Canonical Explains Decision to License H.264 For Ubuntu 372
tux writes with this snippet from The Register: "Ubuntu's commercial sponsor Canonical has tried to clarify how — if not why — it has licensed a closed-source and patented codec for video on PCs running its Linux. Canonical is the first Linux shop to have agreed to license the codec in question, H.264, from MPEG LA. Even though Red Hat and Novell are also available for use on PCs, they have not licensed H.264."
Good thing (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a great move for the Linux community, even if some "pure" free and open source people disagree. You cant get everything at once and expect casual people to put up with "it's proprietary so we dont support it" if they want to do something, or demand them to add some Russian repositories in the apt-get config file so they can get unlicensed, pirated versions of those and break the law. No, they will just get something that works for them. And H.264 has already clearly won this round, so anyone catering for casual people has to support it.
Like TFA notes, Canonical has also previously licensed well done closed source software for Ubuntu. You aren't losing your soul if you take the best from the both worlds. In fact you are still promoting open source software, and probably way more efficiently when people actually like the system and can use it the way they want to. I honestly dont think every software in the world should be open source, but the underlying system should be. But even if you want software and standards to be open too, after getting the open OS out there the next step is to create competitive, better alternatives for the software and standards.
Be focused on one thing, dont try to fight the whole world at once.
-sopssa
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Re:Good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe, but stuff like this needs to happen for widespread adoption of Linux, to make it legit in the eyes of the masses. The purists can always use other distros and/or hack together other working solutions. Remember, the beauty of Linux is that you always have a choice.
As an aside, I'm amused that sopssa has bad karma(excellent FP in this case). If you wanna get constant +5 first posts, you gotta play rough with the big boys, dude.
Re:Good thing (Score:4, Insightful)
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Any distro that wants to licence h.264 is no longer available for free. They will have to charge for it. I know that is what the propriatary companies want. But more importantly it's h.264 today. What do we give up tomorrow? ODF? Do we start licensing MONO? What standards do we start doing away with? HTML?
To me Ubuntu has never been a part of the open source world. They have always shown that they are willing to throw the rest of the open source world under the bus if it will get them market share or help t
Re:Good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't about open source, there exist completely open source decoders and encoders for h264.
This is about patents and the costs and consequences of licensing them.
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True, but in practice many FOSS folk use "open source" to include "patent and royalty free." And, just to be clear, an open source program can, according to a few well placed people, infringe upon patents.
Re:Good thing (Score:4, Insightful)
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...except there is enough variation in h264 that this still doesn't constitute a standard.
"Standardizing" on h264 just gets you in the general neighborhood. It still doesn't gaurantee that your video will play on any device.
Although if you do manage to find that "lowest common denominator", you will likely find it unsuitable for more robust clients.
This isn't quite like settling on mp3 or jpg.
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Re:Good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice pre-written bit of astroturf.
The only thing that's "clear" is that h.264 has hardly won anything yet. The round has not yet begun. Google controls youtube, and if they like VP8, and it happens to be free, look out world.
Just because Shuttleworth is buying some licenses for its OEM hardware partners does not mean you get proprietary codecs for free with your ubuntu download, unless you steal them. But this is like stealing a plastic bag. Why steal what someone else will give you for free?
Re:Good thing (Score:4, Insightful)
OK. easily 100x as many devices support earlier MPEG as h264. Is MPEG the double-super-special-winner?
Bluray and broadcast are not the issue here.
We are talking about the internet. The web. And marketshare. Sorenson Spark and On2 VP6 are the winners, and h264 is tiny, almost vanishing by comparison.
Apple, Microsoft and Adobe have their work cut out for them trying to force people off of free alternatives to h264. The folks behind this proprietary codec are kind of their own worst enemy - it would be very expensive and cumbersome for the world to switch to it. This is why a free codec is likely to win in the end, if any significant percentage of the users with a stake in it (such as youtube, and its viewers) get to choose.
Re:Good thing (Score:5, Informative)
or demand them to add some Russian repositories in the apt-get config file so they can get unlicensed, pirated versions of those and break the law.
Unless the term piracy now also includes patent infringement those codecs aren't pirated. They are simply illegal to distribute in the United States because the US allows software patents, and the software is covered by such US patents. The codecs in questions are perfectly legal in any country where software is not patentable.
Re:Good thing (Score:4, Insightful)
or demand them to add some Russian repositories in the apt-get config file so they can get unlicensed, pirated versions of those and break the law.
I mostly agree with the rest of your post but this part is just FUD. Firstly, the x264 project is not pirated software, it's an open source implementation of H264. Secondly, and most important, software patents are only really valid in one country with particularly skewed laws, the USA. Even there you'd need to spend minimum US$1 million on a patent lawsuit to see if the patent is even valid, let alone whether it applies to someone using it privately on a home computer.
I don't know about Ubuntu but for Opensuse the patented media codecs are hosted by the Packman project, a perfectly legitimate packaging project based in Germany that provides around 5000 extra packages that aren't in the main Opensuse repo.
Re:Good thing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not like an iPad where the alternative is to give up everything useful about the platform in the process.
Turning your back on Ubuntu won't turn you into some sort of Linux-Amisher.
You are free to come and go as you like (no vendorlock).
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This doesn't exactly map onto "vote with your wallet". So how are we supposed to 'vote' in a meaningful way.
This is a serious question. Not buying a product and advising anyone who will listen to do the same is one thing, but how exactly does one provide negative feedback to an Free Software project?
Critical posts on blogs and forums may have a cathartic effect for those who need to vent, but these days they tend to be either ignored or played down as 'the blathering of
Re:Good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are not the customer they are trying to reach then your voice doesn't matter and money doesn't always determine who they are trying to reach. What makes you think you have anything to say?
Re:Good thing (Score:4, Funny)
When I request a Linux feature, the usual response is "go develop it"... If you want Ubuntu, and the WWW, to not have to use H.264, the solution is easy: develop something better.
Re:Good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a serious question. Not buying a product and advising anyone who will listen to do the same is one thing, but how exactly does one provide negative feedback to an Free Software project?
First, an apology: I've really worked hard to keep this post from sounding confrontational, and it's honestly intended not to be. However, some of my wording might not express this as clearly as I'd like. None of this is meant to offend you, or to criticize your opinions or preferences in any way.
The ideal answer is to find a distro that fits your needs, then donate effort or money toward forwarding the project you agree with. I mean this without intending offense when I say that there are plenty of other excellent penguins in the sea, and you will find one that is right for you.
Canonical apparently is not, based on your own comments. They accept feedback, they react to it, but they also need to make decisions, and not all of those decisions are going to agree with what everyone who uses their product wants. Their stated goal is to be easy to use and support as much hardware and software (including codecs) as they possibly can. This is what they do.
Canonical is not made up of GPL purists, nor are they made up of OSS purists. They've never, ever claimed to be, and I don't think they should be. They are made up of a group that is trying to make Linux a viable, useful alternative for people who would have a stroke if they had to pull up a command line, and what everything they want to do supported out of the box. Their target market wants MP3. They want ATI/nVidia binary support. They want H.264. And they want it all legal and legit. Which means it's a perfectly logical decision for Canonical to license these technologies where they need to.
There are many hundreds people with varying levels of comfort with (pick your topic: GPL/binaries/FOSS/IP-protected stuff) who have their own distros, and they've refused to install all the stuff they don't like. Many of those folks also work hard on reproducing or even reverse-engineering open source drivers and codecs of their own to avoid closed source and patent-protected stuff. Much of that goes to clean up other distros, even Ubuntu, which to a Linux purist is a poxy whore from the wrong side of the tracks, but to the average Linux newbie is a safe haven from CLI hell. Neither is wrong.
Canonical is forwarding the Linux movement in their own way, which is to get a copy of something that non-techies can live with on their desktops. And that includes support for things that people want to use. Things like MP3, H.264, FAT, NTFS, Adobe Acrobat, Flash, and the list goes on. That means a dumbed-down desktop, lots of GUI tools, a "user privilege escalation" (SUDO) model, and a lot of things that give Linux or GPL or OSS purists the screaming heebie jeebies. And that is exactly as it should be - Linux is FREEDOM, and not everyone should be forced into the same exact model.
What stick does one wield if monetary punishment is not a viable option?
You don't. Unless you've somehow contributed, you don't have any leverage with someone who's given you something for free with no conditions attached.
Canonical is making what they think people want. They have a reporting system, and people use it a lot. Just look at the angst and gnashing of teeth surrounding the "moved window controls to left" issue. They do accept feedback on their decisions. But not everyone agrees on everything all the time. Sometimes, a lead developer just says "you know what? I'm the head asshole in charge, I'm doing the work here, and I'm going to wade in and shut down this long discussion because it's my project, and I occasionally get to call the shots, and this is the way it's gonna be."
This is more about how communities communicate to the 'executive' team to produce a product that folks can be happy with.
Most of their target market is not going t
Oh. Boo Freaking Hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
And why, exactly, does that bother you? It shouldn't, but apparently it does. Did they send someone over to specifically piss on your copy of Debain?
Or are you just assuming you've been wronged somehow in the process? Because I'll bet your life is not one iota different than it would have been had they not started with Debian. Except, of course, for the fact that you can now complain about them.
Re:Oh. Boo Freaking Hoo (Score:4, Insightful)
"And they accomplish this by starting with one of the purest open-source distros around -- Debian -- and then pissing all over it."
And why, exactly, does that bother you? It shouldn't, but apparently it does. Did they send someone over to specifically piss on your copy of Debian?
Or are you just assuming you've been wronged somehow in the process? Because I'll bet your life is not one iota different than it would have been had they not started with Debian.
Actually I'll bet it is.
Canonical's use of Debian as a base has had both good (some good press for debian as a side-effect of canonical's aggressive hype machine, and more people that are familiar with debian tools and infrastructure) and bad (many people who might otherwise help with debian help canonical instead, and the flow of fixes etc back to debian is at best spotty) effects on Debian, but it's surely had an effect.
I think what bothers many Debian users though, is simply the issue of "credit" -- though Canonical has done some good (and bad) work itself, through its aggressive self-promotion and targetting of new users, it inevitably ends up getting credit for stuff that's actually due to its Debian base, and I think some people feel that Canonical does not make enough effort to give Debian its due share of that credit.
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Fixes:
http://patches.ubuntu.com/ [ubuntu.com]
Credit:
http://www.ubuntu.com/community/ubuntustory/Debian [ubuntu.com]
I really don't know much about the history here, but this all seems pretty lame. Ubuntu doesn't hide it's Debian roots at all (it doesn't take much poking around to run into a Debian logo, .deb, etc). Also, Debian itself is based on a bunch of other works, it's how the community works.
For me, Ubuntu has been the up-to-date but still useable Debian; if I hadn't gotten used to the Debian world via Ubuntu, I would still
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How have they "pissed all over it"? Debian still exists, and is still thriving.
The very definition of open source is "you can take this code and do what you like with it (within legal limits)". You can't very well whine that they've done something you don't approve of with the code. If you want control over your source, keep it closed.
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Re:Good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, but fortunately "pissing all over it" in the Linux world means the original is still there, safe, secure, and quite unaffected.
Well, except where Ubuntu has submitted significant bug fixes back the Debian. If that's "pissing all over" something, then I need to start getting pissed on.
This is how Linux works. Everyone gets to play with copies of the same code. Some people play with it one way, some people play with it another. Everyone who pays attention sees opportunities to adapt what others are doing, or do the same thing a different way they feel is better.
It's like kids in a sandbox. As long as everyone gets to play with all the sand, various kids watch and learn from each other. One child adds a little water and says "look! I can model this!" Other children either emulate it and optimize sand/water ratios for various types of modeling, decide that modeling sand isn't their thing and go about their business, or (in the case of comments like the one I am replying to) scream "THAT'S NOT WHAT YOU DO WITH SAND!!!! STOP THAT!! YOU'RE WRONG!!! WET SAND IS WRONG!!! SAND SHOULD BE PURE!!!"
You can't do anything bad to a Linux distro unless you somehow corrupt its master source management tool. You can make your own copy, and you can do something with it that the original author might not like, but since the "original author" is using a codebase that is the result of the work of many thousands of people over decades, no one person gets to dictate what constitutes proper use, and what constitutes pissing all over it. As long as all of the users comply with the appropriate licensing requirements behind the code they are using (GPL, LGPL, trademarks on specific distro names, artwork copyright, etc), the original author has no say over how his or her code is eventually adapted and applied.
That's what "Open Source" means. Anyone can do anything they want with the source, and as long as they share their work when asked, no one can tell them not to. Not Linus Torvalds, and certainly not user "dunng808" at Slashdot.
Ubuntu is a quisling (Score:3, Insightful)
What ever happened to "Don't feed the patent trolls?"
Ubuntu LIES [ubuntu.com]
Is an h264-enabled web browser a core application? An h264-enabled video player? Etc., etc.
So much for their "philosophy" [ubuntu.com]
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Yes it means that I can play h.264 video on a Linux distro without jumping through hoops.
Honestly just use Debian if you really don't like it.
Canonical had three choices.
1. Not include it and cause new users problems. Maybe big enough problems that they stop using Linux
2. Just include it anyway and face a long nasty court battle.
3. Pay for it and include it.
Since they already offer Flash and the none GPL video drivers so this not being GPL is no big deal.
Re:Good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
> Yes it means that I can play h.264 video on a Linux distro without jumping through hoops.
Except that is already the case.
You don't have to "jump through hoops" to play h264 on Ubuntu. Just try to play the file and click next a few times.
The kind of mindless FUD you are trying to spread right this very moment is why Canonical is doing this.
If you feel like jumping through hoops, try playing a generic MPEG2 file on a Mac.
Re:Good thing (Score:4, Insightful)
"Except that is already the case."
Right. The technical aspects of h.264 were never an issue, its always been about the licensing. I don't think this is necessarily any kind of an issue for end users so much. If you to keep your linux rig purely oss, then opt of of installing that driver. This is really an issue if you want to distribute ubuntu in your nifty new thingamabob product, puts in an extra layer of paperwork and licensing for that.
Now on the other hand, creeping non-oss is a little scary, I don't blame those who feel like a near-total freak out is in order. Canonical ultimately can do what it wants, but if it wants to keep serving the oss community (at least better than red hat did), its need to check this kind of activity to a minimum.
Re:Good thing (Score:4, Insightful)
The Kernel is not all there is nor all that matters, and relatively speaking the kernel is of the most interest and benefit to the huge private corporations, while the stuff Canonical touches is of the most interested to the regular users--and even not-so-regular, however--alike.
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Re:Good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
It means an Ubuntu PC will work with the majority of sites on the Internet while yours won't. Now you can moan about that as much as you like, but 99% of people just don't care - they just want their PC to work.
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That's what Apple has been saying recently. Look how it's hurting them.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is not born out in the real world. Apple still refuses to put Flash on the iPhone / iPad. Microsoft has made switching browsers as hard as possible, and it took a federal lawsuit to force AT&T to allow customers to use their modems on the Be
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Re:Good thing (Score:4, Insightful)
What I don't understand is how Ubuntu (or OEMs) could take a GNU/Linux base, add non-free and patented components, and sell the result as a unit. Doesn't the GPL prevent this?
Not at all, so long as they provide source for all the gpl licensed things, people are free to write commercial software for linux just fine.
Using linux syscalls does not make a program gpl, linking to a gpl library does, but that's what the lgpl is for and why most libraries are under the lgpl.
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As long as MPEG LA is threatening all competing codecs equally with patent suits, we can't really win on ideology front, so let's go with the codec that is most popular and also happens to have ubiquitous hardware support.
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I disagree. I think
- Open Source should not be about less choice, but more. Are we bashing OOo for being somewhat compatible with MS's formats ? Or Linux for running on a proprietary architecture ?
- Proprietary formats are evil, underoptimized, expensive, buggy, risky long-term... Open Source should have no problems coming up with better alternatives. In this case, it seems there's a problem (hint !)
- This is Real Life, compromises must be made. Proprietary software, hardware, formats are everywhere. While
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IIRC, posts modded Funny does not give any karma bonus.
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No, but if you're lucky someone mods a joke as +1 informative
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Look up some basic patent definitions; you don't even need to get into patent law.
Patents protect the owners from others selling/distributing infringing products. They give the patent owners a monopoly on the sale/distribution of these products. A competing company, however, is free to product infringing products for internal testing, etc as long as they don't distribute them in anyway. This is why you see generic drugs appear on the market the DAY the patents expire. They completed their FCC testing using
WHY? (Score:5, Insightful)
HOW? (Score:5, Informative)
Since TFS is so suckily misleading, I actually RTFA this time. Everybody's been saying it's legally impossible for Mozilla to license H.264 for Firefox, because MPEG LA requires a limit on the number of installs or something. Of course since Ubuntu is freely distributable, all the same arguments would apply. So WTF?
But it turns out this doesn't mean licensing the codec for the installs we end users make from the ISOs we've downloaded and burned or anything. It's about offering OEMs the option of licensing it for preinstalled copies of Ubuntu.
Re:HOW? -- mod parent up (Score:5, Informative)
Please mod parent up; so far this seems the only informed comment on this thread (sigh).
Link to TFA: http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Canonical-clarifies-its-H-264-licence-993182.html [h-online.com]
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Since TFS is so suckily misleading, I actually RTFA this time. Everybody's been saying it's legally impossible for Mozilla to license H.264 for Firefox, because MPEG LA requires a limit on the number of installs or something. Of course since Ubuntu is freely distributable, all the same arguments would apply. So WTF?
To answer your "WTF?", the problem is that everybody's been lying about Firefox. There are absolutely no legal reasons why they can't license H.264, just as there are no legal reasons Canonical can't. Which is why they were able to do it. WTF averted, problem solved.
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Last time I read the License, MPEG LA has a few steps in the License, where below a certain number of installs it's free, in between it's increasingly pricey, and there's a ceiling of the total amount of licenses in an organisation, where new licenses don't cost more.
Of course though, you're completely right in your OEM assesment. This does in no way improve the situation for the vast majority of Canonicals users (who doesn't get Ubuntu through OEM), it's simply a move for Canonical to improve it's profitab
Re:WHY? (Score:4, Informative)
I'm pretty sure they didn't display it because they made changes to it and mozilla said "this ain't our firefox"
Since then they changed it to mozilla's firefox with ubuntu extensions installed.
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It was an issue with their EULA;
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/09/ubuntu-firefox-eula-dustup-reignites-oss-licensing-debate.ars [arstechnica.com]
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yes, and now Ubuntu offers to download and install my Nvidia and AMD/ATI video drivers for me, which are proprietary.
And Ubuntu's marketshare has been going very much up. I don't miss then days when you had to modify the x11 files to get your NVidia driver to work. I look at it as a benefit.
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what, you mean you haven't hurd? [youtube.com]
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You realise it's these "kooks" that gave us the OSS legacy we're using now, right?
And now little punks like you are using that legacy, and telling them to bugger off...
I would have thought your parents would have taught you better.
Look, I think Stallman and co are seriously wacky as much as the next person, but it's actually thanks to people like him that the FSF and OSS even got off the ground. So I think we should at least give them credit for that. And it's a real shame when grassroots people like
heh (Score:2, Insightful)
Wine all you want, open-source fanatics. Our HTPCs are getting quite a nice boost in usability.
Re:heh (Score:5, Funny)
Wine all you want, open-source fanatics.
[Emphasis mine.] I think you meant whine. Oh wait, maybe you didn't.
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Damn right I'll wine [winehq.com]! It works great!
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> Wine all you want, open-source fanatics. Our HTPCs are getting quite a nice boost in usability.
Binary nvidia drivers do that, not a rather redundant patent license.
Don't let the facts get in the way of a good rant.
Uh, cause that's where everyone's headed? (Score:5, Insightful)
The writing's on the wall here, kids. H.264 is where web video is going.
Theora's a non-starter, and unless VP8 is stunning as fuck and Google indemnifies everyone and his kid brother against lawsuits, it's not going anywhere either.
Re:Uh, cause that's where everyone's headed? (Score:5, Insightful)
It'd be easier to fight h264 if it weren't so damn good.
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Not the mentioned hardware accelerated on EVERYTHING. My cell phone has hardware acceleration for h264. OGG? no. VP8? no. Can the CPU do it? no. Well, h264 it is then. It's fine to say we should push for open codecs, but when I can't play the videos encoded with them on my equipment...... Google and VP8 are probably our best chance here, if Google can push for hardware supported VP8 in Android equipment, they might be able to stem the tide. If they care. They already have h264 licenses.
Re:Uh, cause that's where everyone's headed? (Score:4, Informative)
Many phones can in fact "hardware accelerate" Theora and other codecs. See for example http://blog.mjg.im/2010/04/16/theora-on-n900.html [blog.mjg.im]
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Ah, but there is a damn good chance your phone does have the hardware needed for hardwae support of VP8 and Theora. Most mobile devices supporting hardware acceleration are using a general purpose DSP, which should be able to accelerate those other codecs too. All that is lacking is software support for the acceleration.
For example every mobile device using a TI OMAP2 or OMAP3 system-on-a-chip has no h264-specific core but do have either a TMS320C55x DSP or an IVA2 or IVA2+ core. Those later cores can be us
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Since when had technological advantages had anything to do with business decisions?
Both Apple and Microsoft, two of the more influential forces in the decision, are stakeholders in MPEG LA [mpegla.com]. Add the fact that they both probably feels slightly anxious over the seemingly immortal Open Source guys, that just refuses to keel over, but invades market after market. Considered they had the chance to throw a monkey-wrench right into their common enemy, Open Source Software, and I think the decision was made complete
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Flash, Google, VP8, and the future of internet video [multimedia.cx]
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In countries where patents on software algorithms are upheld, vendors and commercial users of products which make use of H.264/AVC are expected to pay patent licensing royalties for the patented technology[8] that their products use.
Basically, MPEG-LA only has jurisdiction in the US, so whilst that tough for you guys over there, in the rest of the world no-one has to pay them a bean. It is free to use o
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The MPEG-LA pool has many H.264 "method" patents in Europe and other countries. Many European companies pay royalties to license those patents. You can argue that all those patents are invalid, but you'd probably have to fight a very large lawsuit to prove it.
Re:Uh, cause that's where everyone's headed? (Score:4, Insightful)
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I don't know about you but I was in direct contact with MPEG-LA lawyers recently about their licensing terms (confusion over what constituted commercial use,) and given the terms of their licensing as stated and clarified directly to me, I'll not be surprised to see many, many sites ditching H.264 in favor of something free.
H.264 is not going away. Those that make money from it can afford the license. For those that don't, it is free. There's no way at all that any major commercial site is going to ditch H.264 for Theora. None. At. All.
You may think theora's a non-starter but you know what, you're all focused on technical limitations and other bullshit
Not technical limitations. Quality. Theora just doesn't have it.
when you should worry about "DOES IT FUCKING WORK OR NOT?" That answer is yes, and since it does work, it's viable enough.
But it doesn't "fucking work". Well over 99% of computers in use today cannot play Theora over the web. If you ditch H.264 in favor of Theora, congratulations, you just ensured that the overwhelming majority of users can not use yo
Lawyers win-win (Score:3, Insightful)
It would be more sustainable and cheaper to invest in patent reform than to license trivial patents of course...
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
In any event, they only get it for the next 18 years. And in all likelihood, someone will come up with a better algorithm in the mean time.
I've never really understood the anti-intellectual property sentiment on Slashdot..
Re:Lawyers win-win (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of people around here talk about "free as in freedom" but what they really care about is the "free as in beer" that usually results. A lot more Slashdotters consume music illegally than they do create and distribute derivative works of FOSS.
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consume music illegally
Gosh that's a wonderful statement. So much better than all the 'property' sophism and 'compensation' demands that one usually sees. It captures, with uncommonly bare honesty, everything that's wrong with anti-sharing ideology.
"Sir, it is illegal for you to listen to that song!"
Misleading title and summary (Score:5, Informative)
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...and where does one purchase copies of Ubuntu exactly?
They don't sell such a thing. They sell support contracts but they don't sell a boxed version like Redhat used to.
You can get cheap install CD's but that's something else.
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It sounds just like Shuttleworth (Score:5, Insightful)
He's willing to compromise on doctrinaire software freedom issues in order to grow his marketshare. I'm impressed he can afford to buy it and give it away even to their OEM vendors. One wonders what terms this was made on, and how sustainable it is. But to be clear - this does not come free with each download of Ubuntu. It's part of a deal where money is getting made through the sale of hardware.
You can look to Android for similar policy, I'm sure.
It might also have the effect of embarrassing some of the folks who had aspirations of hurting Linux adoption by trying to lock the world into a proprietary video codec. It will hurt, but the effect will not be as black and white as it was in the past.
The real endgame here is still getting an open codec in an open standard for web video. I think the commercial interests have finally woken up to how much the proprietary codec world has hurt them, and how much they have to gain by escaping. It's not just a problem for Linux and the FSF - proprietary codecs are a big problem for everyone who produces and consumes video.
In a perfect world, where users could unbundle and pay ala carte for commercial vs. free codecs, they would not buy them (they're not worth much vs. what we can do for free), and producers would not be saddled with encoding for them, and everyone would be quite a lot happier.
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"I'm impressed he can afford to buy it and give it away even to their OEM vendors."
I dunno. Apple gives away tons of free H.264 licenses with their software (QuickTime, iTunes) on Windows. H.264 licenses aren't that expensive, even though I'm pretty sure they are per machine/download. (The max license fee for the encoder is two cents a disk.)
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Focus (Score:3, Insightful)
Canonical can focus on keeping the FSF happy, or they can focus on trying to someday turn a profit and brining sustainability to their company.
Why do they need to justify this decision? It seems like a no-brainer to me.
Closed source? No. (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh?
H.264 is not "closed source", it's an open standard with open source encoders (famous x264, everything points to it being the best quality encoder available anywhere) and decoders (libavcodec), it's just that a bazillion companies have patents that cover every corner of video coding. It might be "unfree", but it's certainly not "closed source" or "closed standard" or "proprietary".
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It's certainly "closed standard", and "proprietary", since parts of it (the patents covering implementation) is property of it's creators.
But yeah, I also reacted to "closed source". I actually thought higher of The Register.
Re:Closed source? No. (Score:4, Informative)
it's an open standard with open source encoders
I don't know what definition of "open source" you are using or what you think it means in your mind, but that's not a generally accepted definition.
I'm not going to cite hardline FSF views. Instead have a look at generally considered "pragmatic" OSI [opensource.org]:
Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code. The distribution terms of open-source software must comply with the following criteria:
1. Free Redistribution
The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.
So, yes - open source does mean you need to be able to freely redistribute the source, otherwise what's the point?
If you go down that road, you'd be able to convince yourself that MS Windows is "open source" too since MS has given the Windows source code to some governments and biggest customers. They just can't redistribute it or make it public.
Closed source? No. Closed Standard? Yes. (Score:3, Informative)
You liars are annoying. H.264 is still a closed standard and it does not matter how many Microsoft Partners tell you that closed is open or that open means "buy our stuff". H.264 fails on points 2, 3, and 4 of the formal definition of open standard:
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H.264 is not "closed source",
Irrelevant. It would be a straw man if people didn't keep saying that H.264 was undesirable because it's closed source. It's not; there's no source, it's a standard. It is not, however, an open standard because you must pay to receive the full standards (it costs money just to download a competent summary of the standard, in fact) and it must be licensed to be used, and that is the antithesis of an open standard.
That article is wrong. (Score:2, Informative)
The pragmatist (Score:5, Insightful)
H.264 licensors include fifteen of the biggest names in global manufacturing and tech.
Mitsubishi. NTT. Philips. Samsung. Toshiba....
The 817 licensees include hundreds of other names the geek should recognize.
H.264 support is in the cell phones they make.
Web cams. Camcorders. Video game consoles. Mobile Internet devices and PCs of every description. Industrial and security video. Broadcast, cable and satellite technologies.
Theatrical production and home video. The set-top box. The Internet enabled HDTV.
Mozilla's Firefox can ignore H.264 in the browser.
But Mozilla can't keep Amazon.com from stocking 3,500 flavors of the H.264 HD camcorder, priced from $125-$5,000.
It can't get shelf space for the non-existent Theora or VP8 product in WalMart.
There are some things a commercially viable OEM Linux PC must deliver at retail. H.264 support is one of them. It needs to be in hardware. it needs to competitive - and it needs to be there today.
Great news for Ubuntu (Score:2)
H.264 is the online successor to the DVD. It's quality and universality is worth paying for. This is great news for Ubuntu.
I have seen the comparisons... (Score:2, Insightful)
...and found nothing superior about H.264 over Theora.
This "H.264 is superior" is a myth, astroturfing at it best.
I have no doubt the main drive for H.264 is political, specially since they are insisting on codec exclusivity. Codec always used to be pluggable but now Apple and Microsoft have decided that they are only going to allow their codec. How am I not to guess this is yet another underhanded stab at open source?
Re:I have seen the comparisons... (Score:5, Insightful)
H.264 in jail (Score:4, Insightful)
If the H.264 code binary can be run in user space, non-root, in a chroot jail, then my issues with it are just philosophical and not enough to prevent me from running it. I prefer open source. But I'm not opposed to running binary code. I'm also not opposed to paying for it.
What I am opposed to is borging my computer by running un-inspectable code as a kernel module, root process, or even an unjailed user process. I do not trust corporations to do things right. I'm not going to give permissions to untrusted code. And if I can't read the source, it's untrusted ... by definition.
Re:Closed Source? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Open source represents a freedom to use and create derivative works.
If there is a patent legal landmine, then clearly the freedom to use and create derivatives has gone straight out the Window.
If Ubuntu has to worry about being SUED for including something then it really isn't Free Software. It's not the fault of the coders. However, the problem still remains.
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Open source represents a freedom to use and create derivative works.
...
If Ubuntu has to worry about being SUED for including something then it really isn't Free Software.
Those two terms aren't interchangeable. What you mention in the first sentence is not a defining aspect of Open Source, but is a defining aspect of Free Software.
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Some people are confusing patent issues with closed-sourcedness.
This is why software freedom is a more useful term, because it doesn't just require the source to be available, but that it not contain any legal encumbrances - copyright, patent, trademark or any others - which prevent end-user modification and redistribution with the same rights as they received.
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Re:H.264 IS OPEN SOURCE!!!! (Score:4, Funny)
We can argue symantecs
Or, we could argue Nortons and McAffees.
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I believe I speak for a lot of people when I say it won't play on my iPod, so I won't buy it.
And let's not get into converting between lossy file formats. MP3 at anything less than 256kbps sucks enough without converting it and losing more quality.