This serves two strategic purposes for Google. First, it advances a codec that's de facto controlled by Google at the expense of a codec that is a legitimate open standard controlled by a multi-vendor governance process managed by reputable international standards bodies. ("Open source" != "open standard".) And second, it will slow the transition to HTML5 and away from Flash by creating more confusion about which codec to use for HTML5 video, which benefits Google by hurting Apple (since Apple doesn't want to support Flash), but also sucks for users.
It is, in other words, a thoroughly nasty bit of work. It's not quite as bad as selling consumers down the river to Verizon on 'net neutrality, but it's close. And if Google is actually successful in making WebM, not H.264, the standard codec for web video, they're literally going to render hundreds of billions of dollars worth of tablets, smartphones, set-top boxes, etc. with H.264 hardware support obsolete.
"But wait!", the OSS fans are saying. "Isn't Google really standing up for freedom and justice, because H.264 requires evil patent licensing?"
No. Expert opinion [multimedia.cx] is that WebM infringes on numerous patents in the H.264 pool, and will need a licensing pool of its own to be set up, just like Microsoft's VC-1 did. So the patents are a wash. This is Google manipulating the market entirely for selfish advantage here, and it's all the worse because they're pretending otherwise. And it's going to be really frustrating watching people fall for it.
And if Google is actually successful in making WebM, not H.264, the standard codec for web video, they're literally going to render hundreds of billions of dollars worth of tablets, smartphones, set-top boxes, etc. with H.264 hardware support obsolete.
Silly hyperbole. People change their devices every 2-5 years anyway. With the growing strength of Android OS and the similarities in the Webm and H264 codecs, I don't see hardware manufacturers having major issues with the transition either.
I do not see that much of an issue here. It's not like H264 is going to drop off the face of the planet any time soon either.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Tuesday January 11, 2011 @08:38PM (#34842594)
Will people please stop citing an x264 developer's rant as an "expert opinion" on the video quality or patent risks of WebM? Next thing we'll indulge the musings of a Coca-Cola Company executive on health issues related to PepsiCo products.
Huh? You seem to be under the impression that "x264" is some for-profit organization that owns the rights to H.264 or something. That's now how these standards work; H.264 was developed by standards committee, not by some particular organization.
x264 is an open source GPL-licensed H.264 encoder. I'm posting the opinion of an open source developer familiar with the technical and legal issues surrounding video codecs.
Yeah, x264 is an open-source project. And we all know open-source projects never attract egomaniacs, and major contributors wouldn't derive significant value from their importance, which would be lost if their project was replaced by a competitor, right?
No, you're citing the understandably angry postings of a developer who im sure is quite talented and recognizes if WebM goes anywhere then he just flushed some amount of years of his life away.
I agree. He is an expert in video compression, not patent law.
I think his argument as to VP8's patent status is flawed. He claims that VP8 is likely covered by patents because it shares many features with H.264. However, I suspect that these common features are those that are covered by known patents. A list of all known H.264 patents is available on MPEG-LA's website; therefore, it is public knowledge what features of H.264 are protected by known patents. However, nobody has been able to name a specific
I highly doubt that On2 looked through the patents. I've heard of major companies telling their employees not to look through patents, that way they can claim some sort of plausible deniability should someone claim they violate a patent. Even if the H.264 patents are public knowledge, companies like On2 are disencentivized to look at them, due to the current mess our patent litigation system is in.
Google actually did. They claimed it publicly, therefore they did. I.e they can't hide behind "We didn't know we were infringing", therefore there is no incentive not to look.
...which is absolutely meaningless in the real world. He has the knowledge and he has the skills. And gets paid for it. What do you do? Oh, right, you post on slashdot.
Believe it or not, when it comes to software, an expert can be pretty much any age.
And your expertise is...?
A codec is a very hard bit of programming to optimize for all uses. H.264 is a damned good job, that exists on Blu-ray down to cellphones, giving the best possible image in each case. The world is full of hardware that is compatible with it, and hardware encoding and decoding is in a lot of programs and hardware throughout the industry. Yes, the consortium controls the patents. Big movie studios pay the most, and companies that distribute the codecs, like Apple, Google (yes!), and
And if Google is actually successful in making WebM, not H.264, the standard codec for web video, they're literally going to render hundreds of billions of dollars worth of tablets, smartphones, set-top boxes, etc. with H.264 hardware support obsolete.
WebM can use many of the same acceleration blocks as H.264, it is a matter of writing the codecs that use the hardware.
That's nice in theory, but in practice a lot of devices are going to get left behind. Consumer electronics device vendors aren't always great with updates.
And then, of course, there are all of the devices that don't connect directly to the web, but still stream/play video. Vendors of many of those devices probably won't feel especially compelled to implement WebM at all... but of course it will be a big hassle for content providers if they have to encode everything once for web sites, and then a second time
will be a big hassle for content providers if they have to encode everything once for web sites, and then a second time for non-web-enabled devices.
It already is. And has been for quite a while. Apple not being the heroes here with requirements for video used in iOS based devices.
finally settling down on a next-generation standard for digital video after more than a decade of proprietary nonsense and terrible cross-device compatability
No it's not. We got past the audio stuff. Yet some issues still remain
Or, you know, you can't reinvent the wheel thirty times without eventually falling back on the same basic concepts and H.264 and WebM share unpatented portions? You can't seriously believe every single thing H.264 does is patented, can you?
Most video acceleration is just accelerating common unpatentable operations like vector arithmetic, interpolation, block copies, frame expansion, interpolation etc. This is made available to developers through the OpenMAX API by almost all hardware accelerators. More specialised acceleration exists for MP4 and H.264 video, but even some of that is unpatented and identical to the blocks used by WebM.
Not really. In the past, hardware acceleration of video was done partially, with a few semi-general-purpose blocks.
However, most modern H.264 hardware acceleration is full bitstream decoding - feed it a bitstream and it displays. It's not partitioned into easily "gluable" blocks like it used to be.
The answer to all of these is that web developers generally won't start using technologies until there's very wide support for them. Dropping out of the box support in Chrome, even if a plugin is available, will do significant damage to the momentum HTML5/H.264 was finally staring to build up. Some web developers will figure they should probably just stick with Flash until this all settles out.
Why doesn't Google suggest a standard to the body that allows a browser to give people the choice of codec? Something in Preferences? Or alternately, allow the browser to recognize them both?
During the whole Flash debate, Google came out in favor of "consumer choice" for Flash on mobile phones. Flash is closed. But they're not in favor of an open standard there, HTML 5, but here they're against the open standard administered by a consortium, H.264. Could it be because the megacorp, Google, in both cases c
Expert opinion [multimedia.cx] is that WebM infringes on numerous patents in the H.264 pool, and will need a licensing pool of its own to be set up, just like Microsoft's VC-1 did.
Sorry, but an x264 developer is not a lawyer. Citing him as an "expert" on whether or not WebM infringes patents is frankly rather silly.
I am all for nasty work that promotes free (as in from cost, copyright, patent, IP - forever) standards any day. If Verizon promoted a free (as in from cost, copyright, patent, IP - forever) technology, I am all for it. In fact, if promoted a free technology, I would be all for it. I cannot see the evil here, but maybe because I'm looking at the freedom, and not just trying to make a buck at all costs. Bring on the nasty!
This serves two strategic purposes for Google. First, it advances a codec that's de facto controlled by Google at the expense of a codec that is a legitimate open standard controlled by a multi-vendor governance process managed by reputable international standards bodies. ("Open source" != "open standard".) And second, it will slow the transition to HTML5 and away from Flash by creating more confusion about which codec to use for HTML5 video, which benefits Google by hurting Apple (since Apple doesn't want to support Flash), but also sucks for users.
"Isn't Google really standing up for freedom and justice, because H.264 requires evil patent licensing?"
You say "patent licensing" as if it was just signing a legal agreement. Their license requires significant royalties to be paid and which we must all pay. We all pay a MPEG LA tax when we buy any of the devices or software that has to decode H.264.
While those that despise Adobe Flash are desperate to see it replaced all I know is I've never had to pay a penny to use the Flash plugin.
I have no problem with the standard being controlled by Google since they are making it available gratis. Apple / Microsoft a
You say "patent licensing" as if it was just signing a legal agreement. Their license requires significant royalties to be paid and which we must all pay.
And more importantly, if a patented piece of software requires payment of any royalties whatsoever, it instantly violates the "no further encumbrances" section of the GPL. If that software derives from or includes any GPL components, poof, it instantly loses the right to be distributed.
So if you want video on a Free Software system at the moment you must choose one of the following four options:
1. Abandon the GPL and any dreams of having a fully free desktop system. Just bow, accept that The Market Has Spoken And Freedom Is Dead.
2. Abandon the USA as a market for a regime which doesn't recognise software patents, and hope international treaties don't impose US-like silliness on the world.
3. Abandon the law. Resign yourself to breaking the law and either living like a fugitive, accepting the penalties or trying to make a test case out of your lawsuit.
4. Abandon the known patent-tainted H.264 for a (hopefully) non-patented alternative like WebM, or one for which the patent imposes non GPL-violating encumbrances.
(or, as a temporary solution, sequester the video-rendering component in third-party "dirty" code, like a Flash plugin, written using no GPL libraries, while you initiate a proper project to replace it).
You say "patent licensing" as if it was just signing a legal agreement. Their license requires significant royalties to be paid and which we must all pay.
And more importantly, if a patented piece of software requires payment of any royalties whatsoever, it instantly violates the "no further encumbrances" section of the GPL. If that software derives from or includes any GPL components, poof, it instantly loses the right to be distributed.
So if you want video on a Free Software system at the moment you must choose one of the following four options:
1. Abandon the GPL and any dreams of having a fully free desktop system. Just bow, accept that The Market Has Spoken And Freedom Is Dead.
2. Abandon the USA as a market for a regime which doesn't recognise software patents, and hope international treaties don't impose US-like silliness on the world.
3. Abandon the law. Resign yourself to breaking the law and either living like a fugitive, accepting the penalties or trying to make a test case out of your lawsuit.
4. Abandon the known patent-tainted H.264 for a (hopefully) non-patented alternative like WebM, or one for which the patent imposes non GPL-violating encumbrances.
(or, as a temporary solution, sequester the video-rendering component in third-party "dirty" code, like a Flash plugin, written using no GPL libraries, while you initiate a proper project to replace it).
Or you could develop a superior codec, get hardware manufacturers to support it in hardware, and then enjoy your ideological purity.
Of course, that would take a significant amount of time and effort and a full time team of people working on it, people who would require pay. Plus you'd need a war chest to fight off patent trolls, etc. Probably need to market it too since you would want people to come to your movie store and your video streaming site.
4. Abandon the known patent-tainted H.264 for a (hopefully) non-patented alternative like WebM, or one for which the patent imposes non GPL-violating encumbrances.
That's the sad misconception here. WebM is likely just as patent-encumbered as MPEG-4. We just don't know what the patents are, who controls them, or whether or not the owners intend to enforce them.
Your genes are likely to be patented, under the current patent system in US. There is a lot $$$ to be gained from suing Google. Why hasn't anyone done it?
The value of a patent goes up with the difficulty of circumventing it.
If someone asserts now, it's not too late for Google to say, "Whoops, WebM is actually covered with patents, we'll switch to H.264."
If someone asserts after WebM takes off, it is a LOT harder to switch.
Hence the term "submarine patent" - It's out there, the holder knows it is applicable, but they wait for a high-value target. ("High-value" meaning people are using the patent widely.)
There is much contention as to if WebM/VP8 violates those patents or not and Google has DEEP pockets DEEP enough to litigate the issue until the technology is obsolete, so I don't see the need for the patent pool.
WebM is a multi-vendor standard: multiple independent implementations exist, and people outside Google have contributed to both the libvpx implementation and the evolution of the codec. Work is ongoing to publish a spec through an official standards organization.
Dark Shikari's inferences about patents are FUD. Notice that despite being an expert, he could not identify any specific patents VP8 is alleged to infringe. No-one else has either.
Sez you. I don't know. Are YOU a lawyer, or just another ideologue?
Maybe you're right. Then why should Google not support both codecs?
The latest GPL license is a kamikaze attack on software, and a plea for crap written in mother's basement.
You know, "hundreds of billions of dollars worth of tablets, smartphones, set-top boxes, etc. with H.264 hardware support" will be rendered obsolete regardless.
That said, I do think this move will hurt users more than anyone else. needs to be as neutral as , i.e. support the common formats out there.
Web developers are a lazy breed. They'll most likely serve the same h.264 in a flash fallback.
Anything that slows or halts the transition to a standard that depends on commercialized patents is good for users. If MPEG LA has its way, everyone who uses firefox (for example) will have to buy a proprietary plug-in to use youtube. If Google has its way (which I don't like either, but for different reasons), we won't. We shouldn't allow web video to be held hostage for the next 18 years by large corporations, whether it's a single corporation or a coalition. If WebM turns out to have patent troubles,
Anything that slows or halts the transition to a standard that depends on commercialized patents is good for users. If MPEG LA has its way, everyone who uses firefox (for example) will have to buy a proprietary plug-in to use youtube.
Pure FUD. The per-decoder license fee for H.264 is $0.20, capped at (IIRC) $4M/year. Firefox could simply pay out of the pool of cash it collects from search engine referrals, or, even more sensibly, avoid the entire problem by using operating system libraries to decode H.264.
And, once again, why are you arguing as if WebM is actually unencumbered? This is extremely unlikely to be the case.
Incidentally, by damaging the prospects of HTML5/H.264, Google is effectively promoting Flash/H.264. All the same patents, except with a proprietary closed source browser plugin thrown into the mix as well. Not exactly a victory for freedom.
If you're saying it's FUD that firefox users will heave to pay for a decoder, then please explain how we can legally obtain a free one.
Using OS libraries doesn't address the problem, it just means you're using a commercial OS, or a free OS with a commercial decoder installed. $.20 is indeed very reasonable, but unless they're legally compelled to maintain that price level through the 2028, I'm skeptical. Drug dealers offer an even better deal -- first one's free.
Maybe, then, the free (as in beer) software movement has its limitations, much as I like some of it.
Firefox can certainly pay the codec out of referrals from Big Brother Google. Or Google could very easily fork over a few pennies from its Scrooge McDuck-sized treasury to bail out Firefox.
To be frank, Apple and Microsoft are already paying for OS X and Windows, and that's 98% of the desktop market right there.
Linux users are up the creek without a legal paddle again, but a) they're used to it -- the same thing happened with MPEG-2/DVD and MP3, and b) MPEG-LA tends to turn a blind eye to open source implementations of codecs when there's no plausible entity they could collect from anyway. In practice, there are already GPL-licensed H.264 decoders for L
An expert on codecs is not an expert on patents. The mere idea is ludicrous. His analysis in no way was based upon the specific claims of the patents, but instead was just broadly claiming that they do similar things.
A lot of very smart people have looked at the patents and completely disagree with him. Further, Google is available for all of their lawsuit target needs, yet the silence is deafening.
The best part is that licensing h.264 in no way protects you from patents either -- at any point in the future
No software is currently safe from patent trolls. That is, any complex piece of software could probably be found to be infringing on some patent if someone looked hard enough. Google is taking a stance of protecting WebM from such trolls, while H.264 is explicitly patent encumbered (and therefore ineligible for use in any W3C standard) regardless of what ISO says. It really comes down to money and other resources and that's why I think WebM has a chance of being a useful open format regardless of what one "
Yeah... HTML5 video is sooooooo numerous these days, that you can't even find Flash based video content delivery these days. Right?
No. Expert opinion [multimedia.cx] is that WebM infringes on numerous patents in the H.264 pool
He's a technical expert. Or did the title stating that he's evaluation is a technical one throw you off.
He does not state that VP8 infringes on any H.264 patents.(Pulling pineapples like that out of your ass must hurt, right?)
You are right, "open standard" != "open source". It seems anyone and his cat seems to be able to turn any proprietary, royalty-requiring thing an open standard. But note that the H.264 "open standard" is one for how to reproduce H.264 video. Most mainstream formats have been standardized in how to open them. And just because something is an open standard, it has no relation with it having a legitimate right to becoming a web standard. Because the web, demands more than just being an open standard. By that l
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means
for going backwards.
-- Aldous Huxley
A really nasty trick (Score:3, Interesting)
This serves two strategic purposes for Google. First, it advances a codec that's de facto controlled by Google at the expense of a codec that is a legitimate open standard controlled by a multi-vendor governance process managed by reputable international standards bodies. ("Open source" != "open standard".) And second, it will slow the transition to HTML5 and away from Flash by creating more confusion about which codec to use for HTML5 video, which benefits Google by hurting Apple (since Apple doesn't want to support Flash), but also sucks for users.
It is, in other words, a thoroughly nasty bit of work. It's not quite as bad as selling consumers down the river to Verizon on 'net neutrality, but it's close. And if Google is actually successful in making WebM, not H.264, the standard codec for web video, they're literally going to render hundreds of billions of dollars worth of tablets, smartphones, set-top boxes, etc. with H.264 hardware support obsolete.
"But wait!", the OSS fans are saying. "Isn't Google really standing up for freedom and justice, because H.264 requires evil patent licensing?"
No. Expert opinion [multimedia.cx] is that WebM infringes on numerous patents in the H.264 pool, and will need a licensing pool of its own to be set up, just like Microsoft's VC-1 did. So the patents are a wash. This is Google manipulating the market entirely for selfish advantage here, and it's all the worse because they're pretending otherwise. And it's going to be really frustrating watching people fall for it.
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fuck it. i wonder how many software "patents" the standard "hello world" program violates.
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And if Google is actually successful in making WebM, not H.264, the standard codec for web video, they're literally going to render hundreds of billions of dollars worth of tablets, smartphones, set-top boxes, etc. with H.264 hardware support obsolete.
Silly hyperbole. People change their devices every 2-5 years anyway. With the growing strength of Android OS and the similarities in the Webm and H264 codecs, I don't see hardware manufacturers having major issues with the transition either.
I do not see that much of an issue here. It's not like H264 is going to drop off the face of the planet any time soon either.
Re:A really nasty trick (Score:5, Insightful)
Will people please stop citing an x264 developer's rant as an "expert opinion" on the video quality or patent risks of WebM? Next thing we'll indulge the musings of a Coca-Cola Company executive on health issues related to PepsiCo products.
Re:A really nasty trick (Score:4, Informative)
Huh? You seem to be under the impression that "x264" is some for-profit organization that owns the rights to H.264 or something. That's now how these standards work; H.264 was developed by standards committee, not by some particular organization.
x264 is an open source GPL-licensed H.264 encoder. I'm posting the opinion of an open source developer familiar with the technical and legal issues surrounding video codecs.
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Yeah, x264 is an open-source project. And we all know open-source projects never attract egomaniacs, and major contributors wouldn't derive significant value from their importance, which would be lost if their project was replaced by a competitor, right?
Oh, wait.
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x264 is an open source GPL-licensed H.264 encoder.
dual licened
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> x264 is an open source GPL-licensed H.264 encoder.
dual licensed by x264 LLC.
http://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/x264-devel/2010-July/007508.html [videolan.org]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
I highly doubt that On2 looked through the patents. I've heard of major companies telling their employees not to look through patents, that way they can claim some sort of plausible deniability should someone claim they violate a patent. Even if the H.264 patents are public knowledge, companies like On2 are disencentivized to look at them, due to the current mess our patent litigation system is in.
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WebM can use many of the same acceleration blocks as H.264, it is a matter of writing the codecs that use the hardware.
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That's nice in theory, but in practice a lot of devices are going to get left behind. Consumer electronics device vendors aren't always great with updates.
And then, of course, there are all of the devices that don't connect directly to the web, but still stream/play video. Vendors of many of those devices probably won't feel especially compelled to implement WebM at all... but of course it will be a big hassle for content providers if they have to encode everything once for web sites, and then a second time
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Consumer electronics device vendors aren't always great with updates.
But Android devices are generally pretty good. Google wins again.
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http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html [android.com]
Humorously the uptake rate of new Android versions exceeds the rate that Apple has gotten updates adopted.
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It already is. And has been for quite a while. Apple not being the heroes here with requirements for video used in iOS based devices.
No it's not. We got past the audio stuff. Yet some issues still remain
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WebM can use many of the same acceleration blocks as H.264, it is a matter of writing the codecs that use the hardware.
Hence why it also is likely to run afoul of some H.264 patents. It's a pretty unoriginal ripoff of H.264.
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Or, you know, you can't reinvent the wheel thirty times without eventually falling back on the same basic concepts and H.264 and WebM share unpatented portions? You can't seriously believe every single thing H.264 does is patented, can you?
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In that case, WebM definitely violates H.264 patents. I am bringing out the popcorn - this is going to be fun!
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Not really. In the past, hardware acceleration of video was done partially, with a few semi-general-purpose blocks.
However, most modern H.264 hardware acceleration is full bitstream decoding - feed it a bitstream and it displays. It's not partitioned into easily "gluable" blocks like it used to be.
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So, OK, I'll buy most of that argument. But how is Google going to control the market using Chrome, which has 10% marketshare?
Why wouldn't h.264-using chrome fans simply install a chrome extension that brings back the h.264?
Why wouldn't the open-source chrome get forked to keep h.264 intact for those who want it?
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The answer to all of these is that web developers generally won't start using technologies until there's very wide support for them. Dropping out of the box support in Chrome, even if a plugin is available, will do significant damage to the momentum HTML5/H.264 was finally staring to build up. Some web developers will figure they should probably just stick with Flash until this all settles out.
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Expert opinion [multimedia.cx] is that WebM infringes on numerous patents in the H.264 pool, and will need a licensing pool of its own to be set up, just like Microsoft's VC-1 did.
Sorry, but an x264 developer is not a lawyer. Citing him as an "expert" on whether or not WebM infringes patents is frankly rather silly.
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I am all for nasty work that promotes free (as in from cost, copyright, patent, IP - forever) standards any day. If Verizon promoted a free (as in from cost, copyright, patent, IP - forever) technology, I am all for it. In fact, if promoted a free technology, I would be all for it. I cannot see the evil here, but maybe because I'm looking at the freedom, and not just trying to make a buck at all costs. Bring on the nasty!
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This serves two strategic purposes for Google. First, it advances a codec that's de facto controlled by Google at the expense of a codec that is a legitimate open standard controlled by a multi-vendor governance process managed by reputable international standards bodies. ("Open source" != "open standard".) And second, it will slow the transition to HTML5 and away from Flash by creating more confusion about which codec to use for HTML5 video, which benefits Google by hurting Apple (since Apple doesn't want to support Flash), but also sucks for users.
"Isn't Google really standing up for freedom and justice, because H.264 requires evil patent licensing?"
You say "patent licensing" as if it was just signing a legal agreement. Their license requires significant royalties to be paid and which we must all pay. We all pay a MPEG LA tax when we buy any of the devices or software that has to decode H.264.
While those that despise Adobe Flash are desperate to see it replaced all I know is I've never had to pay a penny to use the Flash plugin.
I have no problem with the standard being controlled by Google since they are making it available gratis. Apple / Microsoft a
Re:A really nasty trick (Score:5, Insightful)
You say "patent licensing" as if it was just signing a legal agreement. Their license requires significant royalties to be paid and which we must all pay.
And more importantly, if a patented piece of software requires payment of any royalties whatsoever, it instantly violates the "no further encumbrances" section of the GPL. If that software derives from or includes any GPL components, poof, it instantly loses the right to be distributed.
So if you want video on a Free Software system at the moment you must choose one of the following four options:
1. Abandon the GPL and any dreams of having a fully free desktop system. Just bow, accept that The Market Has Spoken And Freedom Is Dead.
2. Abandon the USA as a market for a regime which doesn't recognise software patents, and hope international treaties don't impose US-like silliness on the world.
3. Abandon the law. Resign yourself to breaking the law and either living like a fugitive, accepting the penalties or trying to make a test case out of your lawsuit.
4. Abandon the known patent-tainted H.264 for a (hopefully) non-patented alternative like WebM, or one for which the patent imposes non GPL-violating encumbrances.
(or, as a temporary solution, sequester the video-rendering component in third-party "dirty" code, like a Flash plugin, written using no GPL libraries, while you initiate a proper project to replace it).
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You say "patent licensing" as if it was just signing a legal agreement. Their license requires significant royalties to be paid and which we must all pay.
And more importantly, if a patented piece of software requires payment of any royalties whatsoever, it instantly violates the "no further encumbrances" section of the GPL. If that software derives from or includes any GPL components, poof, it instantly loses the right to be distributed.
So if you want video on a Free Software system at the moment you must choose one of the following four options:
1. Abandon the GPL and any dreams of having a fully free desktop system. Just bow, accept that The Market Has Spoken And Freedom Is Dead.
2. Abandon the USA as a market for a regime which doesn't recognise software patents, and hope international treaties don't impose US-like silliness on the world.
3. Abandon the law. Resign yourself to breaking the law and either living like a fugitive, accepting the penalties or trying to make a test case out of your lawsuit.
4. Abandon the known patent-tainted H.264 for a (hopefully) non-patented alternative like WebM, or one for which the patent imposes non GPL-violating encumbrances.
(or, as a temporary solution, sequester the video-rendering component in third-party "dirty" code, like a Flash plugin, written using no GPL libraries, while you initiate a proper project to replace it).
Or you could develop a superior codec, get hardware manufacturers to support it in hardware, and then enjoy your ideological purity. Of course, that would take a significant amount of time and effort and a full time team of people working on it, people who would require pay. Plus you'd need a war chest to fight off patent trolls, etc. Probably need to market it too since you would want people to come to your movie store and your video streaming site.
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That's the sad misconception here. WebM is likely just as patent-encumbered as MPEG-4. We just don't know what the patents are, who controls them, or whether or not the owners intend to enforce them.
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Ever heard of a "submarine patent"?
The value of a patent goes up with the difficulty of circumventing it.
If someone asserts now, it's not too late for Google to say, "Whoops, WebM is actually covered with patents, we'll switch to H.264."
If someone asserts after WebM takes off, it is a LOT harder to switch.
Hence the term "submarine patent" - It's out there, the holder knows it is applicable, but they wait for a high-value target. ("High-value" meaning people are using the patent widely.)
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It's not an expert option because he's not a lawyer.
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There is much contention as to if WebM/VP8 violates those patents or not and Google has DEEP pockets DEEP enough to litigate the issue until the technology is obsolete, so I don't see the need for the patent pool.
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WebM is a multi-vendor standard: multiple independent implementations exist, and people outside Google have contributed to both the libvpx implementation and the evolution of the codec. Work is ongoing to publish a spec through an official standards organization.
Dark Shikari's inferences about patents are FUD. Notice that despite being an expert, he could not identify any specific patents VP8 is alleged to infringe. No-one else has either.
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You know, "hundreds of billions of dollars worth of tablets, smartphones, set-top boxes, etc. with H.264 hardware support" will be rendered obsolete regardless.
That said, I do think this move will hurt users more than anyone else. needs to be as neutral as , i.e. support the common formats out there.
Web developers are a lazy breed. They'll most likely serve the same h.264 in a flash fallback.
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Anything that slows or halts the transition to a standard that depends on commercialized patents is good for users. If MPEG LA has its way, everyone who uses firefox (for example) will have to buy a proprietary plug-in to use youtube. If Google has its way (which I don't like either, but for different reasons), we won't. We shouldn't allow web video to be held hostage for the next 18 years by large corporations, whether it's a single corporation or a coalition. If WebM turns out to have patent troubles,
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Pure FUD. The per-decoder license fee for H.264 is $0.20, capped at (IIRC) $4M/year. Firefox could simply pay out of the pool of cash it collects from search engine referrals, or, even more sensibly, avoid the entire problem by using operating system libraries to decode H.264.
And, once again, why are you arguing as if WebM is actually unencumbered? This is extremely unlikely to be the case.
Incidentally, by damaging the prospects of HTML5/H.264, Google is effectively promoting Flash/H.264. All the same patents, except with a proprietary closed source browser plugin thrown into the mix as well. Not exactly a victory for freedom.
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If you're saying it's FUD that firefox users will heave to pay for a decoder, then please explain how we can legally obtain a free one.
Using OS libraries doesn't address the problem, it just means you're using a commercial OS, or a free OS with a commercial decoder installed. $.20 is indeed very reasonable, but unless they're legally compelled to maintain that price level through the 2028, I'm skeptical. Drug dealers offer an even better deal -- first one's free.
The fact that mozilla has enough cash to de
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To be frank, Apple and Microsoft are already paying for OS X and Windows, and that's 98% of the desktop market right there.
Linux users are up the creek without a legal paddle again, but a) they're used to it -- the same thing happened with MPEG-2/DVD and MP3, and b) MPEG-LA tends to turn a blind eye to open source implementations of codecs when there's no plausible entity they could collect from anyway. In practice, there are already GPL-licensed H.264 decoders for L
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An expert on codecs is not an expert on patents. The mere idea is ludicrous. His analysis in no way was based upon the specific claims of the patents, but instead was just broadly claiming that they do similar things.
A lot of very smart people have looked at the patents and completely disagree with him. Further, Google is available for all of their lawsuit target needs, yet the silence is deafening.
The best part is that licensing h.264 in no way protects you from patents either -- at any point in the future
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No software is currently safe from patent trolls. That is, any complex piece of software could probably be found to be infringing on some patent if someone looked hard enough. Google is taking a stance of protecting WebM from such trolls, while H.264 is explicitly patent encumbered (and therefore ineligible for use in any W3C standard) regardless of what ISO says. It really comes down to money and other resources and that's why I think WebM has a chance of being a useful open format regardless of what one "
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Yeah... HTML5 video is sooooooo numerous these days, that you can't even find Flash based video content delivery these days. Right?
He's a technical expert. Or did the title stating that he's evaluation is a technical one throw you off.
He does not state that VP8 infringes on any H.264 patents.(Pulling pineapples like that out of your ass must hurt, right?)
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