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Apple Sues Sorenson Over QuickTime Codec
ScooterComputer writes "According to Bloomberg and a bunch of others, Apple is suing Sorenson over their licensing a codec to Macromedia for Flash MX, for 'developing, marketing, or licensing any version of the compression software used in QuickTime to competitors.' For years we have seen finger pointing going on between Apple and Sorenson as to WHY the Sorenson codec can't make it to the Linux platform... and things usually end with Apple saying it is Sorenson's fault. Well, I'd say Apple lied. So, can we all just start putting big pressure on Apple again to release QuickTime for Linux?"
(Reminder to Apple users to visit Slashdot's Apple section for more Apple-related news.)
This story demands a haiku.
Apple bans codec
Used by the movie previews
No linux Star Wars
Obviously, some expert is going to have to sit down for the court and determine if the product for QuickTime and the product for Macromedia really are different. But if they're not, Apple has a totally valid lawsuit. A (legal and reasonable) contract is a contract. Apple agreed to pay $4.5 Million based on getting exclusive use of the (very, very good) software. If someone else can use it, that seriously dilutes its value to Apple, and there's no reason for them to have paid so much for it.
As I understand it ANY application that uses multimedia on the Macintosh platform has to use the Quicktime "libraries" - including Macromedia. Doesn't that mean that anything that Macromedia uses on a Mac will necessarily use Quicktime??
Maybe they should take movie features out of flash, and save us all from intros featureing home video footage of peoples cats....
This is a haiku
about everything at once
please stop posting these
But Quicktime already runs on linux via wine and crossover, right?
Apple doesn't release on Linux for the same reasons Microsoft doesn't. They're trying to ignore it and hoping it goes away. Apple is trying to protect an OS monopoly just as Microsoft is. If all Apple applications were available on Linux, there would be no reasons to own a Mac besides the pretty case. They only release some stuff on Windows because if their stuff played only on Macs, it would only be viewed by a small percentage of the population.
Sorensen pointed at Apple and Apple in turn pointed at Sorensen. From the sound of things both parties are at "fault". The line from Sorensen has always been that their contract with Apple wouldn't allow them to do it, yet when Macromedia comes by they suddenly feel that they provide the CODEC to them. The only difference that I can see is that Macromedia could provide some financial incentive to violate their contract whereas Linux, or any party selling Linux operating systems couldn't.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
One thing has become very clear in the Linux world over the last couple of years since the dot com bubble burst. Open Source/Free Software is here to stay, and half-way proprietary solutions won't be accepted by the wider community.
For example, Macromedia have been supplying a Linux Flash client for years, yet it has failed to validify the Flash format as an open standard. It has become a "necessary evil" for sites that feel the need to look 'interactive', but has had minimal market penetration beyond that.
I don't think that releasing a binary-only QuickTime codec would solve any real problems: Firstly, it wouldn't be distributed with some of the most popular distributions like Debian and Mandrake for philosophical reasons as well as technical reasons -- without source code, there's no way to know that the codec will still work in 2 years or that it'll be made available for new architectures, or that bugs will be promptly fixed. NVidia's proprietary graphics drivers for XFree86 have, for example, backfired in many ways. Far from soliciting support from the community, their consistent failure to release specifications for their hardware has irked and frustrated the wider Linux community (not just the Free Software zealots) to the extent that the Tainting monitor had to be added to the kernel just to track bug reports from users of buggy proprietary kernel modules.
I'd say that the future lies with open video codecs like VP3 from On2 Technologies, who've announced that they'll be working with the community to ensure that their next release is LGPL'd and their patents made available in the public domain. This is the kind of codec that should become the de-facto standard on the Web -- not some binary-only QuickTime Sorenson codec that was withheld for years and released begrudgingly. A few years ago, Linux users were quick to praise and embrace vendors of proprietary software who supported Linux, but now, I think the community is big enough to look at the bigger picture and support open standards like VP3 and Ogg that will ensure a more accessible and independent future for Web content in the future.
I own an iBook.
/dev/null) Apple people laughing at X Window system, while they know that Apple leech the community and refuse to share Aqua. (If you don't wanna share Aqua, fine. But why flame X? Did we ask for humiliation?)... there's one too many disappointments.
The Apple lawsuit threats against looks and feel. (Gosh! I LOVED that KDE pencil drawing theme so much that I actually installed KDE to find that Apple took it out saying that it is an internal research theme of thiers.) Apple's anti-Linux commercials. (Sending all other UNIXes to
I'm asking, how much of these Apple behavior it takes for people to realize that Apple is not on our side and Steve has not changed a bit?
if only we could just get the mpeg-4 people to pull their heads out of their asses and stop killing their own format with stupid licensing bullshit, then we could just forget about the sorensen codec and people would start using mpeg-4 instead.
Apple is being rediculous about not letting linux developers NDA the sorensen codec, and in the end it's only hurting Quicktime Streaming as a format. I honestly think quicktime streaming could be doing a lot better right now if players/encoders for the popular codecs were available for ALL operating systems.
That being said, macromedia isn't so idiotic about third-party support, right? I mean, there's a macromedia flash player for linux, irix, solaris and some other unices, no? Perhaps the "linux community" can twist things such that if in the end Macromedia gets the right to the sorensen codec and apple gets a bunch of money (it's one possible outcome of this case), then Macromedia will release a sorensen player for linux.
Maybe?
P.S. : what's the current status of Quicktime's ability to run under Wine? i do not own any x86 hardware and as such have not followed Wine much. Anyone know?
-- super ugly ultraman
Being a new Mac user, I have become increasingly aware that most online media content, wheather streaming or downloadable is now in WM or RM format. This is unfortunate for us OS X users because Windows Media Player is crap and Real Player is non existant (unless using OS 9). You would think anything that would make QuickTime technology more widely distributed would be beneficial to Apple. Apparently they don't really care what happens to QT considering QuickTime 6 is way over due.
I think it's pretty awful that Apple pays to keep other products from using this technology.
It sounds like something Microsoft would do.
Also if Sorenson did breach the contract then they should be sued. I see no room for anyone to bitch given what little we know.
This is a haiku
about being redundant
eat my nuts, kent
I feel dirty for doing it, but I use the crossover plugin to view quicktime movies (as well as windows media crap). In my experience, it has worked extremely well, and the installation is a snap!
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
As in the article: "Ed McGarr, Sorenson's vice president of sales and marketing, says the compression software Macromedia uses in its Flash Player is different from the one Apple uses in QuickTime." So, it appears to be a completely different codec :-(
But I hate quicktime.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
No computer platform has ever been shrouded in so much mystery and voodoo as MacOS. This is because the users never have a clue, the pundits need to protect their emotional investment, and Apple never tells you anything. MacOS X just continues this well established tradition.
The search for "the thing makes MacOS X slow" is a chimera. First of all it's not that slow, considering what it does. If anything is hard, it is to make something look easy. Apple customers are more than happy to pay that price.
Second, forget about the first point. MacOS is slow, and it doesn't make sense to look for a single spot that makes it slow -- the slowness pervades throughout the system. Font rendering is slow, Mach is slow, the CPU is slow, memory is slow, file I/O is slow, Carbon is slow, Classic is slow, applications are slow. It is really no surprise that the system as a whole is slow.
And it won't get better. Mac people like to think that future OS revisions will make OS X run faster on their iMac/iBook. But that's just because Mac people like this idea of the computer becoming gradually, magically, faster; the underdog slowly growing stronger, that kind of thing. It's not true. While future revisions of OS X will undoubtedly incorporate faster code, that does not keep Apple from adding things that make it run slower again. Meanwhile your iMac/iBook hardware keeps aging, until in a couple of years time, the introduction of the G5 or G6 or Gwhatever, Apple finds an excuse to basically drop support for your outdated hardware altogether. And then the cycle starts anew. The promise of an "all-native" system will never actually have been realized for your hardware, but Mac people won't mind, since they are ideologically compelled to look to the future, not whine about the past.
It is rumored that chairman Stalin once said: "The communist ideal is already on the horizon!". When questioned by somebody in the audience as to when the ideal would be reached, he just smiled and said: "Comrade, don't you know you can never reach the horizon?".
Real has Linux drivers, and I've even been able to use it to watch my secret shame (the US version of Big Bother) until they started charging for the feed.
I wouldn't describe the Linux driver as particularly good, but from what others said it isn't much worst than the Windows version. That's why I didn't pick up the MLB baseball season ticket (which would have gotten me BB for half the price advertised) I have a cable modem connection, but the quality of the image just wasn't acceptable.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
My opinion is that putting pressure on Apple won't have any affect. Apple is pushing their own Unix and is probably not interested to make a QT plugin for thrird party Unix. Availability of Linux for PPC is probably a threat (or more like a bug) in their eyes and supporting Linux would be probably inappropriate and agains bussines nature in their eyes.
Mod me up, if I'm getting it wrong!
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
Oops, did I say something that'll get me cursed at and moderated down? Well, to heck with that. Look, Linux is a great server operating system. But it has a lot of strikes against it as a desktop operating system: it doesn't run Office, it's difficult to get support for, it has poor driver support, and its user experience is abysmal (best efforts of KDE and GNOME notwithstanding -- heck, the fact that KDE and GNOME are separate is symptomatic of the problem!). Net result: very very few people outside the Developer Elite actually use Linux for the desktop. And you were wondering why support-fee-only Linux distributors were dropping like flies?
Apple is trying to establish Macs as the standard for making multimedia. To do that, Apple must get enough eyeballs watching QuickTime for content providers to want to use Apple's tools. Thus Apple has QuickTime for Windows because lots of people use Windows. Apple does not have QuickTime for Linux because the enormous cost of deployment would FAR outweigh the eyeballs resulting thereof.
Hm. Last I checked, Quicktime and Flash occupied rather different niches in the "things move on your screen" realm of the world. Quicktime is a movie and, to a lesser extent, audio format. Flash is a vector-graphics animation and interaction product that just happens to have support for raster graphics, sounds, and now movies. Even with movie support in Flash, I wouldn't use it to /play/ movies....
This flies in the face of science.
macromedia flash 5 is avaliable for linux.
Does this mean that if/when Macromedia gets FlashMX on Linux, we now have a useable library to build a native Sorenson video player on Linux? It seems like the library could be reversed engineered so that calls to the decoder can be used. Just speculation, I guess it depends on how the .so file is layed out.
"eat my nuts, kent" is only four syllables.
And it has such a great player [cough, cough].
Sheesh. You'd be hard pressed to find more sensationalistic headlines in the Weekly World News.
Anyway, here's what's likely the case: Apple developed Quicktime. Sorenson developed Codec. Apple asked Sorenson if they could include their codec in the next QT release (which would have been 4.0, I believe). And had them sign a little piece of paper. Likewise, Sorenson had their own little pieces of paper for Apple to sign.
The default Sorenson codec in Quicktime Pro compresses like ass- you get small files, but the color shits out. If you want it to NOT shit out, you have to pay Sorenson a chunk of cash for a media key to plug into its little panel in the QT setup controls. Pain in the ass, but it doesn't prevent you from viewing "properly" encoded "pro" files- like the Star Wars trailers.
Since you don't have to pay to play Sorenson files, and you do have to pay to encode them properly... and 99% of the productivity apps that produce video run on MacOS and Windows (re: NOT Linux)... what incentive does Sorenson have to port the codec? The likelihood of securing any form of revenue stream on a Linux port of Quicktime is pretty shitty, at best.
So Sorenson has their own legal BS with Apple, and Apple likely has a different legal BS going on with Sorenson. Probably something along the lines of "exclusive". Which explains why Apple is pissed at them. I can't blame them at all- Macromedia has been even more sluggish about porting to OS X than Adobe has, and the fact that FlashMX includes the ability to run video may be something of an issue of "percieved competition".
With CodeWeaver's CrossOver Plugin, you can run Quicktime 5 and Windows Media Player 6.4 under Linux. Now it isn't free but you can purchase it for $24.95.
Check Out http://www.codeweavers.com/home/
its kinda hard to have 2 monopolies in the same market.
Two different markets are involved. Microsoft has a monopoly on operating systems for x86 workstations. Apple has a monopoly on operating systems for PowerPC workstations.
Will I retire or break 10K?
eat my testes, kent
I recently attended a FlashMX presentation from Macromedia and left amazed that Sorenson was bundled within the application itself. Essentially all your website users need is the Flash 6 plug-in to be able to view Sorenson-encoded movies in a Flash file. Only after seeing the lawsuit did I realize how harmful this could be to Apple's QuickTime technology. I hope for Apple's sake that they have a good exclusive contract in place...
My company is looking to use FlashMX's video capabilities *specifically* because then users won't have to download the QuickTime plug-in as well. This attitude could seriously be a detriment to Apple's already-struggling fight against Real and Windows Media Player. Even if the quality is better, this is just another reason to not download their plug-in.
If their product is engineered in a reasonable fashion, there really isn't anything for them to lose from releasing SOME sort of sorenson decoder for Linux.
I've read that Apple ported QuickTime to Windows by writing an API layer that emulates Carbon (the Mac OS API, formerly called Toolbox) on top of Win32. Apple would have to either do this all over again for the POSIX+X11 API (which Linux and BSD use) or use Winelib (two layers of API translation? Ecch).
Will I retire or break 10K?
Personally I prefer MPEG. Sorenson is larger, uglier and proprietary. I just wish everyone would stop using Quicktime codecs (yeah, espesially starwars.com). The major thing I would debate if I was Sorenson, is Apple and Macromedia being competitors. Apple makes computers, and an operating system. Macromedia makes worthless software -- not much in common.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Nah, it's still 5%. I took your place.
Actually I just bought one of the dual-gig Powermacs and haven't looked back. I like Linux but the GUI's are shit. I spend all day helping 400+ people keep working using their Microsoft shit on my boss-mandated Microsoft shit network and when I get home I just want the thing to work relatively quickly and mostly reliably. I get that with my new Mac and OS X.
Yeah, it's probably Apple's fault that you don't have Quicktime on linux. Not much that can be said for their decision making process at times but "Go figure?" If it ends up being a mistake, and I'm betting it will in the long run, then Apple will be the ones to lose the most because of it.
For example, Macromedia have been supplying a Linux Flash client for years, yet it has failed to validify the Flash format as an open standard.
By "Flash format," I assume you mean SWF (not FLA). SWF version 4 has a publicly available specification. (Read More...) Do you consider a format not "valid[...] as an open standard" because it hasn't been submitted to an international standards body?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Real G2 and RealPlayer 8 both run on Linux.
Knucklehead...
In this economy, you really have to be profit-driven simply to survive. I'm as annoyed at that "Upgrade to QuickTime Pro!" box as you are, especialy since I own Final Cut Pro 3, which is supposed to hold in it a complimentary edition of same.
But I am resigned to today's reality. It's not as fun as reality from a few years back, but, well, we're living it.
D
How long has the community made fun of Mac users? We've laughed at their outdated GUI, lack of preemptive multitasking, their one button mice, just about everything. Now they have a superior (in some ways, in some opinions) OS. Yes, much of the core was borrowed/stolen (isn't that what the BSD license is all about?). They haven't done anything that anyone else couldn't do. The difference is that they did it, in their typical Apple user friendly way.
I can't afford a Mac. Hell, I can barely afford a PC. I have a lot of respect for the work they've done, though. Give respect where it's due, and let them laugh while they can.
jred
I'm not a mechanic but I play one in my garage...
Now *that's* funny. ra!
.
Watching Cowboy Bebop in my jammies, eating a bowl of Shreddies.
yet it has failed to validify the Flash format as an open standard
Here's a quote from Macromedia's website:
No fees are required for access to the Macromedia Flash file format (SWF) or for the creation of products based on the SWF format.
So uh, WTF are you talking about? How is the swf format not open? Christ Adobe makes a product that makes swf files. Download the SDK and look for yourself. You might not be able to look at Sorenson's code, but you can build a custom player for swf's that uses sorenson codec so what's your point? I can STILL use the codec in my projects because it's now part of the SWF format.
WHAAAAAAA!! I wanna see source even though I don't really need too. WHAAAAA!!
I always enjoy any QuickTime article on Slashdot because it invariably turns into some big debate on why Apple is deliberately keeping Sorenson from licensing the codec to Linux developers, blah, blah, blah.
First off, Apple claims to have an exclusive license to what are commonly known as the Sorenson and Sorenson 3 codecs. Even if Apple decided to waive their exclusive right to this codec, who in the Linux world could afford the licensing fee that would have to be paid to Sorenson? Mark Podlipec? I doubt he has the (undoubtedly) thousands of dollars the license would cost.
As to the vast market available for a native Linux version of the QT player, that's relatively unimportant to Apple. They make their money on the production tools. So, for a platform to be attractive to Apple, it's one that production houses would be using day to day to produce content.
For now, there is no real content creation platform on Linux (and I'm not talking about digital animation or rendering).
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
I haven't compared sorenson compresed .mov to .mpeg of the same file, but I would bet that for identical file sizes, the .mov will look far better. Can you offer evidence or personal experience to the contrary?
Seems to me they are dumping Apple and going with Macromedia so the codec can become Open and Sorenson can still make money.
Macromedia will give them money and Macromedia makes it part of the Open SWF format. Apple doesn't want Open Source Video, so they would never let Sorenson release the codec. Sorenson could have told apple to go stuff it, but they're PAYING for the codec's exclusive use. So Sorenson's hands are tied because they need money to survive.
Enter Macromedia. They'll pay and make it Open because it's in their interest to have tons of flash players on as many machines as possible. Apple's locked into an OS and Macromedia isn't, so Macromedia could care less about proprietary formats. READ BETWEEN THE LINES! Sorenson has wanted to open the codec for years, but they couldn't do it an remain alive before.
>Apple's anti-Linux commercials. (Sending all /dev/null)
>other UNIXes to
Actually I thought this was kind of cute. The add you refer to was not "anti-Linux" it was more "Pro-Apple".
There is a huge differance between going "your OS 5ux0rs!" and "We have a better OS than you!"
>Apple people laughing at X Window system
I don't know about other Mac users outside of the CS program at my department, but every one of them that I have spoken to inside of the department (an increasing number) run X-Windows on a daily basis and most certainly do not laugh at it.
That includes the people who have been using Macs since 1984 (me).
>while they know that Apple leech the community
>and refuse to share Aqua.
I can't believe you just said this.
The Apple license is considered a true open source license (after much finagaling and a couple of revisions) and no0one forces you to work on it. On top of that, Darwin is as free as Linux and you can run KDE, GNome or any other shell that has been ported.
Why on *earth* should Apple give away Aqua, one of its major selling points? Remember also that if they don't protect their copyright, they *loose it*.
Also, last I checked, they weren't objecting overly to designs which look like Aqua: only to mimics which either used the Apple logo or were being sold.
*Big* difference.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
Macromedia contracted with Sorenson to *create* a special codec for Flash. The codec used in Flash 6 plugin (Flash MX is the authoring environment) weighs in under 80k and is called Spark.
Here's why I think Apple is throwing a fit though... in a few months MM will release a linux version of the Flash 6 plugin and suddenly you have the ability to play movies on *all* platforms that has *no* visible branding on it. Think about it, the only way you see that Flash is Flash is by right-clicking on it. You can brand it to look like whatever you'd like. Suddenly... why bother with Real, Quicktime, or WMP for streaming video when you can do it all and lots more with a tool that costs less than $500? Hmmm...
Have you ever stored any video using Sorenson Compression? No. Well that explains why you think Mpg4 is so great.
Yes there is a difference between "Lossy" and "Lossless". Especially if you ever plan on using the stored video for something besides web streaming. Like, oh I don't know, watching it on TV. OH yeah! That big plastic and glass thing in the living room. They still make those?!
Video for Linux should not be limited to the web.
Who the hell is pudge?
Or is that just a synonym for CoyboyKneel?
I sincerely hope you're correct about this - I'd LOVE to have some way of dealing with the one last codec that I ever find myself wishing I could use...
I actually, just a few minutes ago, sent a polite question to their (Sorenson's) public relations address asking for their side of the "why sorenson's not available on Linux" story, so hopefully at least a little more of the background will come out.
It DOES sound like the codec they licensed to Macromedia is different from the one used in QuickTime currently, though. And, there's also the question of if and when Macromedia will get around to releasing "FlashMX" playback for Linux.
Still...it'd be a step in the right direction. If nothing else, perhaps it'll warn off other companies considering "exclusive" agreements with Apple. (I almost get the impression from the stories that in essence, Apple feels the mere 4.5 million [a lot of money by MY standards, but for a major corporation? Chump-change.] they paid Sorenson legally paralyzes Sorenson's future development of income for the duration of the agreement...)
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
It appears to me that the reason apple does not release quicktime for Linux because they can't. If they release quicktime and don't release the source, they get bad PR because they released a program onto linux but it isn't open source. Then if they release it with the sourcecode, they loose the control and proprietaryness (I do think some things should be closed source, multimedia playback being one of them, ask me for my reasons if you want) of quicktime. While I think it would be nice for quicktime to hit Linux, it's a very very muddy situation.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
...for the OS/2 version they promised about 7 years ago!
Thank you very much for that link. I tried several months ago to find the Linux RealPlayer at www.real.com. That site is so difficult to navigate that I was simply unable to find a download link for the Linux version. Not finding the player terribly important, I gave up. During the past couple months, I've encountered various multimedia files that were in Real format and thought angrily about Real's horrible, horrible site design. With RealPlayer and MPlayer, I am now capable of playing pretty much all multimedia formats, except for Sorensen-encoded Quicktime...
So, over a year you have spent maybe $100 on software. So Linux users make up 5% of the market, and might spend up to $100 a year. How exciting. The 95% Windows + Mac market most likely has users that purchase games, office suite (at $300 a pop, not some cheap OpenOffice subscription), OS upgrades, toy utilities, etc. A 95% market share with average spending of $500 or more a year vs 5% with average spending of $100 per year. Which market would you go after?
Well I'm the doctor and I say you're dead, so shut up and take it like a man!
Since you don't have to pay to play Sorenson files, and you do have to pay to encode them properly... and 99% of the productivity apps that produce video run on MacOS and Windows (re: NOT Linux)... what incentive does Sorenson have to port the codec?
They don't have to port it. They simply need to allow it to be ported, as a player, to linux. Right now my friends make vids using Macs, and I cannot view them using linux. I have legally obtained copyrighted material, and due to patent protection I cannot look at it unless I buy Windows or MacOS. There is something fundamentally wrong with that. It is a form of collusion to keep linux out of the desktop space.
sorry, hit the wrong button. Anyways, if you pick up the codec from that site. The new Divx CODEC allows for direct Divx viewing within quicktime. No external player nessesary. And if that isn't the one, I have the one that works, just ask me. The only problem is the WMA soundtrack seems to play faster than the video on some computers, this problem is solved by simply extracting the audio track (no time at all, once the file is open, it extracts in a second, and since you most likely have the file open already, and then, just set the video track ahead slightly (however much the video is normal behind by) and select play all movies. It isn't pretty, but they're working on a fix.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
You're jumping to conclusions. Just because Apple says the sky is green doesn't make it so, even if it's written in a legal document. Heh! especially if it's written by a lawyer. It's for a court of law to decide, or for Apple and Sorensen to decide amongst themselves out of court.
Apple is hurting themselves in the production tools market by not having a linux player. I'm in a position where I recommend technology. I'm also a linux user. I'm fully aware that some movie formats will play on linux (MPEG/DIVX/Real) while others (Windows media, Quicktime) will not. I don't really care much of the reason why apple and microsoft don't release native linux players. The bottom line is that they are NOT there. So of course, I will be recommending against the QT and WMF technology in favor of something that WILL run on linux.
(And yes I know about the crossover plugin. Its a good tool, but I prefer active support rather than being a 3rd class citizen.)
The irony of it all being that this was the same type of death mongering we heard in 1996, and in 97, and in 98 when they released the iMac, and we heard this in 99 too and 2000, and 20001, and 2002. Whether you like them or not, Apple (and unfortunately Microsoft) is not going away. Learn to live with it. ANd take what you can get.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
How would you know this is likely? Have you read the contract?
Don't buy into Apple's (or Sorenson's) legal crapola statements so blindly. A good lawyer can argue anything.
In all honesty, video CODECs should be closed source (but I don't think they should be licenced like ht MPEG 4 stuff is going). If you open source a video CODEC, you run the big risk of hundreds of variations on the same format, which can cause muchos confusion.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
And, in a strange, but great, victory for Open
Source, the costs of the case cause the
simultaneous bankruptcy of Apple, Macromedia and
Sorenson and ( along with the Slashdot speeling
rebbelion and the unlamented death of Microsoft )
the world is a better place for everyone uses
or produces software.
Hoorah! Hoorah! Hoorah!
Ogg Vorbis is NOT an open standard. There is no standards document for Ogg Vorbis bitstreams beyond the framing layer. The only "standard" is the Xiph source code, which is hardly readable and is controlled by Xiph. At least with MPEG you can buy the standards documents and independantly implement your own compatible code. With Ogg Vorbis, you have to emulate their code, bug for bug.
My other first post is car post.
I couldn't find anything about any non-windows versions of real player from www.real.com either, but a little googling turned up this.They have builds for GNU/Linux, Irix, AIX, Solaris, HPUX, and Unixware, on i386, Alpha, PowerPC, and MIPS.
That's gotta be about as many platforms as I've seen supported by any commercial free-beer-ware.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
There are other platforms!!!!!!!
QuickTime is actually a huge multimedia API, not just a .mov en/decoder. For an example, you can use the exact same API calls to play audio, video, or show images, and supports a wide range of media formats. Sorenson is just one of the video codecs supported by QuickTime.
As for audio, with "Classic" MacOS there's the Sound Manager, and in MacOS X there's CoreAudio. It's really up to the programmer to decide whether to use QuickTime, Sound Manager/CoreAudio, or some combination of both.
---
Open Source Shirts
Apple never developed or promised QuickTime as open source, Linux, GPL, or whatever. Grow up. QuickTime is proprietary software. If you want QuickTime for Linux pop for 20 bucks and buy that conversion utility (whatzit?) There is such a thing as compromise and that's all that's needed. If Linux users want QT pop for 20 bucks. Or go the real developer route that's hot now with everything under the sun shipping from Adobe, Macromedia, Micro$loth, et al and it's called: Mac OS X, something Gnome and KDE will never be. Eat your heart out Richard Stallman! :) (This ought to excite a few of the troops.)
Even as someone who might be called a "Mac zealot", I can see how QuickTime for Linux would make some sense. Linux is probably a growing market in the viedo industry, and there's at least some hope in expanding as a desktop OS.
On the other hand, I've heard folks from the QuickTime team claim that not supporting Linux isn't really a political issue, as many seem to believe, but simply a matter of not being attractive enough of a market to spend man hours for. After all, outside of Slashdot, Linux users represent a very small group of computer users, and there aren't significant enough reasons for Apple to port QuickTime over.
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Open Source Shirts
If this was MS there would be flames left and right. But since this is APPLE, it's all okay! And hey look, Apple does something cruddy, they get an advertisement to visit the Slashdot Apple section right in the headline!
I can hear it now... "Apple HAS to do this for their shareholders!" Bullocks. If you wouldn't say it about MS, don't say it about Apple.
The core of MacOS 10 is borrowed/stolen from NextStep, which borrowed/stole it from BSD.
So MacOS 10 is just their shiny candy layer on top of old hoary shit.
I fail to see why people carry on like it's FreeBSD or something.
It's a slow, slow lingering death.
A niche or two will not save the company.
Apple is on their way down the toilet.
And of course, if you are so worried about it, you can offer to help them.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Macromedia seems to have a Flash player available for Linux (Clicking on the link will give you the option to download Flash 5 for Linux if you're running under it...)
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Ardi produces a solution to that issue that currently works under x86 Linux and Windows. Of course, that would require them to license some 3rd-party clone to do it, but it's been done all the same.
Besides, all we really need is a binary implementation of the Sorenson codec to begin with since we HAVE a Quicktime framework or two that works under X anyway.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
if you set your wife up with a linux system, and she catches so much as a glimpse of os-x on someone else's machine, you're going to end up in divorce court
for your wife's sake, and your brother's, you might want to take a closer look at the lawsuit -- if sorenson broke an exclusive contract with apple, then apple had every right to sue, and if you were a businessman, you'd have done the same thing under the same circumstances
i thought, therefore i was...
NeXT used an earlier version of Mach as their base, which has been dropped. Indeed, there's not a lot in common between NeXTStep and OS X, except they both support OpenStep.
> Remember also that if they don't protect their copyright, they *loose it*.
No you're thinking of trademark dilution. They keep their copyright practically forever, or until Disney stops getting copyright extended. And since copyright violation is a criminal act, they don't even have to pay legal costs unless they want to start civil proceedings for damages.
>Also, last I checked, they weren't objecting overly to designs which look like Aqua: only to mimics which either used the Apple logo or were being sold.
That's just plain wrong. Haven't you ever heard of themes.org and the GTK aqua theme among others.
This is the thrust of apple's suite. Although it entails the overhead of making a Flash movie for every video you watch online, you suddenly have much more flexibilty in the content and a player that just about everyone has, or will have sooner or later. This means that a major tool of Apple's branding is no longer interesting.
However, Apple is just as dumb as could have been with this whole QT thing. While QT supposedly has the ability to play Flash movies in QT tracks it has never been uptodate with the latest flash version nor has apple ever provided an inhouse tool to produce interactive content (unless this is also the product of some fucked deal between Apple and macromedia). The only company that makes such a tool, Totallyhip (www.totally.com), has been struggling for years to get any marketing presence (who knows it exists?) and, although the tool was far more flexible and powerful than Flash in the beginning, Flash has long since overtaken it.
I blame Apple.
The question raised by Linux users (why no QT for Linx?) is a good one.
I'm not trolling but perhaps it reflects marketshare and perhaps is a byproduct of the whole OSS movement. The general mindset is that Linux is difficult to use (which is crap but bare with me). Have the OSS crowd ever asked themselves what the platform looks like to an outsider, especially an outsider consumer. Two (2) major rival Desktop systems (KDE and GNOME), no coherent approach to usability and the occaisional need to go and do something on the commandline (I know it has improved but it is still neccessary for some things). I remember even Linus saying last year that it was time the something was done about the usability. Think of how it looks to a potential commercial developer such as Macromedia or Adobe. Which Windowing system do they use, KDE or GNOME? How do they make it completely uniform enough in order to make it worthwhile? This is not a shot at OSS but while OSS software can survive (well sometimes) in an environment like this, commercial stuff like the above can't.
While I think both Desktop systems have their merits, IMO it would be beneficial if they were to merge as I think the fragmentation hurts the platform as a target for commercial software.
Why downloading a overbloated system that kills CPU usage and hogs down the system (on PC that is) like media player 7 and above does, if you could have it in a tightly optimized and efficient distributed way? I say: go macromedia.
Flash is everywhere, like it or not, and they do a good job at porting the plugin to a lot of platforms (even if it's not EVERYWHERE yet) Like it or not, if you surf the web a lot, you hit flash content, the plugin is small, you don't need a 5MB download and install and useless clugging down just to view one file once in a while.
Most of the people on windows are downloading quicktime to almost exclusively view movies encoded with that sorenson coded, mainly because most of all of the other codecs supplied by apple sucks (exept the dv).
I mean, most of them are about the quality of microsoft AVI RLE encoding (aside from the mjpeg and mpeg and dv and anythign high bandwidth that isn't impressive over the net). I do a lot of video editing, I did codec research and analysis a few years ago, made codec-buster files and evaluated most of them with their strong and weak points, if apple would want quicktime to take off and become useful on something other than a Mac, they would have to bring in big guns. Sorenson is nice but it's not even close to DIVX in quality and performance (try playing a quicktime movie at 1280x960 for example, and feel the jerking and all). Why download a 20megs movie preview if you can fit it in 5 megs with about the same quality? that's an extra 4:1 compression (I'm talking roughly here and not considering the time of encoding and all).
Usually if I want to distribute a movie on PC with the maximum quality at lowest bitrate possible, I think DIVX. If I want to distribute cross-platform, with no hassles, MPEG comes to mind. there are VERY good mpeg encoders and if you know what you are doing and how mpeg works, you can output VERY nice results taking minimal bandwidth and competing directly with realvideo (well for anything above 80x80 like most people like encoding in RV). The BIG problem with mpeg movies, is the people encoding them. They hack a cable signal to their tv tuner and encode without knowing what an I-frame is and where they could cut off or optimize the bandwidth usage. The result? most mpeg movies on the net sucks and gives a bad name to mpeg.
I think most people that have basic video codec knowledge here aren't impressed by sorenson, especially when leeching a 20+ meg movie trailer for the resolution it gives, at these file size we're used to double of that resolution with about the same quality when using PC codecs like mpeg-4 based.
Yeah quicktime 6 will have mpeg-4 I know, good for them, but too late, DIVX got the crown there, plus it's EFFICIENT, I can watch HDTV video on my athlon with that beast.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
Do these guys have no brains? Make the damn player code 100% free, dont these guys learn from gif/jpeg. If its free its 100% used. People will pay for 'encoders' but never for players.
MS has the right idea.
Apple people laughing at X Window system, while they know that Apple leech the community and refuse to share Aqua. (If you don't wanna share Aqua, fine. But why flame X? Did we ask for humiliation?)
Yes, you did..
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
A couple years back, I would have sided with the other guy: Apple could hang in there despite losing the Mhz war. PCs and Apple Macintoshes weren't so different despite that one overhyped statisitic of cpu clock. But now....
Sheesh, Motorola is so far gone and in decline the viability of Apple is really a question in my mind.
I was in CompUSA yesterday by chance and played with the ibooks and such.
Took about 4 seconds to open a friggin terminal window. ( Ummm yeah, that's the UNIX I want )
(subject says it all!)
No Contract is enforceable in the event that it is of the detriment of Linux users worldwide. In the event that a company attempts to enforce such a contract, it will henceforth be a Bad Company and you will not recommend it to your friends.
/. karma.
On the other hand, and company that attempts to breach a contract that is to the benefit of Linux users worldwide, will henceforth be a Good Company and be blessed with endless
-- james
I really doubt it's an active conspiracy on Apple's part - the software business is at best a shaky balancing act: R&D vs. ROI.
The return on porting or allowing Quicktime to be ported to Linux would be nil - there aren't enough Linux users who would be willing to BUY the QT player to make it pan out on the R&D end.
Second, the goodwill generated would be short-term at best, since the most vocal Linux users don't want anything to do with commercial software. It's hard to justify providing a product to someone for free when the loudest barking dogs are barking at you.
Then again, it could be a conspiracy - but Apple is under no obligation to provide ANY tools to Linux users, since that could hurt their own bottom line with OSX.
When it comes down to it, Linux on the desktop has yet to prove that it can generate a long-term sustainable business model, except in a few limited instances. Things are going well on the server side, but the desktop is headed in so many directions, it's impossible to tell who's on top and therefore deserves the largest chunk of development money.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
As I seem to recall, Sorenson is still a lossy video codec as it is impossible to recreate the image accurately no matter what the circumstance is without discarding or "guessing" data during the decoding process.
If you're going to download video, don't expect quality unless you have a decent enough connection (which most still dont, world-wide). If you want to preserve your video, using a video format which has hardware support is a better idea (and I dont seem to recall a hardware player capable of playing quicktime files, let alone anything encoded with the Sorenson codec).
This is unfortunate for us OS X users because Windows Media Player is crap
Windows Media seems work fine for me on OS X. Meaning, it plays the movies I ask it to play. Appears to be better than the OS 9 version in general.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
I think you are over-simplifying and assuming the Sorenson people actually want to support the open source community...
However it would make a very cynical bastard (me) very happy if even half you say turns out to be true.
No sig for the moment.
Folks,
For those curious about the details of the technologies in question, here goes. FWIW, I was a beta tester for both codecs, have taught classes with them, and cover them both extensively in my forthcoming book.
Sorenson currently sells two different codecs, Sorenson Video 3.1 Pro, and Spark Pro, both bundled with versions of their Squeeze encoding tool.
Sorenson Video 3.1 Pro is an advanced version of an encoder/decoder built into QuickTime. It's an excellent codec, with good compression efficiency, a B-frame mode that dramatically improves QuickTime streaming, and many other groovy features. All versions of Sorenson Video are QuickTime only.
Sorenson has also had a MPEG-4 codec in beta for forever (I did the first public demo of it back at QuickTime Live 2000). MPEG-4 is a superset of "baseline" H.263 (an older standard codec, designed for video conferencing), and any MPEG-4 decoder is required to also play back baseline H.263. Sorenson's MPEG-4 encoder includes a baseline H.263 encoder as well, so you can use the codec to make files compatible with H.263 decoders as well (like the Java Media Framework).
The Spark codec, which Sorenson licensed to Macromedia, and Spark Pro, the advanced encoder version included in Sorenson's Squeeze for Flash MX encoding tool, are derived from H.263, based on Sorenson's work with the MPEG-4 codec. Spark Pro is enormously better than the plain Spark incoder built into Flash - that one doesn't even let you specify a data rate.
I haven't read Apple's complaint, but I'd guess that they're alleging that parts of Sorenson Video were used to develop the Sorenson MPEG-4 codec, and which in turn wound up in Spark, which was licensed to Macromedia. I have no idea if this actually happened, or whether or not it would be permitted under their contract if it did.
Both codecs do have a number of features in common, like a configurable threshold for automatic keyframe insertion, an optional image smoothing (deblocking) filter on decode, and 2-pass VBR encoding.
Anyway, knowing as much as I do about these codecs, I feel completely unqualified to have an opinion on the legal merits of this case.
Hope this helped clarify things slightly.
My video compression blog
If you're getting bad color, you're probably using Sorenson Video 2 (just called "Sorenson Video" in the QuickTime UI). The Basic, free version of Sorenson Video 3 (called "Sorenson Video 3") built into QuickTime since 5.0.2 doesn't have this problem, and is much, much higher quality and much, much faster than the old free codec.
My video compression blog
Hardly. The only thing open about the codec is the decoder, and that's only as open as Flash in general. No one charges for decoders for web formats - nothing new here.
The Spark Pro encoder is only available with Sorenson's Squeeze for Flash MX product, which they sell. It's a good piece of software, and worth the money for those doing professional Flash creation. The free Spark encoder built into Flash MX can work for simple projects, but doesn't come close to Spark Pro for mission critical quality.
Apple is actually backing MPEG-4 hard, which is much closer to an open standard than Sorenson's codecs.
My video compression blog
...Sorenson has no problem using Free Software...
The fact that they use free software really has nothing to do with the issue at hand. Using free software doesn't create any obligation to anybody. That's one of the most charming things about free software. Or Free Software, depending on your preference in capitalization.
While I agree that porting the encoder to Linux probably would be financially dubious, there's always an incentive to port the decompressor. Getting the decompressor into the hands of as many users as possible makes the encoder more attractive to the producers.
Take me, for example. I encode a good amount of video. Currently I mostly encode to MPEG1, since I know my Mac and Linux and Windows friends will have little problems playing those videos. If this were true of Sorenson, I wouldn't mind shelling out some bucks to switch to a higher-quality codec. In the meantime, though, I'm stuck with MPEG1 (until ISO-MPEG4 becomes mainstream, if it ever does).
Darwin Streaming Server isn't Open Source! It's proprietary-with-source, a bit like Microsoft's Shared Source. Get your facts straight!
VP3 is Open Source; XVID isn't. This is because the authors of VP3 are releasing their code under the LGPL license. On the other hand, XVID is made of a combination of Open Source GPL'd code and proprietary OpenDivX licensed code. Notice that the OpenDivX license has a number of restrictions which make it proprietary and non-free. The XVID codec could, for example, never be distributed with Debian, Mandrake or any other Free Software operating system, whereas VP3 could. XVID may be a great codec, but don't spread lies about its licensing, fluor2.
Like everything else, things don't last forever. More to the point, aren't more and more digital imaging companies and movie effects shops moving development to Linux? If so, wouldn't the developers want something simple to view clips on their workstations? Isn't it possible these shops will create clips/trailers in Ogg just for conveniance?
I really doubt it's an active conspiracy on Apple's part - the software business is at best a shaky balancing act: R&D vs. ROI.
I'd bet a bunch that Apple has a player in house already. After all, they have a Unix version.
We are not really talking about major costs. The whole API is exposed by open source players already, and the source for the codec is in house.
Then again, it could be a conspiracy - but Apple is under no obligation to provide ANY tools to Linux users, since that could hurt their own bottom line with OSX.
I was just pointing out the obvious problem wrt forcing me to buy Windows or MacOS in order to view copies of copyrighted material I own.
And, as I pointed out, Apple needs to spend NO in house $$ to port. Real didn't - they just provided specs. Intel and Radius both allowed xanim to make binary-only plug-ins, and no one in the community is up in arms.
Steve Jobs is scared sh%tless about the potential for linux on the desktop, and probably also feels a major market for OS X is people currently using linux that would like Microsoft Media Player and QuickTime.
I don't think that releasing a binary-only QuickTime codec would solve any real problems: Firstly, it wouldn't be distributed with some of the most popular distributions like Debian and Mandrake for philosophical reasons as well as technical reasons...
I think you really mean political reasons rather than philosophical reasons. As the recent discussion on LKML over the use of BitKeeper (a non-free source control system) shows, technical reasons are the logical reasons to choose to use one software package over another. Using inferior tool for political reasons is just foolish.
And before someone mentions it, yes, I do "buy" my Linux distributions. I buy the install CDs from the vendor who produces them because, as the recent Mandrake cash crunch shows, they can't continue to develop new distributions if no one will pay to use them. Since Mandrake distributes software like Star Office, I think they'd have no problem with a closed-source QT.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
If Macromedia comes to ther senses and let the flash-player support the CODEC, Apple can suck bananas as everybody will forget about Quicktime and use flash instead.
Okay, to start, I think you make a lot of assumptions about the community. I will accept totally proprietary solutions depending on what they are. People need to realise that there is a balance to strike between freedom and commercialism. Both are needed, and indeed, are good for Linux.
Look - Free software is great, necessary even, for some parts of computing. The OS is one example, IMHO. The Kernel/display layer/desktop environments should be free software. However, there's ABSOLUTELY NO REQUIREMENT WHATSOEVER for everything to be free/open source! Is Flash core part of computing? No. Therefore, does it have to be open sourced? No. In fact, I think we should be encouraging Macromedia - the SWF format is well documented and free for use by anyone. This is arguably more than can be said for Ogg Vorbis (though of course the ogg docs situation is temporary). Macromedia make a good product, that people are willing to pay for, and they have opened up the SWF format to the community so nobody can be locked in. Good going Macromedia!
NVidia - are drivers a core part of computing. Arguable. Is it realistic to expect a key competitor in the cutthroat world of 3D accelerators to open up their specs? No. Not right now, anyway. As far as I'm concerned, releasing Linux drivers has not backfired at all, if anything I'm now considering an NVidia card for my next computer because I know it'll work with Linux (a priority) and better still, will work WELL. Eventually of course it'd be good for the specs to be opened up, so everyone can use their hardware, but for the next few years at least we must compromise.
Sorenson - the hot potato. Is video compression a core part of the OS/core part of computing? I'd say ... no, it isn't. Of course preferably we should use open video standards wherever possible, to prevent future lockin, but at the end of the day Sorensen have right to develop a codec and sell it. They don't produce a version for Linux, that sucks and they should change it, but I'm not going to lampoon the company on those grounds. It simply means they're pissing some people off, not at all uncommon for companies I think you'll find.
Stop pointing fingers or writing lame-ass petitions and write yur own damn version. A purist would write his own, a slack open source wannabe who has never contributed whines and starts petitions.
"I have an odd craving to whisper about those few frightful hours in that ill-rumored and evilly shadowed seaport of dea
You obviously missed the story about Batboy's 1500-pound brother reverse-engineering the Windows video format (getting sued by MPAA and MS in the process). He released a video on Gnutella that clearly shows the JFK shooter on the grassy knoll, along with a leaked preview of "Return of the King", including the uncensored version of the gay sex scene between Gandalf and Pippin.
It seems to me that it's possible, hell, even probable, that the Sorensen license with Apple is mutually restrictive. As in... Apple wants exclusive right to the codec, but Sorensen wants to limit their exposure and places limits on what Apple may do with it.
In this scenario, the license would state that Apple has exclusive rights to the Sorensen codec and that Apple agrees to only use the Sorensen codec in Apple-branded software. In this case, Apple hasn't (technically) lied; they just haven't stated the whole truth.
In this case, the ages-old argument of stating that cost-analysis tells Apple there's no point in porting to Linux; the market is too small.
If I were Sorensen, I'd want to make sure that Apple didn't just go blithely around giving my code away for free; I'd want my license to reflect that I reserve the right to explore new markets (such as Linux), or something to that effect.
It's worth noting that Apple suffers from the "market too small" problem too. I've had the privilege of talking to some of the people who port games to the Mac (specifically, brass at West Lake Interactive, one of the bigger Mac-porters around). Essentially, game manufacturers know that Mac users historicly buy fewer games (per capita) than PC users, and that the Mac community is much smaller.... so, with such a small community, and with a smaller percentage of the community buying, only the best selling games get ported, and even then, a lot of times they still lose money. This is, in essence, why so few games get ported to Mac OS.
I have a Matrox DigiSuite LE that captures in mpeg format. You can capture using lossless compression, but it's huge files. 10 gigs is like 5 mins. I then compress the raw mpeg (can't play back w/o matrox hardware) into .mov(QT) format with sorenson for compositing and storage, and it looks better than the same sized .avi.
Sorenson compressed video looks better when composited with 3D than mpgs. It isn't blocky. You could get some field dominance problems if you don't pay attention to the settings though.
I'd bet Avid might have some custom compression boards that do Sorenson (or better), but I've only seen Avids, never got to touchy. My video experience has been with PC's.
This story's now off of the main page, so I don't know if anyone will see it, but here goes:
I actually got a decent reply from the PR department at Sorenson in response to my question - I had asked them about what was preventing them from making even a binary-only decoder module available for something besides Windows/Mac...
The answer was interesting - as expected, the exclusivity agreements with Apple prevented them from making it available at all unless Apple wanted it done. Interestingly enough, though, the I was ALSO told that The exclusivity agreement in question expired last month (which may have something to do with the timing of Apple's lawsuit?) and that they are in negotiation with Apple about renewal, and if Apple doesn't renew, they'll be able to make the codec available, at least for licensing if nothing else.
I've got to give Sorenson this much credit, at least: their reply was prompt, polite, and informative, which gives me some hope for their future...
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Macromedia will give them money and Macromedia makes it part of the Open SWF format.
That's absurd. Do you really think Sorenson would let them do that? I would bet money that Sorenson video CODECs would NOT be made publicly available, even if other parts of FLash MX are.
What motivation does Sorenson or Macromedia have to make their specs publicly available?
Apple doesn't want Open Source Video, so they would never let Sorenson release the codec.
More stupidity. Why would Apple care? Apple supports Open Source much more than Macromedia or Sorenson. Where are Sorenson's Open products?
You are totally misinterpreting. Apple wants Quicktime to be the best multimedia API (and it is). They want quality. Sorenson was the only company with this technology.
They had no choice but to license it. If there was a decent Open Source alternative available, Apple would choose it. Do you think Apple WANT to pay 4.5 million dollars? Of course not. Sorenson was the only otion - and they have a proprietary product. So Apple entered into a contract with them.
That does not preclude Quicktime from being compatible with Open Source formats or CODECs.
Sorenson could have told apple to go stuff it,
Why the hell would they? You are incredibly deluded if you think Sorenson wants to go Open Source.
They exist to make MONEY. They are not going to make money by releasing their proprietary property to the public.
Enter Macromedia. They'll pay and make it Open
Bullshit. It's Sorenson's product. Why would they allow a third party to give away their property?
The only reason that Sorenson are talking to Macromedia is the $$$$$$$$$$$$. nothing to do with Open Source.
Apple's locked into an OS and Macromedia isn't,
Complete bullshit. Quicktime is available on Windows and Mac. Other Apple products are available on UNIX, WIndows, MacOS, Linux and so forth.
You really don't know much about Apple or Quicktime, do you?
so Macromedia could care less about proprietary formats.
Bullshit. They have thrived from proprietary formats. What do you think Flash was all about? It wasn't some Open Source dream to begiun with - it was about proprietary web content.
READ BETWEEN THE LINES! Sorenson has wanted to open the codec for years, but they couldn't do it an remain alive before.
What???
Do you have any source for this assertion? how could it possibly make business sense for Sorenson to give away their prouct They have been proprietary all the way.
Your argument is incredibly bizarre. Somehow the evil forces of Apple are forcing Sorenson and Macomedia to abandon their Open Source dreams?
Can I have some of your crack?
Suggestion, stay out of CompUSA, and try your local apple retailer. Just as you wouldn't go to a Volkswagon dealer to test drive a Honda, you shouldn't go to a PC store to test a mac.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
OK, so some Open Sourcer will compile the thing for free, but that's not where the monetary loss comes in. You lose money whenever you allow any advantage to your competition and apparently, Apple fees that Linux is competition.
Be glad that your choice of OS is making people sit up and take notice, but you should not get mad when someone starts treating you like real competition.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
Nice, posting as a coward. Yes, you can share my crack with me.
Your right, it doesn't make sense for Sorenson to GIVE away there codec. Just as it doesn't make sense for Macromedia to give away flash. But Macromedia DOES GIVE away the SWF format. I was ASSuming that since the SWF format is open, the codecs it uses would be also.
And the "Evil Forces of Apple" are trying to stay king's of video. Which is why Soreson HAD to be licsensed the way it did. Macromedia is way more open than Appple, you don't see Apple giving away the MOV format, which is what I was trying to get at. FlashMX can compete with QuickTimePro so Apple is scared. Sorenson may not be OSS but it definitly more "Open" now.
Aren't you aware that QuickTime 6, which implements MPEG 4, has been finished and ready for release for quite some time, but Apple is witholding it until the MPEG LA creates a sensible licensing scheme?
Apple is making a principled stand for all of us little guys.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.