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Free Software Foundation Urges Google To Free VP8

Posted by timothy on from the windmill-assaulted-my-honor dept.

jamesswift writes "The FSF have written an open letter to Google urging them to free the VP8 codec with an irrevocable royalty-free licence: 'With its purchase of the On2 video compression technology company having been completed on Wednesday February 16, 2010, Google now has the opportunity to make free video formats the standard, freeing the web from both Flash and the proprietary H.264 codec.'" Also from the letter: "The world would have a new free format unencumbered by software patents. Viewers, video creators, free software developers, hardware makers -- everyone -- would have another way to distribute video without patents, fees, and restrictions. The free video format Ogg Theora was already at least as good for web video (see a comparison) as its nonfree competitor H.264, and we never did agree with your objections to using it. But since you made the decision to purchase VP8, presumably you're confident it can meet even those objections, and using it on YouTube is a no-brainer."

2 of 315 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Oh God, please no! by chainsaw1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Probably a naive question, but--If we have so much hardware support for decoding, then why are Linux / BSD playback such a problem? Wouldn't you then be passing the stream to hardware for decoding, thereby avoiding needing a license to process the stream? I figure you would only need the license to decode in software (since then you are actually writing the codecs yourself)...

    --
    - Sig
  2. Even Google can't implement VP8 by Ilgaz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you check the size of h264/mp4 SP implemented devices, Android, iPad, iPod like "trendy" new stuff is a drop in the ocean.

    Companies who actually broadcasts and sells content looks for the size of the market, the share of the market and yes, in that case non smart phones (billions!) are also mattering with the advent of 3G and even EDGE.

    Lets say, if you invent a codec which will effectively erase h264 in terms of quality&bandwidth, h264/mp4 and even mpeg-2 will still stay since that device in your hand and connected device to your TV has some kind of impossible to replace chip.

    I think FSF and "Free codec" thinks everyone uses the latest device/trendy PC and somehow, Google will magically add VP8 to it. How? They don't even see the real magic thing about H264, it is scalability and compatibility. Most of "Real is spyware" trolls or "MS is dying" people doesn't know it but... H264 and AAC(+) is the first time the entire industry agreed on a single codec. Device manufacturers, software vendors, chip manufacturers, cell phone manufacturers have all said "OK, regardless of our evil World domination plans, there is nothing that can match H264".

    For the first time in media history, Real, MS, Satellite Boxes, Apple, Cell phones, Media devices, Blu Ray are all using the very same codec with little difference which makes it extremely easy and cheap for the actual content creators. When a TV professional hears about Linux, he pictures a Da Vinci box (lovely thing based on Linux), not the 1% Desktop... Thanks to iPhone/iPod and actually rising market share, Apple matters but Apple has already decided back when nobody except media professionals and codec nerds knew about it. It is H264.