Free Software Foundation Urges Google To Free VP8

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."

Comments

Re:yay just what the world needs

[timmarhy]

name one point in history where mpeg-la charged "exorbitant" licensing fees?

they profit from having a good technology at a cheap price. it sounds like the kind of misdirected crap RMS spouts.

Re:Well thats the FSF for you

[Viol8]

Yes, because companies like Redhat are real mega corps almost the same size as Microsoft and Oracle!

Oh , wait...