"Google dropping this codec actually helps prevent h.264's monopoly."
How about a Google monopoly? At least h.264 is owned by a number of different companies. Never mind that almost everyone agrees that it is the better codec.
How about a Google monopoly? At least h.264 is owned by a number of different companies. Never mind that almost everyone agrees that it is the better codec.
It's amazing to me. In the 90s Microsoft's overt policy was "embrace, extend, extinguish," and it called the GPL a "cancer," the MPAA was launching war against DeCSS, and Amazon.com was flexing its one-click patent against competitors. Open source developers had no powerful allies.
Now you have a powerful company like Google that releases millions of lines of open source, sponsors college students to work on open source, fights for openness standards in wireless spectrum auctions, fights for open standards like HTML5, open sources its entire mobile operating system, and in its latest move, buys a video codec company for $106 million and promptly pledges all of the patents for use by anybody.
And yet some people would prefer the codec whose rights are effectively owned by a known patent troll (MPEG-LA) because "at least [it] is owned by a number of different companies."
It goes to show that you can never please everyone.
I like H264 because VP8 is an inferior technology.
It was also around that time that all the geeks hated Flash. How quickly we forget.
Google open sources things that are not central to it's business, just like every other company out there.
MPEG-LA cannot be a patent troll let alone a known one, because it's a loose organization of companies that agree on a standard to prevent fragmentation of video and let people deal with one entity instead of a thousand. Those individual companies could be trolls.
>fights for open standards like HTML5
Really? Then this move to remove support for H.264 will get Flash even more entrenched because it would be the easiest way for content providers to get WebM video working on IE9 and Safari. Flash has already announced upcoming support for WebM.
MobileMedia is owned by, and shares a CEO with, MPEG-LA (who also licence non MPEG patent pools e.g. Firewire, the name alone is a bit misleading if you ask me).
http://thepriorart.typepad.com/the_prior_art/2010/04/mobilem...
Because the GPL does not require them to do so.
If the GPL required them to do so, nobody would licence their code with it, and only the most batshit-insane people would dare use code licensed under it. Would YOU want to run a Linux server if it obligated you to provide a complete dump of source code to anyone who asked? Seriously people, think before you write.
> MPEG-LA cannot be a patent troll let alone a known one, because it's a loose organization of companies
MPEG-LA manage a suite of patents and can issue press releases, therefore they can be a patent troll.
Also, the licensing terms are fixed at a maximum 10% rise per five-year renewal. Given the lifespan of patents, that's a low ceiling.
This is the first I've heard of this. Since one of the main concerns I've heard is that MPEG-LA could raise fees to unacceptable levels, do you mind providing a source for this? I'm still less comfortable with H264 being the standard rather than WebM, but this makes me less worried. (Anti-FUD?)
If you make changes and are unable to convince Google to incorporate them, the video generated by your software will be incompatible with all the millions of WebM decoders out there.
WebM have a Apache style license, you can grab the source, fork it and develop your codec, and you're not even obligated to open a repository including your changes, they can remain closed.
Google will not stop you from doing so and guarantees that he will not sue you asking for royalties, since a license like the Apache license gives the use of the patent for free.
The case of Android and Chrome is simple, Google employes the majority of developers in both projects, however Google does not employes the majority of Linux kernel developers an as a result much of the Android code isn't in the kernel.org code.
Similarly the directions of Webkit is decided by the two main committers: Google and Apple.
Maybe the H264 spec drones on and on but at least it's a spec. The VP8 "spec" is just a mandate from Google. A shitty one, at that. I'll take the small risk of patent litigation among only the biggest players for an open specification and standard any day. Of course, there's also the fact that H264 is way better than VP8 which it seems like no one cares about.