FSF responds to Jobs's "Thoughts on Flash"

fsf.org

6 points·tjr··2 comments

I think the FSF has misrepresented Steve Job's response. It sounds very much like the line "We have legal assurances from the only publicly claimed patent holders that Ogg Theora can be used both commercially and noncommercially, in any software, by anyone, without royalty." is about to be proved untrue.

I'm relatively sure, from his phrasing, that Jobs was just inaccurately quoting the MPEG-LA CEO.

http://www.streamingmediaglobal.com/Articles/News/Featured-N...

"no one in the market should be under the misimpression that other codecs such as Theora are patent-free. Virtually all codecs are based on patented technology, and many of the essential patents may be the same as those that are essential to AVC/H.264. Therefore, users should be aware that a license and payment of applicable royalties is likely required to use these technologies developed by others, too. MPEG LA would consider offering on additional licenses that would make these rights conveniently available to the market under a single license as an alternative to negotiating separate licenses with individual patent holders."

If you read that quickly it says the same thing as Jobs. On a second read it's all hypotheticals, maybes and weasel words.

It's not in their interest to point out all the patents that a codec that isn't even in use yet infringes. That just makes it easy to work around them. Just like Microsoft and Linux, unspecific patent threats are much more powerful than actual patents.

It's interesting to note that the MPEG-LA CEO is also the CEO of a genuine patent troll company that just sued a bunch of phone manufacturers... including Apple.

http://thepriorart.typepad.com/the_prior_art/2010/04/mobilem...

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