[ale] the future of video codecs [was: Re: video software programming jobs (MPEG? H.264?)]

[aaron]

On 2009, Jan, 10, , at 11:24 AM, Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote:
> On 01/10/2009 03:12 AM, aaron wrote:
>> The main Fraud part is where they fly in the face of reason to argue
>> that the public compression formats are proprietary even though  
>> Xiph.org
>> does not hold any patent claims on their publicly published, Open  
>> Source
>> specifications and has no way to control or influence their
>> implementation.
>
> My understanding is that Xiph *does* hold patent claims on Theora (it
> was descended from the patented VP3, which was given to Xiph by On2).
> However, they've granted the public a non-revokable, royalty-free
> license to those claims, but i'm unable to find a link to the  
> specifics.

Best I could find was some indication of the VP3 patent, though this
would only apply to the THEORA video components, not the ogg vorbis.
I'm not finding any mention of this as grounds for the Apple / Nokia
FUD arguments about boogeyman patents either, so it would seem  
irrelevant.
Seeing the non-revokable relinquishment of rights, this would seem to  
have
already become a non-patent anyway and can no longer be used to leverage
monetary value or distribution control.

> Given the current patent regime, holding these defensive patents is
> comparable to holding the copyright which permits them to grant the  
> BSD
> license to everyone, AIUI.  IANAL, though.

I see your point. As a talisman protection against boogeymen it could
still come into play, though IANAWD [Witch Doctor] either.

> And if anyone has a way to control and influence the implementation of
> the theora standard, it most certainly is Xiph.  However, their
> mechanism for doing this is based on their trusted social position,  
> and
> they can't use the courts to stop other groups from trying to  
> influence
> the standard in other directions.

My point in the statement was that they don't have any means of
monopolizing the exact way the standards are implemented.  Anyone who
wants to can employ the standards, and their offerings either meet the
specs or they aren't ogg vorbis / theora.  True and open standards can
really only come from communities where no entity or sub group can
claim propriety.  It may be a broad, industry supported community, like
with the creation of MIDI, but it was still community commitment that
developed the MIDI standard.

> Your point that fears of submarine patents should apply equally to
> proprietary codecs as they do to theora is a good one.

Thanks, but that one was just obvious enough that it hit me in the head.
;-)

>
>> Since the final W3C recommendations are an open issue, I think it  
>> quite
>> valid to promote the Ogg Vorbis / Theora web media standards as  
>> inevitable.
>> In the face of all the corporate FUD mongering, it might give them a
>> fair chance of becoming the public standards that we so  
>> desperately need.
>
> While i'd like to see imagine these formats as inevitable, i wouldn't
> want to give anyone the mistaken impression that we can stop fighting
> for them.  Others in this thread have already pointed out the  
> dominance
> of proprietary formats in non-internet video distribution schemes.

> I think the issues in this struggle are complicated and important  
> enough
> that it's more valuable to have sober and clear assessments of what's
> happening and what's at stake than it is to produce rhetoric which  
> could
> be seen as misleading.

And I think that presenting the Free and Open standards AS inevitable IS
a valid and effective way of fighting for them. It's an honest method as
well for anyone that is sincere in the conviction that it truly is
inevitable, and there is ample history to justify such a conviction.

While a large part of the dominance of proprietary softwares can be
explained by their advantages in greed motivation and paid propaganda,
it is primarily the copies that are unlicensed, hacked or whose
Destructive Restriction Mechanisms have been circumvented that are the
bulk of distribution and use. It is the false public perception
that these softwares don't cost them anything, their use as illegal
warez, that entrenches them as monopoly psuedo-standards; if their
actual monetary pricing were enforced on the public across the board,
their scope of usage would be a fraction of any comparable but truly
free and fully legal alternatives.  If all the improperly licensed
Mafia$oft Windisease warez in the world had to be paid for, the M$
user share would shrink to single digit percentages instantly.


> In solidarity,
> 	--dkg

Solidaire.
peace
aaron