Google Announces WebM Community Cross Licensing 120
theweatherelectric writes "Google's WebM project has announced the formation of the WebM Community Cross-License Initiative. Members of the WebM-CCL agree to license patents they may hold that are essential to WebM technologies to other members under royalty-free terms. This initiative would seem to address some of Microsoft's concerns about WebM. Meanwhile, the MPEG LA appears to have remained silent after the submission period of its call for patents essential to WebM ended over a month ago."
GOOG isnt so sure anymore (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:GOOG isnt so sure anymore (Score:5, Informative)
Have you had a look at the list of companies that join this CCL?
Besides Google we have Xiph.org (who develop Ogg Vorbis, which is the audio codec used by WebM), Matroska (the WEbM container is based on their container format), Mozilla and Opera (who use WebM in their browsers), companies lei MIPS and TI who most probably are in the process of developing chips who will use WebM in hardware, and so on.
These are companies that use WebM in some way and who join the CCL to support each other and the format against patent trolls and attacks like that of MPEG-LA (read: Microsoft and Apple).
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Apple has only one patent in the MPEG-LA and it is the one for the container format. I doubt that Apple has any intention to sue anyone over WeBM. Ditto for Microsoft. It's more likely that they're just satisfied with what they have and don't want to risk being sued over a visually inferior format.
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What about the trolls at MPEG-LA?
Their "Raison d'Ãtre" is to make $ by suing.
Can you actually see MS or Apple telling MPEG-LA to back-off?
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If one of the MPEG-LA members wants to sue, what business is it of Microsoft or Apple? You can't say that either of those companies is attacking WebM because a third patent holder starts throwing their weight around.
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Who says a member has to want to sue or not.
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So if the owner of the patent has no control over any lawsuit by MPEG LA (which I doubt) then it there is even less reason to lay the blame on Apple or Microsoft.
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Have you had a look at the list of companies that join this CCL?
Exactly. Every company in the CCL is a company that has one of the following:
In other words, before the CCL, Apple and Microsoft-Nokia could spout FUD about Google not having all the necessary patents to make WebM safe, even though there wasn't a snowball's chance in heck they'd get sued by the likes of Xiph or Matros
MPEG-LA says the exact same thing (Score:3)
MPEG-LA is a mutually beneficial organization too.
They're both patent pools.
TI isn't really developing new chips, they are developing new software for their chips (DSPs) which is actually better because it means WebM acceleration will be available more quickly and on a wider range of devices than if you had to wait for new chips.
Calling MS and Apple patent trolls is to misuse the term. Patent trolls are companies that don't develop anything, they just make claims against other people's products. MS and Appl
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MPEG-LA is a mutually beneficial organization too.
They're both patent pools.
They're not even remotely comparable, and MPEG-LA is not all that mutually beneficial. The CCL Initiative uses royalty free licensing that can be sublicensed, which means you pay nothing even if you're using open source software. By contrast, you have to pay MPEG-LA, even if you have patents in the patent pool, so the only "mutual benefit" you get is the ability to subtract your own patent royalties from how much you pay. (Of course, if you don't sell any actual products or services, it's a really great dea
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These are companies that use WebM in some way and who join the CCL to support each other and the format against patent trolls and attacks like that of MPEG-LA (read: Microsoft and Apple).
There are about thirty H.264 licensors.
Including global industrial giants like Mitsubishi, Philips, Samsung and Toshiba.
1,000 H.264 licensees.
H.264 is a global standard in digital television - and if you want to know who the major players are here you need to be looking across the Pacific -
and not at Cupertino or Redmond.
Re:GOOG isnt so sure anymore (Score:4, Informative)
If Microsoft really wanted WebM dead so bad, then why is it the only codec other than H.264 that's whitelisted in IE9's implementation of HTML5 video?
(the codec itself needs to be separately downloaded [google.com], but it's the only third-party codec that IE9 allows)
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Why was this better than h.264 again?! Technically it isn't, it's worse. It was supposed to be all about patents...
Am I alone in thinking we're being lied to by Google?
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No, but no matter how deluded or paranoid the chances are good that you're not alone in thinking it.
Google is an American company and in America you can never be completely free of some bogus patent that somebody has managed to get by the USPTO, and because they don't ever bother with verifying that something is actually eligible before granting it a patent it's nigh impossible to ever have something that's truly patent free.
Plus, it's better because of the royalty free bit. H.264 is not royalty free and ne
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That's the problem with the current system. Nobody can EVER be 100% sure they're not infringing on a patent, even if they invent the entire specialty by themselves in private and receive a patent for it. There exists no procedure at all, much less a practical one for gaining that assurance.
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Heard that one before (Score:3)
"But the truth is, H.264 is just too late. MPEG2 is already everywhere..."
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VHS (Score:4, Interesting)
VHS had worse picture quality than Betamax, but you could do much more with it.
MPEG-LA is now in the position of having to compete against a free alternative, that's probably good enough for most applications.
Two or three times now they've announced a ramp-up in royalty rates, to be beaten back by industry pressure. Their business model has always been to start out with low prices, then ramp them up later. What's their business model now?
If h.264 stays cheap forever, then Google has won. If People switch to WebM, then Google has won. Either way, their investment pays back; and people wonder how anybody can ever make money with free software.
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If h.264 stays cheap forever, then Google has won. If People switch to WebM, then Google has won. Either way, their investment pays back; and people wonder how anybody can ever make money with free software.
...even after Google, apparently, just did?
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MPEG-LA is now in the position of having to compete against a free alternative, that's probably good enough for most applications.
A free alternative to replace the one everyone has already invested in. Because that worked so well for ogg vorbis (a much closed comparison than your strained Betamax analogy.)
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Their business model has always been to start out with low prices, then ramp them up later.
Somehow I don't remember that part where DVD players - their most important patent pool - became more and more expensive. Yes, fractions within the MPEG LA do want to raise royalties but other fractions want to use it to sell H.264 hardware and want the decoding royalties to be minimal.
I also very much doubt some of the other big players gave up their efforts for a standard license, like say Microsoft and VC-1. I'm pretty sure they negotiated a license for the whole duration of the patents before dropping i
Re:GOOG isnt so sure anymore (Score:4, Informative)
H.264 is only around for as long as MPEG-LA doesn't charge you for viewing as well as decoding the video files.
Take a good look at what they can do. they can place a per viewer, per decoder, per encoder, per streamed, charge on every video you view online.
Right now they only charge for the streamers, and encoders. but every year they release a statement saying they can do the rest but aren't for the next couple of years.
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But the truth is, WP8/WebM is just too late. H.264 is already everywhere..
Ubiquitous technologies have been supplanted by upstarts since antiquity. Technically superior solutions have also been steamrolled by inferior tech too many times to count. You are a fool to discount WebM.
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Typical technophile mindset. The whole point of standards is that there *won't* be a next round, there's been dozens of superior technologies compared to JPEG, but nobody outside of a few nerds cared because JPEG is "good enough".
Both WebM and H.264 are "good enough" for video, they're both better than DivX which was becoming the de-facto standard until Flash came up. Problem is, regardless of your speech about devices irrelevant to the discussion, neither is pervasive enough that you'd avoid having a rehas
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and your comment is also proof that brain is not essential part for some people to function.
most (99.999999%) of software patents are just observing the life and written in code, thus not invented. and when 99.99% of process is consisting bogus obvious claims where people claim they invented something... how can this be essential? i will go so far and admit the rest could be treated as valid inventions, but how to separate them from bogus claims when people granting patent have no clue about what they are g
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an actual citation instead of a forum thread full of crap [uspto.gov] (only one guy in that forum thread seems to know anything about patents)
In short and quite specifically, your claim that Microsoft patented or tried to patent virtual desktops is bullshit. In general, you do not seem
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wrong link in copy/paste. sorry for that
it seems you missed the point i tried to show. it wasn't to blame microsoft for anything. just patent nonsense and inability to discover which patent is actual invention and which one is not (either by prior art or triviality where simple life occurrence was presented in the code form). main problem being that people in patent office don't even understand what they are granting patent for (missed in 99.99% in software)
not software ones, but i liked these very much
inv
Wait there ARE patents with WebM? (Score:4, Insightful)
I know... you can't take a step in any direction without infringing on some software patent somewhere, so it can't be expected that there aren't patents that cover some aspect of video "on the internet." But this consortium that requires membership? Hrm... I guess it's part of how we all agree "not to sue each other" analogous to peace accords and treaties.
And MPEG-LA remained silent? Of course they did! If they spoke up, they wouldn't be able to file law suits later! It's what they exist for, after all. Why would anyone expect MPEG-LA to speak up and act against their very purpose for existence? No one has to be insightful or prophetic to predict that if/when WebM becomes the defacto standard, MPEG-LA will file suits.
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It's difficult to do anything with antitrust over patents. Patents are a government-granted monopoly, and the patent holder(s) are free to do whatever they want, abusive or not, with their patents for the duration the patent is valid. Patents are not granted on the condition that the patent owner play nice with others.
Moreover, it's hard to pin anything particularly abusive on the MPEG-LA, as the pool is licensed under reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. As patent licenses go, the MPEG-LA's terms ar
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MPEG-LA is a troll organization that sues on behalf of "its members." They are more like the **AAs than a group who mutually agree not to sue one another.
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WebM was probably spurred by the threat that MPEG-LA would only allow use of h.264 without heavy royalties, not just ont he streaming services, but also on the individuals producing the h.264 content. Only after WebM was announced did MPEG-LA retract that lime limit for free use in non-commercial uses. Even then, I guess YouTube partners and YouTube are still in hot water, as they are definitely commercial applications.
As it stands. h.264 is great for high quality, high bandwidth delivery, where WebM seems
Re:Wait there ARE patents with WebM? (Score:4, Interesting)
The important thing is the royalty free part.
See, there are 2 kinds of reasons to contribute to these codecs: 1) to collect license fees 2) to actually sell products that use them.
For the companies in (2), the license fees are a nuisance that potentially stops their products from getting more widespread acceptance. This is why some big guys, which are mostly (2), already joined Google. Even if they gain from the license fees, its much smaller than the actual product sales. They tend to be in the MPEG-LA only because that makes it cheaper to do (2), not because they want (1).
So, if you revenue "depended on video codecs", the critical question is if your revenue is coming only from the patents (also called "patent troll") or if you were actually making products.
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Re:Wait there ARE patents with WebM? (Score:4, Interesting)
So MPEG-LA is the root of evil because year after year they remain silent?
Hardly silent. Most people don't like them because their business plan is to "get 'em hooked first, then start charging them" like a drug dealer does.
It's just that WebM prevents a credible enough threat to that business plan that it keeps getting revised to be less offensive. If WebM weren't around, they'd be charging individuals per minute of their home movies of the kids. Which would create a market incentive for something like a WebM.
The market works, except for government interference. In this case, patents could tilt this balance, which is what this article is about.
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If Google is smart they'll merely stop the ability to upload nonconverted H.264 video, so that all existing videos continue to work on older, non-updateable devices.
Apple, Apple, fap, fap, fap, Apple (Score:2, Funny)
Yep. Flash would not have gone anywhere without Apple. Google Maps would not have gone anywhere without Apple. Youtube would not have gone anywhere without Apple. MP3 would not have gone anywhere without Apple. Fuck, even technology companies like Google, Micosoft, Adobe, SAP, Oracle would not have gone anywhere without Apple. Fuck that, even web-oriented companies like Amazon, Netflix, Facebook would not have gone anywhere without Apple.
For any technology to survive, it has to get Apple's blessing. Because
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I was just replying to GP's "It won't go anywhere unless they (Apple) do".
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Actually, this part is true. Flash would be far more prevalent without Apple's influence, because the "open" platforms seem bizarrely committed to preserving some other company's proprietary lock-in format.
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Oh grow up. Google has allowed closed source apps in the market from the beginning. Anyone who pays the fee can do it - including Adobe. Allowing flash on Android has nothing to do with being an "open" or "closed" platform.
I have a Motorola Droid 1. I downloaded the flash plugin from the market and checked it out, then I uninstalled it. Flash really doesn't interest me.
At the same time, I'm not a child. I don't need anyone to look out for me and tell me which technologies I should or shouldn't use. If you l
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Grow up?
I simply pointed out that the GP post was correct: Without Apple, Flash wasn't going anywhere. It would have remained entrenched as a de facto, closed, proprietary standard. Why? Because every other platform has insisted that they support it, despite the fact that Adobe seems incapable of writing a plugin that functions with any semblance of reliability.
"Allowing" flash on Android certainly has nothing to do with it being "open" or "closed." But when you tout "openness" as one of the defining c
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Do you still not understand this? Flash is not part of Android. It is not part of the Android browser. It is an app in the market. It is really that simple.
Do some phones ship with flash? Sure. Mine didn't, but some do. Mine also shipped with the Facebook app. The Facebook app isn't open.
Is anyone complaining? No. Do you know why? Because both Android and iPhone have Facebook apps, but only Android has flash, so immature iPhone users run around like headless chickens going on and on about this big "open" pa
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Almost like the 90's when every bit of tech we had somehow owed Microsoft thanks for it's existence.
I suppose after the Apple phase everyone will praise Google for 10 years or so.
Holders ? (Score:3)
Re:Holders ? (Score:4, Informative)
Does the WebM Project require that I join the CCL to use WebM?
No. Xiph.org, Matroska and Google make the WebM technologies available under an open-source BSD license. The terms and conditions of that open-source license have not changed.
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That doesn't say anything about patents though. Either there are no patents (or only patents licensed for free to anyone), in which case this CCL group is unnecessary, or there are patents, in which case you either have to join the group (presumably impossible for us regular schmoes) or face litigation. As an independent developer who'd like to maybe use WebM in one of my games, this tells me that WebM is unsafe and I should stick with Theora. Am I wrong?
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or face litigation
This can only happen when (1) There are patents (2) They're held by a company not bound to whatever patent pledge was given.
In other words, the situation is exactly the same as before.
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From the FAQ [webm-ccl.org]:
Does the WebM Project require that I join the CCL to use WebM?
No. Xiph.org, Matroska and Google make the WebM technologies available under an open-source BSD license. The terms and conditions of that open-source license have not changed.
Sorry, but in case other members do have patents, the actual terms say that only end users and members are protected, not persons developing, distributing WebM or using WebM for non-personal use.
MPEG is trouble (Score:3, Insightful)
When it happens, we won't be able to say that we weren't warned.
(Oh, but where's the trust!)
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So which one is troublesome? MPEG or MPEG LA?
You mention both, possibly assuming they're the same thing.
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You can use MPEG in your software for a low annual fee. They promise (MPEG LA) that for the next few years that fee will be capped at $5,000,000.00. A drop in the bucket for any gigantic corporation. Firefox isn't paying. I sure can't afford it.
No, they wouldn't sue me if I used it, but they could.
MPEG does not belong in HTML5, as it is heavily encumbered.
Re:MPEG is trouble (Score:4, Informative)
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MPEG is an ISO working group (the Motion Picture Experts Group), which oversees the creation of standards for encoding digital video. MPEG LA is an industry consortium that collects royalties on MPEG standards, after they are official ISO standards. There are some common members, but MPEG LA is not in any way affiliated with MPEG.
I understand that, I still don't see the conflict, but maybe I'm missing something?
I never said that MPEG == MPEG LA, I just mentioned them both. There is a relationship there and using mpeg standards implies MPEG LA licensing. We know that one is the group that creates the standards, and the registered file extension, the other is the group that enforces the patents on said standards.
So, am I missing something? Or is this some kind of a petty distraction?
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Has MPEG-LA done any wrong yet? (Score:2)
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but that WebM is theoretically safer to use than MPEG-LA.
That's upside down. H.264 is safer to use, but you have to pay license fees if your software encodes to H.264. WebM is a hope-for-the-best.. Even Google doesn't guarantee there won't be trouble with patents.
Has MPEG-LA caused any troubles or are people just assuming that one day MPEG-LA may do something dastardly evil?
They're asking a small percentage of the money you make using H.264. Evil, I know.
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H.264 is safer to use
Citation needed.
you have to pay license fees if your software encodes to H.264
And you don't know how much to whom yet, but you are already guaranteed a small part will be to the MPEG-LA. There are no other guarantees.
How is this safer? It isn't.
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H.264 is safer to use
Citation needed.
WP:NOR [wikipedia.org]
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That's upside down. H.264 is safer to use, but you have to pay license fees if your software encodes to H.264. WebM is a hope-for-the-best.. Even Google doesn't guarantee there won't be trouble with patents.
Incorrect, as Skuto also points out. They both run exactly the same risk. MPEG-LA exhort a percentage from anybody that infringes the pool of patents put together to prevent people using h.264, but they do not indemnify a licensee from infringement if a 3rd party has a patent covering h.264 not in that p
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Even Google doesn't guarantee there won't be trouble with patents.
As others have mentioned, neither does MPEG-LA. And after you've paid MPEG-LA for an H.264 patent license, you can pay AT&T [engadget.com] for an additional patent license. And after that, you can pay Philips/Sisvel [blogspot.com] for an additional patent license. And who knows who will be the next one to come knocking at your door...
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It is important to note that the MPEG-LA does *not* protect people paying their license fees from patent holders that may or may not exist outside of their patent pool. In that regard H.264 is in precisely the same boat as WebM. Both Google and MPEG-LA state that they believe that they own all of the required patents for implementing their respective standards. Neither indemnifies you against the chance that someone else owns a patent that applies.
The difference, of course, is that Google is happy to g
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Or are you saying that you aren't selling electricity so you don't need to pay for your company's electricity bill either?
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I think we will see some action eventually if the MPEG-LA gets desperate and sees their 'license' fees seriously under threat. That might well happen sooner rather than later because with one fell swoop Google has critic
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Has MPEG-LA caused any troubles
They've been spewing FUD about creating a licensing pool for VP8. If Google was right wrt. VP8 rights, that pool could only contain invalid patents. So it would have been interesting to see if anything really showed up in there. So far nothing turned up in the MPEG-LA pool, but the threat that this could happen is FUD to stop VP8/WebM.
So now Google is spewing back some counter-FUD.
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From my understanding, the codec by MPEG-LA is
And that's where you start to go wrong. There are no CODECs from MPEG-LA. There are CODECs from MPEG. There are patent licenses from MPEG-LA. MPEG-LA does not create CODECs, nor does it define standards. It just offers licenses for patents that you must infringe to implement some existing standards.
Members of both organizations (Score:2)
There are no CODECs from MPEG-LA. There are CODECs from MPEG. There are patent licenses from MPEG-LA. MPEG-LA does not create CODECs
The organizations have distinct functions, but as I understand it, the companies behind the codecs are members of both organizations. Or is there a fundamental difference between the memberships of MPEG and MPEG-LA that I'm also missing?
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No, they're just assuming they'll stick to their original "pay us for encoding, watching, hosting and/or supporting h.264 content" plan that was going to be in place until WebM posed a credible threat to their money-making scheme.
Some people think that's not evil, mostly out of a "I'm too small to sue for patent infringement" mindset, but those of us that like to stay within the bounds of the law believe differently.
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By actively targeting a specific competing codec and requesting any patents that may be relevant they are undermining the attempts of a competing format to organize and establish itself. Of course, in the eyes of MPEG-LA there's nothing wrong with that, but that's really not the way patents are supposed to work. It's really up to the companies using WebM themselves to sort out the legal issues.
At some point, it's just bashing... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think any global company in the history of the world has done more for open source and open standards as Google. Comparing apples to apples, and throwing out quality, streamability, and all the technical standards, who do you REALLY trust with backing up an open codec?
Microsoft, Apple, or Google?
Who profits most from open protocols? Who profits most from DRM? The distinction is clear, and MS or Apple bashing Google is just laughable at this point. They are the ones who for years profited from DRM while Google profited from linking to open sites and content.
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Apple do a fair bit too, which is kind of odd considering their rampant control-freakery.
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The only contributions from Apple that Im aware of are for Webkit-- there may be others, but I have not heard of them.
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Apple's lengthy list of open source contributions are listed at http://www.apple.com/opensource/ [apple.com]
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Who profits most from open protocols? Who profits most from DRM? The distinction is clear, and MS or Apple bashing Google is just laughable at this point. They are the ones who for years profited from DRM while Google profited from linking to open sites and content.
So Google is open because they made... a search engine? Because "linking to sites" is required for that. Where's the distinction between "open" and "closed" sites, anyway?
Also, how do Microsoft and Apple profit from DRM? Microsoft doesn't sell anything they could attach DRM to, and iTunes has been DRM-free for a while.
It's simply not true to say that Apple doesn't value openness - their products may be closed, but they often open-source significant portions of them. Darwin, the core of Mac OS X, is open
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Darwin, the core of Mac OS X, is open source, for example, as well as Webkit, Apple's browser layout engine used in most browsers today, including Google Chrome and Android. And Grand Central Dispatch. And FaceTime. I could go on.
I won't say that this argument proves much about Apple's attitude towards openness. Webkit is based on KHTML [wikimedia.org] which is LGPL and authorship not residing with Apple, so they absolutely had to open it up to satisfy the license.
The Darwin kernel is based on other free software work [wikimedia.org] (mostly BSD?), BTW. No, the BSD license might not force Apple to open-source it, but it doesn't hurt so much, open-sourcing code that's freely available anyways.
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I won't say that this argument proves much about Apple's attitude towards openness. Webkit is based on KHTML [wikimedia.org] which is LGPL and authorship not residing with Apple, so they absolutely had to open it up to satisfy the license.
Apple didn't have to choose KHTML as the basis for their layout engine, though. They could just have easily (well, maybe not just as easily) written their own engine from scratch, or found (or purchased) another engine to use. I'm sure Opera wouldn't have argued if Apple tried to put their browser in front of every Mac user.
The Darwin kernel is based on other free software work [wikimedia.org] (mostly BSD?), BTW. No, the BSD license might not force Apple to open-source it, but it doesn't hurt so much, open-sourcing code that's freely available anyways.
Honestly, I'm not sure at all how much of that code is Apple's own, or how free they are required to make it by the license, but it is under active development, so they at least deserv
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Darwin, the core of Mac OS X, is open source, for example, as well as Webkit, Apple's browser layout engine used in most browsers today, including Google Chrome and Android. And Grand Central Dispatch. And FaceTime. I could go on.
Just a little niggle. Webkit, "Apple's browser layout engine" started as a fork of an existing open-source project. And they finally open-sourced it after the KHTML group continued to blast them over non-disclosure agreements and lack of access to their bug database which prevented the ability to adequately integrate the changes back into the KHTML code. Essentially, they open-sourced it out of necessity for the life of the project not out of a sense of community or anything. So sorry, I don't give Apple po
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Yes, in general Google has been more committed to open source than Apple. But that doesn't mean that Google is
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No one has said it was black and white. However, it's not a fallacy that Google is much more open than Apple. Just look at their business models, Google doesn't open it's technologies only "when it doesn't impact [its] revenue". Google has many times opened it's technology as a point of maximizing its revenue. On that note, Apple doesn't open a technology when it doesn't impact revenue, Apple does it, like Google and any other company, because it helps the revenue by getting more developers involved. If the
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If Google suddenly locked Android down to only the Android Market and stopped allowing external installations of applications, it would be a complete surprise.
Which is why it was such a surprise when AT&T tried exactly that with the Motorola Backflip, HTC Aria, and Samsung Captivate. People who want to load unapproved applications on AT&T can't do it through the ordinary "Settings > Applications > Unknown sources" checkbox, which AT&T's custom firmware hides. Instead, they have to register with AT&T as a developer to get the Android Debug Bridge drivers for their phone model and then install apps through sideloading utilities that wrap ADB.
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Yup, which is why all my friends and family have been told not to get an Android phone from AT&T.
Pending regulatory approval, AT&T will become the only nationwide GSM provider in the United States. Are you recommending a switch to Verizon or to Sprint, even if others in one's household are already on an AT&T family plan?
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Pending regulatory approval...
Which I hope they do not get
AT&T will become the only nationwide GSM provider in the United States. Are you recommending a switch to Verizon or to Sprint, even if others in one's household are already on an AT&T family plan?
The advice I've given is that if you desire to get an Android phone either do not go with a phone from AT&T (perhaps buy one retail and put a sim card in it) or pick a phone that is know to be easily rootable and has custom roms. Generally if they are part of a family plan I recommend the latter since it makes sense to save money by joining the family plan.
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either do not go with a phone from AT&T (perhaps buy one retail and put a sim card in it)
Except AT&T charges just as much for a SIM-only plan as for a plan with a bundled phone.
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Huh? iTunes still has DRM. They just don't slap it onto music files any more.
I would also argue that Apple's whole "iOS" system is a bad case of DRM. In light of that the fact that Apple sell unencrypted Audio files seems quite unimportant.
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Yes, Google profits from data mining your private data, they have no particular interest in giving you ways to lock it up and secure it. They don't profit from DRM at all.
Actual costs of H.264 v. VP8 (Score:2)
Well, if we can live with "Comparing apples to apples, and throwing out quality, streamability, and all the technical standards" we'd be living on a very different planet with very different grounds for companies to decide on media technologies.
In the real world, it gets down to comparing the cost of licensing different technologies versus the costs of encode, cost of delivery, and breadth of playback for different technologies. Today, VP8 takes about 4x the time/joules to encode, 40% higher bitrate compare
Makes no sense for patent holder (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Not everybody is a patent troll, you know. Some companies prefer the formats to be used so they can sell hardware or software rather than litigation protection rackets.
Sure it does (Score:2)
If that was true, then no-one would be members of Open Invention Network [openinventionnetwork.com] or Open Patent Alliance [openpatentalliance.com], but both have several large companies that have joined and/or contributed patents.
Furthermore, Microsoft is a member of MPEG-LA and their VC-1 format is part of the Blu-Ray standard, but they still loose out on the deal, as they have to pay more in MPEG-LA licenses for windows than they get from their patents. They gain nothing by having MPEG-LA start charging license fees for WebM.
The fact is that no-one can d
BSA and MPEG-LA members (Score:2)
Business Software Alliance members [wikipedia.org]
MPEG-LA H.264 licensors [wikipedia.org]
Note how Microsoft and Apple are both members of the above groups (in case you haven't heard of BSA, they're basically the MPAA and RIAA of the software world). Google isn't a member of either group.
Any complaints that can be leveled against WebM can be leveled against H.264 (that is, it is just as likely that submarine patents exist for H.264 as for WebM). The difference is that Google is pushing for open standards that don't require license fees