has to do is talk about armies of lawyers in waiting until H.264 is widely adopted.

Theora advocates should really find a new cause. It really didn't have much of a chance without Google support. Chrome for Linux will have H.264 which is a huge improvement from the older Flash days when Linux would get the shaft. Sat, 01 May 2010 00:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (nt_jerkface) Comments RE[2]: Which patents? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421913 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421913 So contact your senator/representative express your opinion, convince them of the validity of your point of view, and then volunteer to help draft the legislation. Sat, 01 May 2010 00:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Odwalla) Comments RE[3]: Possible salvation http://www.osnews.com/thread?421914 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421914

"AFAIK wavelet techniques are patented up the wazoo

I am not aware of this. Do you have evidence? IIRC, wavelet compression was patented a long time ago but the patents have expired. "

The last time I did a patent search on wavelets used in data compression, I found over 3600 issued and valid (at least unless someone challenges them in court) US patents. The vast majority of the ones I read through were overlapping, vague, and broad enough to fly a 747 through. There's no way ANYTHING written to use wavelets can't be violating dozens to hundreds of patents. They probably wouldn't hold up in court, but do you want to spend years and tens of millions proving that? It's that threat of making a company spend that time and money that scares the PHBs into going with something like h.264. Sat, 01 May 2010 00:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (JLF65) Comments ... http://www.osnews.com/thread?421920 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421920 Honestly, I don't think there is nothing more entertaiment than see a bunch of "Freedom" lovers pissed off on a propietary company. Sat, 01 May 2010 01:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Hiev) Comments RE[5]: arggh, f*ck patents http://www.osnews.com/thread?421922 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421922

Steve Jobs, you're a f***ing prick. Maybe another organ will go bad some day. Go to hell, Apple.

Sorry, had to let that out; Apple has really been pissing me off a lot lately, and I don't even own an Apple product. I'm seriously contemplating whether I should even bother getting a Mac now... I'm heavily leaning towards "HELL NO" right about now.

For me the h264 is the least of my worries; the laundry list of problems I have with Apple have pretty much nothing to do with politics and everything to do with their products and policies. Take the Video Decoder Framework - only supporting three NVIDIA models even though VP3 has been available for many years on Nvidia based GPU's as sold in the past. Then there is the issue of ATI based video cards, what is happening with them? Why no video acceleration love for them? People talk about how Adobe uses the lack of video acceleration as an excuse, then how about this, why not give Adobe access to all they want and then prove them wrong: "we provided them with all that they want and Flash still sucks". Well, as someone pointed out early, the crippling of the Flash experience has less to do with altruistic motivations and everything to do with protecting the Apple Store under the banner of 'open standards'.

Then there is 10.6 which has breakage after breakage after breakage with each update; if Microsoft shipped that many updates with broken components there would be hell to pay and yet all of this is ignored. Then there is the issue of the i-devices being developed at the expense of the desktop - anyone remember the 10.5 fiasco where it was delayed because of the developers pre-occupied with the iPhone?

For me I don't care about the politics that go around but I do care when I'm getting shafted by the raw end of the stick; where hardware is deliberately crippled, support not extended to hardware that support it, where problems with the operating system are blamed on third parties not 'doing their job' when in reality it is the operating system vendor not fixing their operating system. Where third parties are blamed for the incompetence of the vendor; when the third party invites Apple and says, "lets work together to improve Flash" and all Apple can say is "piss off". Sat, 01 May 2010 01:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kaiwai) Comments RE[7]: arggh, f*ck patents http://www.osnews.com/thread?421923 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421923

Get a Mac mini from ebay. That way you can continue with your one man protest while not sending the company a dime.

If just want it for a toy then you don't want to spend that much money anyways. I do testing in OSX sometimes and while the geeky side of me likes playing with something different it's never been appealing enough to make me switch from completely. The nice thing about the Mac mini is that if you get bored of it you can put it in a drawer and use the monitor for something else. Sat, 01 May 2010 01:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (nt_jerkface) Comments RE: Flash for Future? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421924 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421924

To summarize: There is no future for Theora... ?

It has nothing to do with Theora and everything about what format Google chooses to use for YouTube, which could well be VP8. By talking about Theora he is implicating VP8 and then YouTube and Google and trying to bully them into using Apple's chosen format now that they have burned all their bridges with Adobe.

It is highly unlikely to be successful. After Google's run-ins with Apple and Apple pissing Adobe off Google have every reason in the world to make Apple's cool products even more incompatible with the content people actually want to access with them. Sat, 01 May 2010 01:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (segedunum) Comments RE[2]: Flash for Future? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421925 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421925

Flash video nowadays *IS* H.264.

I wish people would stop repeating this. The format that arrives at your computer is Flash and not h.264 - regardless of what it was encoded in before. It has no relevance to HTML5 video and its support whatsoever. Sat, 01 May 2010 01:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (segedunum) Comments RE[4]: H264 is the future http://www.osnews.com/thread?421927 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421927

I think the minefield of which you speak is so complicated that even the MPEG-LA are having difficulty scouring the Theora design for infringements and trying to put together a water-tight case which could stand up to Google and their portfolio.

They'll be desperate to do so. There's a hell of a lot of money at stake for them if they cannot hammer h.264 in as the standard for HTML5 video and at the moment all they can do is threaten Theora.

However, the real threat is directed at VP8, YouTube and Google to behave and support the 'right' format. Sat, 01 May 2010 01:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (segedunum) Comments RE[3]: Flash for Future? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421928 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421928 The player interface is delivered in SWF format, yes.

The video is in a separate file, which is an FLV file.

http://bhtooefr.ath.cx/images/h264flv.png

Flash video, freshly grabbed from YouTube. H.264 codec. Sat, 01 May 2010 02:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bhtooefr) Comments RE[2]: Which patents? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421929 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421929

Amen to that. I'd also throw in the current patent threats MS is making against Android to be in the same vein.

I'd love to know what patents Microsoft is claiming against Android - I know there is a move to support ActiveSync, but what technology has Android infringed on? it seems to be a stupid game of 'hide the sausage' as so far as Microsoft making accusations against a company and yet only the company and Microsoft know what patents have apparently been infringed. I'm not claiming that their position may be not be legitimate but it does raise questions when the patent holder refuses to divulge exactly what has been violated. There are claims of interface and operating system patents - but what specifically is it violating?

The worst part of this whole mess are the number of idiots that American voters keep voting in each year (senators, presidents, congressmen) who don't know the difference between copyright and patents; then again the US is the country where you win votes simply by bashing gays, promoting guns and declaring you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ(tm)Edited 2010-05-01 02:12 UTC Sat, 01 May 2010 02:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kaiwai) Comments RE[2]: Which patents? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421930 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421930

It's not at all unlikely that patents are actually being violated.

First, software patents should be legal. And it's not yet the case everywhere on this little and every day more crazier planet.

Steve, "All video codecs are covered by patents" ?

And? I really wonder how one could ever succeed to forbid a community of benevolent developers to write whatever piece of software they want and a community of users to actually use it!? No patent system could ever forbid someone to share with other people something he develop. Who cares about patent but patents holders, BTW?

But I hear all what you said, patent trolls. Thanks to remember me that I always could put my money where my mouth is.

Oh, and please, patent system, please continue to push to enforce your system throu the throat of people: the more you do it, the sooner they will bite you back. Hard. Sat, 01 May 2010 02:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (phoudoin) Comments RE: Flash for Future? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421931 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421931 They're no future for Theora (or Dirac, for that matter) only if you're too afraid to raise your finger to patent system and, more pratical, simply download and install Theora codec on your machine, whatever your OS is. It's free, it's available both decoder and encoder and I'll bet nothing could stop its diffusion.

Now, if you're afraid at first FUD attempt, the issue is not patent holders but your fear. Sat, 01 May 2010 02:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (phoudoin) Comments RE: ... http://www.osnews.com/thread?421932 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421932

Honestly, I don't think there is nothing more entertaiment than see a bunch of "Freedom" lovers pissed off on a propietary company.

Na, what is more funny is when you see people rush from one company to another according to how 'good' or 'evil' they are. Amazing how when Mac OS X was released Apple was the darling of the geek crowd then Apple started acting 'evil' so then there was a rush to *NIX but reality sinks that as a desktop it sucks, Windows 7 is released with cool features long with support for more open standards so there is a rush to Microsoft. Its funny watching people rush from one company to another hoping to find some sort of embodiment of 'goodness' in business form. Sat, 01 May 2010 02:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kaiwai) Comments RE: Patent absurdity. http://www.osnews.com/thread?421933 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421933 You could have been even far shorted: patent.

The word itself is absurd. Sat, 01 May 2010 02:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (phoudoin) Comments RE[2]: Which patents? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421935 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421935

"It is all just crap until they say which patents and where Theora infringes. Show us the code SCO, show us the code.

I think when it comes to patents, there should be some kind of law that, if you're going to threaten somebody with a patent lawsuit, then you must list the specific patent (or patents) that you feel are being violated. In other words, either shit or get off the pot. None of this 'you may be violating one or more of our patents' BS. "

Since those patents are publicly listed, if you're going to create a video codec you'd better check before you invest. Sat, 01 May 2010 03:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (tyrione) Comments RE[4]: arggh, f*ck patents http://www.osnews.com/thread?421937 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421937 *snickers* Sat, 01 May 2010 03:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (tessmonsta) Comments Well... http://www.osnews.com/thread?421939 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421939 News like that make me wish that there was a god, and that He had some spare nukes for us mankind...

*shocked*Edited 2010-05-01 05:12 UTC Sat, 01 May 2010 05:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Neolander) Comments RE[7]: arggh, f*ck patents http://www.osnews.com/thread?421941 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421941 Yeah. Apple have become their own 1984 advert. Sat, 01 May 2010 05:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (frood) Comments RE[2]: ... http://www.osnews.com/thread?421944 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421944

What planet are you from? This is some alternate universe right? Apple being the love of the Foss community and freedom loving geeks.

Apple has been "evil" for years predating OSX if geeks were interested in OSX its because of Darwin and BSD not because Apple is anti-evil.

Now the Foss community is running to MS as an anti-evil supporter of Opensource - are you mad. If MS is beginning to play nicely (and thats a big if) it is because it feels it has too.

Finally the OS desktop sucks - well my Linux desktop is superior in almost every way to the Vista desktop I use at work.

I'd say to characterise Apple and MS it would be: MS be evil if it advances the companies position and you can get away with it, Apple be evil if possible. Sat, 01 May 2010 06:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Gone fishing) Comments Anyone found NOT using http://www.osnews.com/thread?421945 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421945 Iphony, Ipad, Imac, Iskirt, Itrousers, Ishoes, Ieye, Ihand, Imouth, Ibrain, Imoney, Ithought and all other apple producta are criminals. The are the "freethinkers" and apple has patents covering all free forms of thougt. Sat, 01 May 2010 06:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (circlomanen) Comments RE: Anyone found NOT using http://www.osnews.com/thread?421946 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421946 the thought "OMG this Iphone is soo cool, i must buy it" comes under a more permitive licens. You are allowed to use that thought as many times you like and you can even share that thought with your friends without paying an additional fee. That is Apple using and pushing more open licenses. Sat, 01 May 2010 06:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (circlomanen) Comments RE: H264 is the future http://www.osnews.com/thread?421949 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421949 The MPEG-LA portfolio is so broad that it is terribly unlikely that there will be any pure codec

That is true. Yet, I've always found it fascinating that a company's monopoly when used for killing off competition has [not always, but still] been taken as being bad, but an organization comprised of the same companies creating patent-encumbered "standards" following the same behavior - i.e. for killing off the same competition - is let to roam free and do as they see fit.

Problem is, after they've been allowed to get this far, there's no way to stop them now. Sat, 01 May 2010 07:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (l3v1) Comments RE[3]: Which patents? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421950 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421950 Since those patents are publicly listed, if you're going to create a video codec you'd better check before you invest.

Then you'd better stop coding any video coding related algorithm whatsoever. There are just so many alorithms and variations that form the basis of almost all codecs; above them the precious patent system let everyone&dog patent every damn small piece of crap they could come up with. In the end what you get is a damn high wall of stone around you.

The only solution is to come up with an idea that is so groundbeakingly new that nobody has ever tried to patent it - and you're f*cked, since creating, implementing, testing and transforming into an all-usable version a new video coding algorithm could take so many man-months of research and coding most people can't even imagine.

And then you'll need to proove you're as good or better than others, which will be followed by everyone else threatening with lawsuits, and so on and so forth. Sat, 01 May 2010 07:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (l3v1) Comments RE[3]: Which patents? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421951 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421951 Who cares about patent but patents holders, BTW?

Exactly.

And another thing, "they: always say patents drive innovation. Well, my a** they do. This is just one of the many examples when the opposite is true. In this system only the first ones to patent something are the winners, everybody else is just paying up. Innovating can be working up to a point - since you constantly seek new unpatented ways of doing things - but after a while things will get very hard and even if you come up with something a bit dissimilar, those first ones will always come down on you hard with threats.

Well, it's your system, you let it get this far, you should be the ones who stop it.

If you can, that is. Sat, 01 May 2010 07:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (l3v1) Comments RE: And thus, the true face is revealed :-) http://www.osnews.com/thread?421952 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421952 they would have already tried to sue (theora is not new)

You're thinking too short term. They didn't care if there's yet another codec claiming to be free or not. But they care big time if one of these codec will have the opportunity to be broadly adopted as a quasi-standard for web-distributed video content. Oh yes, they care a lot. Sat, 01 May 2010 07:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (l3v1) Comments RE[2]: Patent absurdity. http://www.osnews.com/thread?421953 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421953 Well, not exactly.

Patents, in general, seemed to work, at least acceptably. Software patents on the other hand proved to not work, at least for the benefit of the general public. Problem is - I'd guess - when they created this damn system they never thought guys in their living rooms will be able to create tech that could rival theirs.

The main point is, the system is outdated and wrong in many places, they just like how they can abuse it, so they won't easily let it be changed. Sat, 01 May 2010 07:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (l3v1) Comments RE: Possible salvation http://www.osnews.com/thread?421954 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421954 ompletely different compression method (wavelet) than Theora and H.264 and almost all other codecs

You should look a bit harder, you'll be surprised. Sat, 01 May 2010 07:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (l3v1) Comments I'm so angry I wanted to post twice: http://www.osnews.com/thread?421957 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421957 FUCK STEVE JOBS AND ALL THOSE SHITTY PROPRIETARY CORPORATIONS SELFISHLY ATTEMPTING TO STIFLE HUMANITY FOR PATHETIC NICKLES. READ SOME BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, LEARN SOME HUMILITY, RELEASE THE CODE, AND GROW THE FUCK UP!!!! Sat, 01 May 2010 07:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (crhylove) Comments RE[7]: arggh, f*ck patents http://www.osnews.com/thread?421958 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421958 If you're only after the OS, there's always virtualbox.
The new version has OSX Guest support.

That or hackintoshes, which are a nice way to stick it to apple :p Sat, 01 May 2010 07:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (woegjiub) Comments RE: I'm sick of this http://www.osnews.com/thread?421959 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421959 Amen brother,

I hate the current news. It is all about lock down, censorship and patents and people don't get it.

I am afraid the internet will be a very different place in 7 years time. Sat, 01 May 2010 08:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kragil) Comments RE[2]: Flash for Future? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421960 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421960 [edit] Nevermind... link is dead.Edited 2010-05-01 08:14 UTC Sat, 01 May 2010 08:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Tuishimi) Comments But http://www.osnews.com/thread?421962 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421962 Edited 2010-05-01 08:32 UTC Sat, 01 May 2010 08:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Soulbender) Comments .i. http://www.osnews.com/thread?421963 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421963 apple and ms can bite my shiny metal ass for all i care. The web is supposed to be Free, and fuck me if i ever gonna pay a nickle for watching a god damn video on the web...

Now more than ever the time is right to punish those who do us wrong. Don't buy apple, don't buy ms. Choose android & Linux... unfortunately Linux/BSD is the only alternative... If only haiku was ready for prime time...

Be a militant consumerist! Fuck apple and ms right in the rear! For a Free internet. If Theora is not worth fighting for, then we can all just go fuck ourselves an be marry cause Linux will die eventually!

This is the time to come forth and stick to your guns and give the middle finger to both apple and ms....

And bwt, oracle can also lick my balls: YOU. DO. NOT. FUCK. WITH. MYSQL. PERIOD! In the eternal words of the philosopher Duke Nukem: Eat shit and die!

That is all... Sat, 01 May 2010 08:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (n0xx) Comments RE[3]: H264 is the future http://www.osnews.com/thread?421964 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421964

"VP3 (Theora) of which VP8 is a descendant predates H.264.

If there are any patents surrounding Theora, Google now own them.

"Google should be militant now and open sorce VP8 tomorrow AND switch over YouTube to Flash + HTML5 with VP8 tomorrow. Apple would be screwed, then. Them Android phones (and webOS) could just use hardware accelerated Flash and Apple would stand alone, totally naked! I can't stop smiling by that thought.

Personal sediments aside, I'm afraid to tell you Apple wouldn't be screwed. You open it up and Apple could use it also. "

Apple would, however, become a pariah worse than Microsoft.

No longer would Apple be seen as cool but expensive, but instead Apple products would be seen as undesirable, closed and expensive.

Word of mouth and bad PR karma could kill Apple within the year. Sat, 01 May 2010 08:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (lemur2) Comments RE[3]: Which patents? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421968 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421968

But it is quite likely that any patents being violated have overly broad claims.

Overly broad claims are just standard practice for any patent.

Of course, by the time the court cases to actually decide are finished, the patents will have expired anyway.

All patents make overly broad claims, but when it comes to the crunch the are judged ONLY on the very specific claims.

Microsoft's FAT patents are classic. It turns out that the specific claims are not for FAT (which is not Microsoft's invention anyway), but rather, for Long File Names (LFN) stored on a FAT filesystem. Even more specifically, the patents are awarded based on Microsoft's claim to have invented a novel method of storing BOTH a LFN and a short (8.3) filename for each file at the same time.

So, to avoid this patent, all that has to be done is to fail to store both a LFN and a SFN. Either one or the other for any given file, but never both. This way, your FAT LFN-compatible software still does not violate the specific claim.

Just avoid the claimed specific methods and you don't infringe the patent. Sat, 01 May 2010 08:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (lemur2) Comments Copied http://www.osnews.com/thread?421969 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421969 This is great. After all, under the current system, Theora is bound to get sued anyway. So why use something that will cause problems.

Yes, i know we all want, everything to be free. But we live in Real World, not some fantasy world. To use Theora, supporters should think get rid of Patents system and not about condemning H.264 patents holder . Afterall they spend A LOT of money into R&D. And those people who work hard on R&D in Uni, or Labs, need to feed themself or their Family.

So Yes, unless you didn't realize, they are human afterall, and they also need money.

And as to Licensing Fees? - That is called return of Investment - If you dont like this idea you should really touch stocks either.

P.S - Of coz, getting rid of Patents would also be a Win for H.264, since it offer much better quality anyway. Sat, 01 May 2010 09:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (iwod) Comments RE[3]: HARDCORE! http://www.osnews.com/thread?421970 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421970

Word of mouth and bad PR karma could kill Apple within the year.

You put *way* too much faith in the clout geeks have in the consumer market. Sat, 01 May 2010 09:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (vivainio) Comments RE[2]: ... http://www.osnews.com/thread?421972 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421972

Na, what is more funny is when you see people rush from one company to another according to how 'good' or 'evil' they are.

Yeah, it cracks me up every time. This "personal ethics" nonsense is really getting in a way of honest american capitalism. Sat, 01 May 2010 09:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (vivainio) Comments RE: FSF tactics are pathetic http://www.osnews.com/thread?421973 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421973 Learn to read, this was from a blog post by an FSFE member. Sat, 01 May 2010 09:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Beta) Comments RE: Copied http://www.osnews.com/thread?421974 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421974

Yes, i know we all want, everything to be free. But we live in Real World, not some fantasy world. To use Theora, supporters should think get rid of Patents system and not about condemning H.264 patents holder . Afterall they spend A LOT of money into R&D. And those people who work hard on R&D in Uni, or Labs, need to feed themself or their Family.

You really think the R&D money members of the MPEG-LA spent to develop their codecs had any bearing on another independent invention?

The assumption nowadays is that if youâve made anything, and someone else owns the monopoly for it (thats what a patent is), that youâve some-how copied their direct work. Sat, 01 May 2010 09:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Beta) Comments RE: Copied http://www.osnews.com/thread?421976 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421976 So are you saying the people who created Theora did not spend time and effort on it and don't need to feed their families? Sat, 01 May 2010 10:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Soulbender) Comments RE[4]: Which patents? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421977 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421977 The LFN storage technique however was ingenious. It is not an overly broad technique.

Long File Names (LFN) are stored on a FAT file system using a trickâ"adding (possibly multiple) additional entries into the directory before the normal file entry. The additional entries are marked with the Volume Label, System, Hidden, and Read Only attributes (yielding 0x0F), which is a combination that is not expected in the MS-DOS environment, and therefore ignored by MS-DOS programs and third-party utilities. Notably, a directory containing only volume labels is considered as empty and is allowed to be deleted; such a situation appears if files created with long names are deleted from plain DOS.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table Sat, 01 May 2010 10:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (RIchard James13) Comments RE[5]: HARDCORE! http://www.osnews.com/thread?421981 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421981

On the iPad, yes!

True, but if the iPad is the only device we have to leave out in order to have a free video future, I think it would be worth it. Sat, 01 May 2010 11:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Zifre) Comments RE[8]: arggh, f*ck patents http://www.osnews.com/thread?421982 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421982 However, buying a used Apple product gives money to a person who paid for Apple products, and is likely to do it again.

Conversely, selling Apple products to get rid of them puts them into the ecosystem, and they're designed to give money to Apple well after purchase, especially the mobile devices.

Myself, I'm keeping my Second-Jobs-era Apple products, and just not using them. Sat, 01 May 2010 11:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bhtooefr) Comments Wait a year and use MPEG1. http://www.osnews.com/thread?421983 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421983 MPEG1 is just about to be old enough that a reference implementation from 1991 cannot possibly be covered under any US patents.

H.261 now must be unencumbered, although it's too restrictive for modern video - CIF and QCIF resolutions are it, for the 1990 implementation.

Yes, I'm suggesting saying "screw it all, and just use 20 year old technology to avoid patents." That's 100% legally safe, as long as you stay with codecs that themselves are that old, and don't infringe on copyright of those codecs. Sat, 01 May 2010 11:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bhtooefr) Comments FUD http://www.osnews.com/thread?421984 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421984 No fears. MPEG-LA is just a bunch of lazy slacker, it's RIAA of codec industry. I wouldn't be that much surprised, as they have already said some idiotic and unproven stuff. Wait for the lawyers and court. Unless that happens - just do your job, OSS. Some people just like to spread FUD. Sat, 01 May 2010 12:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (marcp) Comments RE[4]: H264 is the future http://www.osnews.com/thread?421985 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421985 The problem is that I don't think that what really matters are the original algorithms. It's all about the optimizations. The big difference between the original VP3 and Theora is in the optimizations used, and in those I'm afraid that they've always been behind h.264, working around its patents. I even doubt that VP8 is doing something very different from what h.264 does in the area of optimizations, so Google must be scrutinizing the code and the patents to make sure they don't step on them before they can open source it.

All these codecs are using similar methods. Nobody knows what would a court say about it. Is similar similar enough to make it a effectual infringement? Or should the patent only cover the very specific way of implementing an optimization and leave any other similar method (AKA workaround) uncovered by the patent?

But as the first poster in the thread suggested, if anyone dares to open that box gracefully handed by Pandora, they might find themselves in a very big trouble too. I also agree with some other poster that this war, if started, could show what a big mess software patents are and it would probably mean the end of them, for good. So I think that either way (whether they decide to go after Theora or not), MPEG-LA is doomed to lose here (EXCEPT if they succeed in their tactic of scaring people with FUD and never starting an open war. That's their only chance and they'll hold to it as long as they can). Sat, 01 May 2010 12:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Luis) Comments RE[2]: Which patents? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421986 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421986 I'd say there should be law that forces the accusators to pay huge amount of money to accused when the accusations happens to be false-based. Either this, or law suit from the accused part of this 'deal'.

Overally I agree with you. Sat, 01 May 2010 12:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (marcp) Comments RE[3]: Which patents? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421987 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421987 Actually, there's almost nothing worst than U.S law.
It's scattered all over the states, every state has it's own "freak'a'boo" variation of the same law and it all depends on the precedenses - "when the man kills relative in anger and gets free, than every family-killer must not be pledged guilty".

Pure, fcuking nonsense, USA! sick. Sat, 01 May 2010 12:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (marcp) Comments RE[3]: Which patents? http://www.osnews.com/thread?421988 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421988 Oh, really? Imagine creating a knife and having to look closely to every friggin' knife on the planet, just so you don't infringe any artificial PATENT. C'mon! Sat, 01 May 2010 12:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (marcp) Comments ban Apple products http://www.osnews.com/thread?421990 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421990 I said it before, ban Apple products out of your life. Apple treats his customers like shit. Sat, 01 May 2010 13:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Janvl) Comments "jackbooted thugs" http://www.osnews.com/thread?421991 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421991 I think you meant "black turtlenecked thugs"...... Sat, 01 May 2010 13:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Vinegar Joe) Comments US Patent laws http://www.osnews.com/thread?421996 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421996 Isn't this ugly mess only possible because of the US Software Patent legislation? Isn't it possible to relocate projects to Canada (like OpenBSD did) or Europe to evade this? The worldwide nature of he internet makes it difficult for government to regulate it (for example for copyright infrigment, or libel laws); why does those patents-in-US-only war should be internet world war one? Sat, 01 May 2010 14:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Radio) Comments To translate MS and Apple: http://www.osnews.com/thread?421997 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421997 You may not have a free video codec, because we don't want you to. We rule you, so bend over and take it like a good little consumer! Sat, 01 May 2010 14:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (darknexus) Comments RE: Copied http://www.osnews.com/thread?421999 http://www.osnews.com/thread?421999

Pffft.

H264 is the standard used in Blueray players and also in digital TV transmission. R&D effort spent in developing H264 has been recouped years ago.

Royalties being gathered now are pure cream.

This is not about feeding anybodies families, this is pure unadulterated corporate greed and rip-off. Sat, 01 May 2010 14:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (lemur2) Comments RE: Hey! http://www.osnews.com/thread?422005 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422005 Technically, it's supposed to be Pandora the one giving the box, and you the one opening it ;-)Edited 2010-05-01 16:09 UTC Sat, 01 May 2010 16:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (tylerdurden) Comments RE[4]: Which patents? http://www.osnews.com/thread?422006 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422006 Sates have nothing to do with patent laws or enforcement.Edited 2010-05-01 16:26 UTC Sat, 01 May 2010 16:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Bobthearch) Comments RE[4]: Which patents? http://www.osnews.com/thread?422007 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422007 Huh? Cutlery companies are VERY active in patenting their designs and technologies, and defending those patents.Edited 2010-05-01 16:18 UTC Sat, 01 May 2010 16:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Bobthearch) Comments RE[6]: arggh, f*ck patents http://www.osnews.com/thread?422008 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422008 LOL, going from Apple to Microsoft... it is like telling people that if it gets too hot in the frying pan they could always jump into the flames. Sat, 01 May 2010 16:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (tylerdurden) Comments you wanna go deep, i'll take you deep http://www.osnews.com/thread?422009 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422009 "You wanna go D.E.E.P., I'll take ya D.E.E.P.
You know you fucked up when you let my mind creep
Deeper than the page of a book let me look
You let me hit the stage now I got my folks hooked like D.E.E.P" - quote from OUTKAST

There's a LOT more to this than codecs. updated UBUNTU, Fedora and the rest of Linux disto's are about to get released. UBUNTU already here and the desktop experience from my current 9.10 is awesome! Linux Distro's rule especially since moving to consoles for gaming fix.

I was against the dumb down devices like ipad etc. Hmmm and Windows was like a super villain that just won't stay dead.
With netbooks, ipad's and the now dead courier + super cool consoles (purely thinking games here - damn sony!) ... well, LINUX distro's is kicking ass

Never before did I feel such hope and not just hope but in-your-face pc desktop joy.

The uneasiness had to return. freakin hell.
Why does everything need to be a battle. can't we all just get along? Sat, 01 May 2010 16:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (rebel787) Comments RE[7]: arggh, f*ck patents http://www.osnews.com/thread?422010 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422010

LOL, going from Apple to Microsoft... it is like telling people that if it gets too hot in the frying pan they could always jump into the flames.

Yeah, flames tend to be more benign than heated metal.

Microsoft attempted to make the world their walled garden (win32 api, ActiveX, Palladium, Silverlight) and failed. There is no indication that they will succeed now where they failed earlier. They are also being closely watched for anti-competitive behavior.

While the beast has not been completely tamed, Microsoft is currently less dangerous than Apple. Not because they lack power, but because they can't be quite as ruthless as a corporation as Apple is currently (and Apple gets applauded for that by their fan base, while Microsoft never really had a fan base to begin with). Sat, 01 May 2010 16:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (vivainio) Comments Buy Nokia http://www.osnews.com/thread?422013 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422013 Just checking the MPEG-LA website etc. Checking for patents of for instance h264 doesn't have Nokia as a member (however indeed Ericsson and sony and apple etc).

I would bet on going with Nokia and simply skip the others phone products at least, that's a simple start! Sat, 01 May 2010 16:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Haicube) Comments RE[8]: arggh, f*ck patents http://www.osnews.com/thread?422014 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422014

Yeah, flames tend to be more benign than heated metal.

Well, if you mean you'd burn to ashes faster and therefore experience less pain, then sure. Sat, 01 May 2010 16:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (darknexus) Comments RE: you wanna go deep, i'll take you deep http://www.osnews.com/thread?422017 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422017 I guess "they" feel that everyone who uses linux is a thief, even if they (user) don't know they are yet. Linux users simply cannot be trusted to pay for a product and honor licenses.

(This is not MY opinion, it's all I can think of that would explain the behavior of software, video and music retailers/creators). Sat, 01 May 2010 17:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Tuishimi) Comments still can't beat the hardware http://www.osnews.com/thread?422019 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422019 If only some company offered REAL competition against the MacBook Pros.

Have you seen the new 17" models? 9+ hours of battery life (under real, actual usage!), a better-than-1080p resolution screen that is absolutely gorgeous, an actually usable for gaming and real work GPU (two GPUs, in fact), and general high quality parts and design. And it runs Windows 7 beautifully and easily.

All of the competitors can pull off equally powerful systems, and a few even have nice high quality screens, but they cost nearly as much ($1500+) and yet still saddle the user with 1.5 hour battery lifetimes and 5x the bulk and weight. And all of these machines come with crapware-infested Windows installs, making them less pleasant Windows machines than the Apples!

When Dell, HP, Sony, Lenovo, or ANYBODY offers a laptop computer that is actually the equivalent of a MacBook Pro, I will stop telling creative professionals (in my line of work, that's game artists and game developers) to buy Apple. I already tell students and business types to aim for cheaper $500 machines from Dell or ASUS or whoever because those make more sense for their needs. I'd love to be able to point people who really do need a very high end laptop to a non-Apple machine that's actually WORTH that price point, but there simply is no such thing.

Apple gets to be dicks because they make the best products around right now. Until somebody bothers to compete with them on their turf, they'll continue to make a lot of sales, make a shitload of money, and have the freedom to lockdown their software however they want. They very literally have a monopoly on high-end laptops and have very little competition in the high-end desktop space as well.

Heck, I live in Redmond literally across the street from Microsoft's main campus (I'm here for the game companies, but this apartment complex is like 95% Microsoft employees), and I still see more Apple laptops than all the other brands combined. That's how nice those machines are: even the Microsoft people know they're the best hardware you can find, period. Most of the game developers around here use the Apple hardware too, even though Mac OS X is not a "gaming OS" (these are the best Windows 7 machines you can buy, though).

Don't get me started on the iPhones. Android gets great reviews, but I've yet to see anyone who can honestly say that the HTC hardware is in any way preferable over the iPhone hardware. I was looking forward to the HTC Incredible but unsurprisingly it turns out the battery life is barely worth crap and the screen is effectively unusable in sunlight. Give me iPhone-quality hardware on Verizon with Android and I'd be very happy, but once again no such thing exists.

Microsoft gets their monopolies often by being unethical, and then they abuse their position. Apple gets its monopolies by actually making absolutely great products, and then they abuse their position. Either way the monopolies suck, but at least in the Apple case the monopoly could be broken if some company just actually freaking tried to compete with them. Sat, 01 May 2010 17:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (elanthis) Comments RE: still can't beat the hardware http://www.osnews.com/thread?422022 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422022 This has no relationship whatsoever with the subject at hand.

Except maybe that "creative professionals" may not want to have to pay exorbitant fees for simply displaying a video on their website. Sat, 01 May 2010 17:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Radio) Comments RE: "legal move against Theora" http://www.osnews.com/thread?422027 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422027

And unknown patents are the ones companies like Apple or Nokia are actually afraid of -- not a well defined set of patents that they could license and then be OK.

Apple is part of the h.264 licensor group, so they are afraid of every alternative to h.264

As for other companies: They could still claim that there are some unknown patents out there.
Noone would have expected Sisvel to cash in on MP3-licensees (that already paid up with Thomson!), and have them police computer gadget fairs for "unlicensed" MP3 players.

Did Thomson (holder of the MP3 pool) protect MP3 licensees against Sisvel? No, they didn't, and no, they can't. As a patent holder you are not required to license your patent - you can require others to stop infringing at all (ie. no product).
There are _very_ few exceptions to that rule (mostly covering "national security" and things like that)

"We fear there might be patents" is code for "we're not interested (for whatever reason) and need a semi-plausible reason for the crowd" Sat, 01 May 2010 18:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (pgeorgi) Comments RE[3]: HARDCORE! http://www.osnews.com/thread?422028 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422028

No! Their iDevices only have hardware acceleration for H.264, like everybode else.

They'd probably ask their supplier to provide a new (and exclusive) firmware for the video codec function to accelerate Theora within 2 weeks (remember, acceleration is mostly software), and make sure no part of the system but the YouTube player is able to use it (so all other users of the platform still rely on h.264)

And just state in the changelog "re-enabled YouTube player" to obfuscate things slightly. And change the search provider to Bing in retaliation.

By the way, if I'm not mistaken about the chip in the older iDevices, its video codec function's firmware also ships with support for VC1, mpeg-4 (non AVC) and some realvideo version (probably the latest, which is said to be derived from mpeg). So it's not only h.264 they could support. Sat, 01 May 2010 18:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (pgeorgi) Comments RE[2]: FSF tactics are pathetic http://www.osnews.com/thread?422032 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422032 So what if he's with the European branch. FSF activists all over the world engage in pointless and futile protests. They're like the PETA of the software world. Sat, 01 May 2010 19:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (nt_jerkface) Comments RE[8]: arggh, f*ck patents http://www.osnews.com/thread?422033 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422033 It's supported in the beta and there's also a legal issue which is why I'm not going to recommend it. Sat, 01 May 2010 19:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (nt_jerkface) Comments RE[9]: arggh, f*ck patents http://www.osnews.com/thread?422034 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422034 The person selling that Apple product will just sell it to someone else. It isn't as if you are preventing a sale by not buying it.

But by not buying a new Mac from Apple it's one less sale that goes on their stock report. Not that it really matters in the end but one man protests are out of principle in the first place. Sat, 01 May 2010 19:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (nt_jerkface) Comments RE: you wanna go deep, i'll take you deep http://www.osnews.com/thread?422037 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422037 Where is the hell? Chrome for Linux will have H.264. Most of the big publishers like Hulu are going to keep serving Flash for desktop browsers. This big move to HTML5 video is mostly just hype from the tech press. The best thing about HTML5 is that it is giving Adobe some competition. Flash isn't going anywhere.Edited 2010-05-01 20:12 UTC Sat, 01 May 2010 20:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (nt_jerkface) Comments RE[2]: Hey! http://www.osnews.com/thread?422040 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422040 I nearly declared this to be "inaccurate", as it certainly is Pandora who opens the container in the story, but found myself unable when further research to make sure that I was being fair brought me to the discovery that Pandora is actually supposed to have a jar (not a box), but an inaccurate transcribing by a man called Erasmus in the sixteenth century stuck and now we all know the wrong story.Edited 2010-05-01 20:50 UTC Sat, 01 May 2010 20:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (clhodapp) Comments RE: still can't beat the hardware http://www.osnews.com/thread?422041 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422041

Most of the game developers around here use the Apple hardware too, even though Mac OS X is not a "gaming OS" (these are the best Windows 7 machines you can buy, though).

I call BS. I know game developers at a couple studios in that area and they sure as hell don't use Macs. They contract with a company like Dell and get maxed out desktops with next-day parts replacement. I doubt even Popcap has a majority Mac workplace.

As for desktop value the Mac Pro is a complete rip-off when at $2500 it comes with a single quad xeon (xeon?????) and only 3 gigs of RAM. SSD isn't even an option.

Look at their RAID option:
Mac Pro RAID Card $700

Oh and what type of RAID card would that be? They're going to charge $700 and just call it a Mac RAID card? No brand name? No specs? This is RAID for suckers.

Your claim about MS employees loving Macbooks is also questionable. I'm in Redmond sometimes and I don't see a lot of Macbooks at the coffee shops. Seattle on the other hand.

As for Macbooks they have good battery life but that isn't because of the hardware. Their price/performance ratio is poor and both Sony and Asus have better screens. You can't remove the battery, you only get white which is a bad color for heavy use and then there are Apple service charges if the thing breaks out of warranty. Oh and on top of it all you get a glowing Apple on the back so you can make sure to provide free advertising even if the room is dark.Edited 2010-05-01 21:09 UTC Sat, 01 May 2010 21:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (nt_jerkface) Comments RE[4]: Which patents? http://www.osnews.com/thread?422042 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422042 Tyrione > Ever heard of submarine patents ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_patentEdited 2010-05-01 21:31 UTC Sat, 01 May 2010 21:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Radio) Comments RE[2]: you wanna go deep, i'll take you deep http://www.osnews.com/thread?422045 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422045

Where is the hell? Chrome for Linux will have H.264. Most of the big publishers like Hulu are going to keep serving Flash for desktop browsers. This big move to HTML5 video is mostly just hype from the tech press. The best thing about HTML5 is that it is giving Adobe some competition. Flash isn't going anywhere.

If Theora is chosen as standard, it will obviously be good press for theora but more importantly my friend ...
All OS platforms will in effect be promoting open standards.
Take that idea further. It will be good press for say...hmmmmm... Ubuntu.

Everything was falling into place and someone was having nightmares about this.

Is it that hard to imagine that Stevie might be thinking :"Hell no. Oh hell no. We can't allow free good press on this scale. This is a potential game changer! freakin hell!" Sat, 01 May 2010 21:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (rebel787) Comments RE[5]: Which patents? http://www.osnews.com/thread?422047 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422047 But we haven't heard of a "patent for a sharp piece of metal" being granted et enforced. That's how broad (and ridiculous) software patents are. Sat, 01 May 2010 21:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Radio) Comments RE: still can't beat the hardware http://www.osnews.com/thread?422050 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422050

If only some company offered REAL competition against the MacBook Pros.

Have you seen the new 17" models? 9+ hours of battery life (under real, actual usage!)

Oh and one more thing you might want to judge the battery based on external review, not Apple's marketing materials.

Still, in regular use we're certainly not bumping past that magical 6 hour mark, and we'd have to really work for Apple's quoted 8-9 hours of battery. Through a day of "regular use," which involved some benchmarking and some iMovie, but mostly just web browsing and typing, with screen brightness hovering around 60-75 percent, WiFi on and an hour of Bluetooth we managed four hours and 34 minutes of juice.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/14/macbook-pro-core-i7-review/ Sat, 01 May 2010 21:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (nt_jerkface) Comments RE[2]: still can't beat the hardware http://www.osnews.com/thread?422065 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422065 SSD in macs is the worst choice you could do while buying a new MacBook. It's a very expensive option (far more thant the price of the SSD disk itself), and OSX doesn't have TRIM support. So the SSD loses a great part of its performance within a few months of use.

Isn't there a patent in putting a SSD in a computer?Edited 2010-05-01 22:04 UTC Sat, 01 May 2010 22:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Radio) Comments RE[6]: Which patents? http://www.osnews.com/thread?422068 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422068 I assume such a patent request would be denied.

At least that's what happens in the world of non-software patents.

Sat, 01 May 2010 22:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Bobthearch) Comments RE[4]: HARDCORE! http://www.osnews.com/thread?422075 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422075 perhaps, but the market itself could kill apple. Motorola is a good example of how fast things can go bad. Sat, 01 May 2010 22:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bnolsen) Comments RE[5]: arggh, f*ck patents http://www.osnews.com/thread?422076 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422076

Go to hell, Apple.

I'd like to see it being chewn first. Sat, 01 May 2010 22:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (oinet) Comments RE: Tired of a software industry encumbered by patents http://www.osnews.com/thread?422077 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422077 Not to mention that software patents can also destroy a hardware manufacturer by blocking the ability to write a driver or firmware. Sat, 01 May 2010 22:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bnolsen) Comments RE[3]: ... http://www.osnews.com/thread?422080 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422080 dont use such a broad brush on the open source communuty. microsoft is still plenty evil. Its always best to have your evil enemies using their own resources to destroy each other if possible.

Apple always has been more evil than microsoft, it's just they've never had any influence until recently. Sat, 01 May 2010 22:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bnolsen) Comments RE: Buy Nokia http://www.osnews.com/thread?422121 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422121

Just checking the MPEG-LA website etc. Checking for patents of for instance h264 doesn't have Nokia as a member (however indeed Ericsson and sony and apple etc).

I would bet on going with Nokia and simply skip the others phone products at least, that's a simple start!

Yeah, like Nokia don't have blood on their hands for supporting dictators with surveillance..Edited 2010-05-02 00:50 UTC Sun, 02 May 2010 00:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (oinet) Comments RE[3]: ... http://www.osnews.com/thread?422140 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422140

Yeah, it cracks me up every time. This "personal ethics" nonsense is really getting in a way of honest american capitalism.

If you weren't so lazy at reading you would notice I put 'good' and 'evil' in quotations deliberately given how subjective those concepts actually are. I was attacking the so-called 'good' and 'evil' of a company given that such terms are subjective and based on ones own benefit or harm done by such actions. In the case of h264, what some people call evil others would say that it is decisive leadership to finally decide to standardise on single CODEC instead of the spaghetti soup that exists. Sun, 02 May 2010 04:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kaiwai) Comments RE[2]: you wanna go deep, i'll take you deep http://www.osnews.com/thread?422141 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422141

If I could add a million points to that post I would; the problem is that many people, including myself, have been suckered into this HTML5 hype (in my case, for no other reason that hatred of Flash because of the issues faced on the Mac) but having learned more about the situation between Flash and Adobe - the only people Apple is screwing over is its own customers.

You're right, Flash is going to hang around for a long time but the RDF from Apple does a mighty fine job making the populace believe there is this rebellion against Flash. Sun, 02 May 2010 04:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kaiwai) Comments RE[2]: I'm sick of this http://www.osnews.com/thread?422145 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422145 "I am afraid the internet will be a very different place in 7 years time."

Er... I'm guessing you're right. It was a lot different in 2003 than it is now too. Sun, 02 May 2010 05:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (hankheathen) Comments RE: Apple is so uncool http://www.osnews.com/thread?422147 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422147 "... are just trying to intimidate and prevent the adoption of Theora."

Um... I think people NOT adopting Theora has been going on for quite some time now...

Okay, can anyone who has already posted in this thread do me a favour?

Post again, explaining how the licensing terms of H.264 is actually going to affect them, in any real way.

And please, spare me the bullshit hypothetical FUD lines of "Oh Noes! what if I ever want to start delivering web-based video for commercial purposes at some indeterminate point in the future, despite never doing anything like it before? The MPEG-LA will send in shock troops and make me pay millions of dollars if I use H.264!"

I'm talking real world problems, not fantasy what-if scenarios like many of you monkeys fantasise could happen to you.

Anyone?Edited 2010-05-02 05:29 UTC Sun, 02 May 2010 05:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (hankheathen) Comments RE: still can't beat the hardware http://www.osnews.com/thread?422150 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422150

If only some company offered REAL competition against the MacBook Pros.

Have you seen the new 17" models? 9+ hours of battery life (under real, actual usage!), a better-than-1080p resolution screen that is absolutely gorgeous, an actually usable for gaming and real work GPU (two GPUs, in fact), and general high quality parts and design. And it runs Windows 7 beautifully and easily.

I am a long time Apple disciple but I can tell you that there is nothing special about the hardware which Apple sells (hence I am looking at going to the Windows world at the end of this year - Mac OS X is dying due to neglect by Apple whose focus is now on i-devices instead a balanced approach between i-devices and computers.

1) The times noted on the website you will never ever get in real life - the MacBook 13.3inch model I have right now promised a battery life of up to 7 hours, I can assure you that in my time that if you set the screen brightness to 3/4 and ran well written applications, you would be luck to hit 4 1/2 on a good day. If you wanted that sort of time you can easily purchase a Dell laptop and upgrade the battery to a 9 cell one or get an HP laptop and install a 12 cell battery thus still putting it under the cost of a MacBook Pro.

2) Mac OS X time to shine was when it was competing against Vista; Vista was to Mac OS X as the P4 was to the Athlon. A door opened and like AMD, Apple has failed to step up once Microsoft got back on its feet with the launch of Windows 7. Mark my words, a combination of obsessiveness with i-devices resulting in the ignoring of Mac OS X development on the desktop will ultimate translate into lower growth on the desktop. Not that Apple really gives crap as seen by their behaviour recently but for the 'true believer' its a bit disheartening.

3) OEM's have really lifted the game; ok, they're not as 'thin' as Apple but at least they don't reach a testicle scorching 100 degrees Celsius:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/26/core-i7-equipped-macbook-pro-hit...

This thin obsession is truly is pathetic, it is almost as bad as those who rant on about how 'noisy' their desktop or laptop is; come on, if you're spending that much time worrying about the 'thickness' or 'noise' it is clearly obvious to me you're using your laptop merely as a symbol of productivity rather than actually doing anything productive with it. Give me a +1inch laptop that doesn't scorch my balls or overheat or suffer from long term internal damage due to high temperatures.Edited 2010-05-02 05:39 UTC Sun, 02 May 2010 05:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kaiwai) Comments VP8! http://www.osnews.com/thread?422154 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422154 Very interesting indeed. Now I really hope Google will open-source VP8 as patent and license free! Sun, 02 May 2010 05:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Garibaldi3489) Comments RE[4]: ... http://www.osnews.com/thread?422164 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422164

If you weren't so lazy at reading you would notice I put 'good' and 'evil' in quotations deliberately given how subjective those concepts actually are.

That's why I said "personal ethics". They are by definition subjective.

In the case of h264, what some people call evil others would say that it is decisive leadership to finally decide to standardise on single CODEC instead of the spaghetti soup that exists.

Both are right, and it's okay if either group vote with their feet. Sun, 02 May 2010 06:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (vivainio) Comments RE[2]: "legal move against Theora" http://www.osnews.com/thread?422199 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422199

Apple is part of the h.264 licensor group, so they are afraid of every alternative to h.264

That's rubbish. Apple's business does not depend on AVC licensing fees.
MS is in the same group as well. Is Apple now keen to give MS money? No.

And Apple was just an example. Theora does not have big industry backing in general. And over the years whenever a company rep was asked by they don't support Theora, the answer was often that the patent situation was too shady for them.

If that Jobs mail is legit (which I doubt, BTW, because published Jobs mails are usually fake), then MPAG-LA calling for a patent pool is the best way to uncover patents and then let Xiph code around them. Sun, 02 May 2010 11:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Fettarme H-Milch) Comments RE: HARDCORE! http://www.osnews.com/thread?422200 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422200

Google should be militant now and open sorce VP8 tomorrow AND switch over YouTube to Flash + HTML5 with VP8 tomorrow.

And VP8 would be save of patents because...? Sun, 02 May 2010 12:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Fettarme H-Milch) Comments RE: Possible salvation http://www.osnews.com/thread?422201 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422201 5) The mail's fake. Sun, 02 May 2010 12:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Fettarme H-Milch) Comments RE[2]: Possible salvation http://www.osnews.com/thread?422202 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422202

What you think there are no patents that apply to Dirac?

Wavelet technique is old. Very old. Wavelet techniques predate many current video techniques, but were never widely used, because of the bad performance on the hardware that was state of the art 20 or so years ago. ;-)

BBC only uses techniques on Dirac whose patents already ran out. Sun, 02 May 2010 12:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Fettarme H-Milch) Comments RE: VP8! http://www.osnews.com/thread?422203 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422203

Very interesting indeed. Now I really hope Google will open-source VP8 as patent and license free!

You mean like On2 did with VP3 to create Theora?
Seriously, if VP3/Theora is covered by patents not in possession of On2/Google, then its successor VP8 is likely covered by the same patents and possibly even more.Edited 2010-05-02 12:11 UTC Sun, 02 May 2010 12:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Fettarme H-Milch) Comments RE[2]: Possible salvation http://www.osnews.com/thread?422213 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422213 Except it's not. The headers are there. If this mail is fake, then so are all the other Jobs emails.

But hey, it's already interesting to see that the usual Apple bloggers have a lot of trouble fitting this email into their pro-Apple paradigm. Normally, these emails are all over the apple blogs within seconds. This email, however, has not been reported on by any of the usual suspects. Sun, 02 May 2010 13:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom_Holwerda) Comments RE[3]: "legal move against Theora" http://www.osnews.com/thread?422216 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422216

"Apple is part of the h.264 licensor group, so they are afraid of every alternative to h.264

That's rubbish. Apple's business does not depend on AVC licensing fees.
MS is in the same group as well. Is Apple now keen to give MS money? No. "

With a patent in the pool, they supposely gain free use of the codec.
Any future competitor is either part of this group, or has to pay up, if they manage to declare h.264 the only generally accepted video codec standard in the industry.

It skews the production cost of gadgets like the iDevices: Apple doesn't have to pay for the codec, the average competing company has to pay or face losing some large markets (by not being able to sell to the US and probably elsewhere), while at the same time ensuring that the format is supported by codec functions in COTS chips.

I'm not sure how important the video editing market is for Apple, but the same applies there, too.

If Apple were to support a free codec, they'd essentially help their competitors (all of them, not just the other extortionists at MPEG-LA).

Given that they're already in the MPEG-LA pool, "supporting Microsoft" is probably a lesser evil from their point of view.

And over the years whenever a company rep was asked by they don't support Theora, the answer was often that the patent situation was too shady for them.

Why is that so? Because MPEG-LA (and Thomson before them with Vorbis) played the FUD card ("Surely there must be patents that cover that codec, no?")

If that Jobs mail is legit (which I doubt, BTW, because published Jobs mails are usually fake), then MPAG-LA calling for a patent pool is the best way to uncover patents and then let Xiph code around them.

And that's why that won't happen. The most they'd produce will be a "sample" of patents, so they can continue playing the FUD game with "all the other patents".
And even that would be a surprisingly heavy-handed move, given their (rather successful) modus operandi of the last years. Sun, 02 May 2010 13:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (pgeorgi) Comments RE[4]: "legal move against Theora" http://www.osnews.com/thread?422236 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422236

Because MPEG-LA (and Thomson before them with Vorbis) played the FUD card ("Surely there must be patents that cover that codec, no?")

Do you even know what you are talking about? This story is not about an actual MPEG-LA press release. It's about a possibly fake e-mail which some random blogger published and who does not even claim to be from an MPEG-LA representative, but instead from "Steven Jobs" (or a secretary of his) who -- even if the mail is legit -- may not even have all the insight about the MPEG-LA personally.

For me, I regard this mail as fake until I see the actual MPEG-LA doing something in this direction. Sun, 02 May 2010 15:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Fettarme H-Milch) Comments RE[2]: VP8! http://www.osnews.com/thread?422239 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422239 You're right - its not practical or plausible but perhaps we'll all be surprised Sun, 02 May 2010 15:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Garibaldi3489) Comments RE[5]: "legal move against Theora" http://www.osnews.com/thread?422259 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422259

Do you even know what you are talking about? This story is not about an actual MPEG-LA press release.

I don't consider this "news" news. It's just the old topic: Someone who profits from MPEG-LA (directly or indirectly) hints towards patents that apply to Xiph.org codecs.

That this is claimed to be Steve Jobs is just a minor detail.

What _would_ be news (which actually supports your sentiment about this being fake) is that this statement is unusually direct: "We collect patents" is much more than the usual "we might be sure that there may be patents" Sun, 02 May 2010 18:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (pgeorgi) Comments RE[4]: Flash for Future? http://www.osnews.com/thread?422295 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422295 Flash has historically used Sorensen Spark and the On2 protocol like VP6 before adding h.264 itself, but nevertheless, what you receive at your end distributed over the internet is still Flash specific and you still need to re-encode if you target the web. Bulk transcoding is still very difficult so most of the video remains in the previous two codecs behind the scenes.

People seem to think they can claim this as popular h.264 support for web video. They can't. Sun, 02 May 2010 22:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (segedunum) Comments RE[5]: Flash for Future? http://www.osnews.com/thread?422296 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422296 It's not a re-encode, it's a container format change.

And, if you support what's in the container, you can support the container without too much additional work. Sun, 02 May 2010 22:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bhtooefr) Comments RE[6]: Flash for Future? http://www.osnews.com/thread?422299 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422299

It's not a re-encode, it's a container format change.

Support for a new codec has nothing to do with the container. Most web video for Flash is still Sorensen and VP6 behind the scenes, so yes, we are talking about a mass re-encode job if we're going to somehow claim that h.264 is widely used for web video currently.

Again, trying to somehow claim h.264 is widely used for web video because Flash video can now support it as an input is just plain wrong. I'm afraid you're talking nonsense. Moving to h.264 is a hell of a lot more than simply switching from Flash to HTML5 video as a container.Edited 2010-05-02 22:44 UTC Sun, 02 May 2010 22:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (segedunum) Comments RE[7]: Flash for Future? http://www.osnews.com/thread?422301 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422301 Except a large percentage web video is YouTube, and YouTube's vids are all H.264. Sun, 02 May 2010 22:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bhtooefr) Comments RE[8]: Flash for Future? http://www.osnews.com/thread?422305 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422305

Except a large percentage web video is YouTube, and YouTube's vids are all H.264.

They're not. h.264 support in Flash players was only added around 2007 and the original format might not even be h.264, quite apart from the lag time in tool support. The majority of video is still in the aforementioned two codecs. I'm afraid there is a large transcode process required somewhere down the line whatever future direction they go in.

Sorry, but no and it doesn't create a rationale for h.264 simply being the path of least resistance either.Edited 2010-05-02 23:04 UTC Sun, 02 May 2010 23:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (segedunum) Comments RE[9]: Flash for Future? http://www.osnews.com/thread?422306 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422306 No, it's not where I'm going with this.

I'm just saying that, all of YouTube's videos are in H.264.

The "long transcode process" was a long time ago, and now videos are encoded into H.264 automatically. Sun, 02 May 2010 23:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bhtooefr) Comments RE[3]: Patent absurdity. http://www.osnews.com/thread?422315 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422315

when they created this damn system they never thought guys in their living rooms will be able to create tech that could rival theirs.

Which, how ironic, why the patent system was created in the first place: to protect inventor, any inventor, ideas from market's robbers.

Long time lapse, and now the market use the patent system to forbid any inventor but them to create new ideas, even without profit motivation, worst, in particular when it's without profit motivation. Sun, 02 May 2010 23:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (phoudoin) Comments RE[10]: Flash for Future? http://www.osnews.com/thread?422336 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422336

No, it's not where I'm going with this. I'm just saying that, all of YouTube's videos are in H.264. The "long transcode process" was a long time ago, and now videos are encoded into H.264 automatically.

As an experiment, I transcoded a YouTube H.264 video the other day into Theora on my modest Linux system. The video was 480p resolution, and it was 2:04 minutes duration. The transcode process took about a minute to complete.

Google have one million Linux servers, and they are perhaps 75% CPU usage (Google would need an estimated 25% normally-unused capacity in order to be able to handle peaks).

If Google were to employ that spare capacity at a very "nice" priority level (i.e. a process able to be bumped by anything else at all), then arguably they could put the equivalent of 250,000 "fulltime" Linux servers on this task.

This would argaubly enable Google to convert 250,000 videos per minute. Now, if Google were to prioritise this by converting their most-popular videos first, then conceivably they could transcode 15 million of their most popular video clip files in an hour. Mon, 03 May 2010 03:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (lemur2) Comments RE[3]: Hey! http://www.osnews.com/thread?422372 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422372 All the more pertinent to the story at hand. Mon, 03 May 2010 07:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (de_wizze) Comments Comment by boldingd http://www.osnews.com/thread?422439 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422439 Having not read the comments yet:

Do note, just because someone announces that they may be attempting to assemble a patent pool to go after some given technology/vendor, it in no way means that A) they'll ever actually do it, or B) that their claim has any merit. I don't know if you've noticed, but nuisance suits are (distressingly) common in patent law: it's entirely possible, even probable that Apple's/MPEG-LA's claims are completely baseless, and their main goals are just to scare people away from Theora and make anyone who tries to use spend large amounts or precious capitol on legal defense.

(I know that all this is obvious; I say it only because Thom seems to take Apple's claims of holding an infringed patent at face value. I am dubious of their claim, and I'm going to want to see some of these supposed infringed patents before I panic and pee myself.)Edited 2010-05-03 18:04 UTC Mon, 03 May 2010 18:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (boldingd) Comments RE[2]: Flash for Future? http://www.osnews.com/thread?422441 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422441 +1 insightful, I hadn't thought of it that way. Hopefully you're right. And if Google is the intended target, hopefully they'll see this for the completely baseless F.U.D. that it is, and disregard it completely.

Mon, 03 May 2010 18:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (boldingd) Comments RE: H264 is the future http://www.osnews.com/thread?422454 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422454 You have something of a point: any patent that covers Theora probably also covers any technology that encodes compressed video. If MPEG-LA holds such a patent, a patent that covers Theora, then they probably hold a patent that covers all functional video codecs (and, notably, would therefore cover any hypothetical competitor they would ever have). It would put them in a position to guarantee that their products where the only legal video codecs anywhere, period, ever (as any competing codec would infringe their patens).
Such a patent would have to be something like a patent on "the presentation of moving pictures", or "compression algorithms optimized for sequences of images", or something else inescapably fundamental to the concept of a video codec.

But, as Lemur has frequently said (much as it pains me to paraphrase him), if such a patent existed, for all the effort that Apple (and probably MPEG-LA) have put into finding it, it would've been brought to bear by now. It would be an incredibly powerful weapon, one they would not have waited until now to use -- and one that they would not be vague about. The moment they came into possession of such a patent, there would be a press release that read, "we now control the video distribution industry", and my God would that control be exploited. Mon, 03 May 2010 18:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (boldingd) Comments RE[8]: arggh, f*ck patents http://www.osnews.com/thread?422468 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422468 Well, Microsoft does have a few fans, to be sure, but not a lot. Not like Apple.

That, to me, is an interesting observation. It probably derives from the fact that Microsoft marketed Windows as an extremely useful tool, whereas Apple have marketed OS X (and their other products) as a (hip) lifestyle. Nobody gets excited about practical tools; people love to be hip. Apple's fans then think in terms of a life-style and social group, rather than evaluating Apple products as tools. It circumvents rational cost/benefit analysis and taps into human social wiring (like group loyalty, or the desire to defend your group from external assault). Mon, 03 May 2010 20:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (boldingd) Comments Behind the open codec FUD attack http://www.osnews.com/thread?422737 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422737 Dana Blankenhorn of ZDNet has written a view on this topic:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=6393

The $5 million license fee for the H.264 codec required by MPEG LA acts as a barrier to entry, both a financial and moral one. A licensee that doesnât follow Hollywoodâs rules could have its license pulled, and thus its product.

The money is chump change for Microsoft, and the barrier a good thing. Itâs a matter of principle for open source.

HTML5 is where that principle is being contested. The W3C policy is not to accept a royalty-bearing, proprietary technology into the Web standard. Thatâs why video has, until now, been a function separate from the browser.

The attack came now because Mozilla, makers of Firefox, only wants to support truly open codecs under HTML5. Googleâs move to open source of VP8 is also said to be preparatory to making it the default codec in Chrome.

If open source becomes the default for HTML5 in Chrome and Firefox (and Opera too) Hollywood loses its technical control. Thus the dark claim by Jobs that a â patent pool is being assembled to go after Theora and other âopen sourceâ codecs now.â

(My bold, BTW. First bold: good reason why Google cannot tolerate being beholden to MPEG LA. Second bold: Further confirmation that H.264 cannot be the HTML5 codec).

This article seems spot on to me. This FUD spreading is probably aimed at the W3C, and not at the courts at all. However, I can't see how this FUD will change W3C's royalty-free policy at all, on behalf of the interests of only a very few software vendors, and at the expense of everyone else using video on the web.Edited 2010-05-05 01:01 UTC Wed, 05 May 2010 00:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (lemur2) Comments RE[2]: H264 is the future http://www.osnews.com/thread?422744 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422744

You have something of a point: any patent that covers Theora probably also covers any technology that encodes compressed video. If MPEG-LA holds such a patent, a patent that covers Theora, then they probably hold a patent that covers all functional video codecs (and, notably, would therefore cover any hypothetical competitor they would ever have). It would put them in a position to guarantee that their products where the only legal video codecs anywhere, period, ever (as any competing codec would infringe their patens). Such a patent would have to be something like a patent on "the presentation of moving pictures", or "compression algorithms optimized for sequences of images", or something else inescapably fundamental to the concept of a video codec. But, as Lemur has frequently said (much as it pains me to paraphrase him), if such a patent existed, for all the effort that Apple (and probably MPEG-LA) have put into finding it, it would've been brought to bear by now. It would be an incredibly powerful weapon, one they would not have waited until now to use -- and one that they would not be vague about. The moment they came into possession of such a patent, there would be a press release that read, "we now control the video distribution industry", and my God would that control be exploited.

There is another aspect to this that has occurred to me. I present a series of facts in a hopefully logical sequence:

(1) On2 applied for, and were granted, patents to their VP3 (and subsequent) codecs.
(2) MPEG LA is a consortium that has tried VERY hard to gather a complete patent pool which covers H.264/AVC, so that no other party is able to attack MPEG LA licensees. This is their whole sales pitch for H.264.
(3) On2 is NOT a licensor of MPEG LA
(4) Therefore, MPEG LA did not need On2's patents in order to assure that user's of H.264 would not be sued by anybody else.
(5) Therefore, On2's patents cover methods which are not used by H.264
(6) Therefore, as long as Theora and/or VP8 stick to methods patented by On2, it is highly unlikely that anyone (especially MPEG LA members) will be able to find another patent which reads on the technology of Theora or VP8. Wed, 05 May 2010 02:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (lemur2) Comments RE: Copied http://www.osnews.com/thread?422789 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422789 I've thought about that. In the real world people get paid for the work they do. Chances are, the programmers behind the product have already been paid. Unless they work for themselves, programmers rarely receive royalties for their work - so who are you paying when you pay for the right to use patented software? The executives of course - Representatives of The Company.

In the case of commercial software such as Final Cut, you've already paid for the license, why should one also pay MPEG-LA for the right to use part of software they've already paid for?! Maybe this trickles down by guranteeing an income for The Company(s) behind this format, but the reality is Apple, Microsoft, and even Google don't have a problem filling their coffers with their services and software licenses.

After realizing that the patent money goes past the programmers and into the pockets of bean counters, I decided not to care about patents.

Should I somehow infringe on one and get sued, I decided it would probably be unjust and I would be very loud about it - with or without a gag order. If I ran a company, I would simply make sure we had good lawyers on hand and a significant amount of money specifically for fighting in court.

But in the mean time, I wouldn't be worried about patents, because lately it seems as though no matter who you are, or what you do, you're going to infringe on someones intellectual property. Everyone can be sued over everything these days. Either you can worry about it and give yourself an aneurysm, or you can be defiant, prepare for it, and do what you want to do. (I do believe copyright should be respected though). Wed, 05 May 2010 11:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (howitzer86) Comments RE: Wait a year and use MPEG1. http://www.osnews.com/thread?422793 http://www.osnews.com/thread?422793 If anyone did that, it would be proof that software patents stifle innovation.

The large companies behind MPEG-LA have considerable control over what we view on our computers, and they are going to avoid giving credence to that fact by making sure we use their most patent encumbered formats. Wed, 05 May 2010 11:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (howitzer86) Comments