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http://carlodaffara.conecta.it/an-analysis-of-webm-and-its-patent-risk/

http://carlodaffara.conecta.it/on-webm-again-freedom-quality-patents/

http://carlodaffara.conecta.it/an-analysis-of-webm-and-its-patent-risk/

http://carlodaffara.conecta.it/on-webm-again-freedom-quality-patents/

No. Expert opinion is that WebM infringes on numerous patents in the H.264 pool, and will need a licensing pool of its own to be set up, just like Microsoft's VC-1 did. So the patents are a wash. This is Google manipulating the market entirely for selfish advantage here, and it's all the worse because they're pretending otherwise. And it's going to be really frustrating watching people fall for it.

First of all, Jason Garrett-Glaser (aka Dark Shikari) does not make a single specific claim of patent infringement in the article you cite. He merely claims that there is a probability of infringement without any legal background in patent law to support it.

Secondly, some people have suggested that VP8 was designed not to infringe on H.264. The idea is that VP8 is essentially H.264 with all the patented bits deliberately replaced or removed. Dark Shikari's description of his own implementation of VP8, ffvp9, seems to support this theory. If this is the case, WebM infringes on none of the MPEG-LA patents, while any patent outside their portfolio would represent an equal threat to both codecs. In fact, since VP8 uses some older techniques for which patents have already expired, it's entirely possible that it's safer than H.264.

Why would it "probably" be as patent encumbered as h.264? Google claims no patents at least, so that would in this case be if it's too similar in some regard to MPEG LA patents. But if we are to dismiss codecs on the basis of pessimistic probably's, we won't approve a single modern video codec at all. What matters is that the format has, after scrutiny of the FSF, been endorsed, that Google has irrevocably released all patents of VP8, and that there are signs that On2 made an effort to avoid MPEG LA patents in designing the format. It doesn't really get much better than that. We'll always have the doubters, the pessimists, but we can't base decisions on possibilities, only facts. At least in a world that is moving forward as quickly as the IT world.

Realistically there's no way there are patents out there that cover h264 and not VP8.

Back in actual, as opposed to perceived, reality On2 has been avoiding patent problems for well over a decade. This was made by a company that did nothing but video codecs, if they didn't know what they were doing in regards to patents, they wouldn't have survived.

Here's a better and less ranty writeup if you want to look into the arguments: http://carlodaffara.conecta.it/?p=420

Wrong.

Android isn't a subset of the Java environment. And Google hasn't accepted any Java license agreement.

The java license agreements are for
* the implementers of Java environments (which Microsoft agreed, broke, got punished for, etc). Google provide a complete alternative tool stack and hasn't agreed to this agreement

* the users of the SDK, which prevents (in section D of the SUPPLEMENTAL LICENSE TERMS) the user from altering elements under the java[x], sun, etc packages. http://java.sun.com/javase/6/jdk-6u2-license.txt Google hasn't accepted this user agreement either. The developer may have.

Oracle cannot control what Google does with code written in Java that doesn't target the official Java platforms. The language isn't copyrighted (nor copyrightable - http://carlodaffara.conecta.it/?p=478), and except if they have specific patents in the conversion mechanism (which for example Gemalto is suing Google for - http://lwn.net/Articles/411852/), or in the implementation techniques used by the Java SE platform (which Google refutes) then Oracle should probably will lose (IANAL)

Agreed. Also, this is all from exactly one source code file. It does appear that a list of variable names in one file may have been copied inappropriately from the Sun JDK source code.

Except, that according to the full diff posted here of the two files in question, there are several of those fields specifically required by an RFC. And the actual diff shows other minor differences that don't appear in the examples given in the court filing. If this is the only such example, I'd be inclined to write it off as a reimplmentation. If there are lots of examples of files that are this similar, I'd be more inclined to believe some of them were inappropriately copied from the JDK source.

Well, that class was released under a more liberal license.

Actually I think I found text showing there was NO indemnification wrt OMS:

http://carlodaffara.conecta.it/?p=420

"While we are encouraged by our findings so far, the investigation continues and Sun and OMC cannot make any representations regarding encumbrances or the validity or invalidity of any patent claims or other intellectual property rights claims a third party may assert in connection with any OMC project or work product."

Incidentally the author makes a very good point in this quote:

"Another important aspect is the prior patent search: it is clear (and will be evident a few lines down) that On2 made a patent search to avoid specific implementation details; the point is that noone will be able to see this pre-screening,to avoid additional damages. In fact, one of the most brain damaged things of the current software patent situation is the fact that if a company performs a patent search and finds a potential infringing patent it may incur in additional damages for willful infringement (called “treble damages”). So, the actual approach is to perform the same analysis, try to work around any potential infringing patent, and for those “close enough” cases that cannot be avoided try to steer away as much as possible. So, calling Google out for releasing the study on possible patent infringement is something that has no sense at all: they will never release it to the public."

It seems I need to wait for someone to sue someone or I just consider this FUD at this point.

When the user demanding access to the box I support because he's the "IT" person and he's had a unix class so he knows what he's doing and knows nothing about our applications and when supporting him on a different box that isn't ours to support (just to be nice) and he's told to press control-c asks if that is "capital control-c?", he's not getting access.

Now submitter anomaly isn't that confused, but the point for needing external support is that he can't support it himself. Maybe there's reasons the product has to work the way it does. If not, like everyone says, get a different vendor.

Or ... get an open source application and change it to do what you want, that's the beauty of open source!

And long before it became fashionable, too. Perhaps the first government sponsored project under the Free Software moniker was when the USAF awarded a contract to NYU to create a compiler to assist the Ada 9x standardization process, and required that it be placed under the GNU GPL (at least, it's the first one noted here). The commercial publishers of Ada compilers made what should now be a familiar complaint - that it was unfair for the government to fund a product which would compete with, and reduce the market for, their products.

I think clearly there is some serious thinking going on in Government circles about Open Source and technology projects. Has anybody looked at the EU guidelines? They've even set up a special body to promote open and interoperable stuff across the EU... More stuff

SGI gave us their journaling file system. Sun gave us Staroffice. IBM has given a laundry list, but I'm drawing a blank for specifics. There was an announcement on /. yesterday about a ``christmas gift'' from IBM, but they've done a lot more than that.

Each of these are doing that for only one reason: that intellectual ``property'' has more value to them if they share it. IBM sells services. They can't make much money servicing Microsoft's software, so they popularize things like Linux. THey also sell hardware, and if making the OS cheaper helps them to sell their high-profit-margin servers, they'd be fools not to do anything which makes that OS cheaper. Sun opened Staroffice for exactly that reason. I'm sure that SGI had a similar rational.

There is also netscape/mozilla. They just needed someone else to do the development that they no longer had the resources to do alone. Opening their code let them do that without selling the whole company.

If a company opens code that they couldn't sell anyway, they get at least as many competent developers working on it, at the same cost. They get at least as much revenue. There will be at least as much demand for support contracts. Others will be able to bid on those support contracts, but a fraction of something is bigger than all of nothing ...

This phenomenon has gone on long enough that academics are begining to try to explain it. Learner and Tyrole have a paper out, this isn't academic, but is accessible, this looks interesting, but I haven't done more than glance at it.