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Steve Jobs Hints At Theora Lawsuit
netcrawler writes "Steve Jobs' open letter on Flash has prompted someone at the Free Software Foundation Europe to ask him about his support of proprietary format H.264 over Theora. Jobs' pithy answer (email with headers) suggests Theora might infringe on existing patents and that 'a patent pool is being assembled to go after Theora and other "open source" codecs now.' Does he know something we don't?"
Update: 05/01 00:38 GMT by T : Monty Montgomery of Xiph (the group behind Theora, as well as Ogg Vorbis, and more) provides a pointed, skeptical response to the implicit legal threat, below.
Monty writes: "Thomson Multimedia made their first veiled patent threats against
Vorbis almost ten years ago. MPEG-LA has been rumbling for the
past few years. Maybe this time it will actually come to
something, but it hasn't yet. I'll get worried when the lawyers advise
me to; i.e., not yet.
The MPEG-LA has insinuated for some time that it is impossible to build any video codec without infringing on at least some of their patents. That is, they assert they have a monopoly on all digital video compression technology, period, and it is illegal to even attempt to compete with them. Of course, they've been careful not to say quite exactly that.
If Jobs's email is genuine, this is a powerful public gaffe ('All video codecs are covered by patents.') He'd be confirming MPEG's assertion in plain language anyone can understand. It would only strengthen the pushback against software patents and add to Apple's increasing PR mess. Macbooks and iPads may be pretty sweet, but creative individuals don't really like to give their business to jackbooted thugs."
The MPEG-LA has insinuated for some time that it is impossible to build any video codec without infringing on at least some of their patents. That is, they assert they have a monopoly on all digital video compression technology, period, and it is illegal to even attempt to compete with them. Of course, they've been careful not to say quite exactly that.
If Jobs's email is genuine, this is a powerful public gaffe ('All video codecs are covered by patents.') He'd be confirming MPEG's assertion in plain language anyone can understand. It would only strengthen the pushback against software patents and add to Apple's increasing PR mess. Macbooks and iPads may be pretty sweet, but creative individuals don't really like to give their business to jackbooted thugs."
http://www.opensource.apple.com/
There, you'll find the Darwin source plus lots of other stuff, too much to name really. Feel free to download it and try it out.
Anyway, you were saying something about how Apple threatens software freedom. Or maybe you are just a confused kid with idea what he's talking about?
You're a troll. Jobs is clearly saying that Theora will be coming under attack from patent lawsuits. He's not saying that he's the one who will launch it, or support it. He's simply addressing the reasons why he won't support Theora.
It's not FUD if it's the truth.
Most "hardware" today can be programmed to add new codecs.
Really, point me to any literature that says this is at all possible with any modern video decoder on hardware meant for mobile devices.
Most hardware decoders are pretty heavily customized beasts, intended for a small range of conversion. I've done a (very small) amount of custom chip design in college, just don't see this being possible, sorry.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Steve Jobs and Apple were ALWAYS the same as Microsoft, just not as succesful. They are Musolini to Hitler (Godwin be damned). Both were vicious dictators who had people killed but Musolini just never got the same "success" in his nastyness as his ally. But only a fool would throw himself at the mercy of Musolini.
There are a lot of not so nice companies out there, typically the companies run by single individual for to long yet also a shareholder company. It is a mix of isolation and duty bound greed. Somebody like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson will never ever have been told. "You are wrong". If you rise in power, you tend to get surrounded by yes-men, people who tell you what you want to hear and because most people find that pleasing, you promote them with you so as you rise you leave the nay-sayers behind you.
And since you have share-holders you always have to grow, always find yet one more cent of profit to squeeze out of the company to please your share-holders. Who will then tell you "yes".
The idea that Steve "Disney" Jobs is somehow a savior battling Bill Gates is silly to the extreme. Human beings love to think in heroes vs baddies, and because real heroes are difficult to follow (Stallman) we tend to latch on the first baddie who isn't kicking puppies, at this very moment at least.
The move against Flash had nothing to do with Open vs Closed, but with dependency. Adobe has for years (and still) been extremely bad with support for non-windows platforms, Flash on Mac sucks. Flash on AMD64 linux is absent. BSD? That has hurt Apple, they had a hard time selling their Mac's for years for the lack of flash. Now there product happens to be popular enough they don't need flash, so why should they not use the opportunity to control the supply chain of their products? Remember, Vista failed partially because of the lack of 3rd party drivers. You NEVER want YOUR product to fail because a 3rd party doesn't supply for it. Electric cars face the same dillema, you can design all kinds of wonderful alternative fuel systems, but if their are no refueling stations out there, you are screwed. That is why car-makers are now developing re-fueling stations themselves, even starting to operate them, to break the dependency on 3rd parties (petrol companies).
But to get back to Apple. If Apple had been as succesful as MS, then we would have had no cheap Compaq clones making home computing affordable. Either we would still have the home computers (Amiga, Commodre, Sinclair) or computing would start with a Mac Pro. There would be far less opensource available (Stallman started his work on Unixes, machines that make even Apples seem cheap) (Oh and please note that this is not saying Apples are TO expensive, but that Apple does not sell cheapo computers) because there would be fewer people with a computer at home to mess around on.
DRM might be stronger, or absent. With fewer computers around and those who have one being richer, there would be less reason and less to file share.
But a dominant Apple would NOT be a beacon of light and reason and freedom. It would be just another MS, but controlling both hardware and the software.
Is this particular story genuine? It seems odd. Not because I think Steve Jobs is a nice guy but precisly because I don't think he is a nice guy. But he isn't a psycho. What is there in it for him to be AGAINST Theora? Nothing.
So unless he has gone mental, I doubt he is going to be involved in an attack on an open codec. There simply is nothing to gain and a to lose. He might not want openess but he certainly doesn't want to be perceived as being against it and Theora doesn't really threathen him. If it becomes the dominant video codec, then so what? No big loss.
The only thing I could imagine if Apples .mov format and quicktime player were not just accidents but willfull attempts to create a video codec that is annoying as hell to deal with. Could be the reason why it is so hard to get just the codec, without a
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
There's a YouTube app on all smartphones sold today, so that's not the point.
The point probably is that using Flash, one could create all kinds of apps that circumvent the iPhones AppStore. Free Flash games are everywhere on the net of sometimes exceptional quality and there's tons of possibilities to create any possible app in Flash.
As proprietary as it may be, Flash still has a Turing-complete language behind it. It can do most of the things that Java can. Embed it in a web page and you have a perfectly portable app that can do anything, only slower than native code.
Even Steve Jobs can't control the Internet and shut down all the competing apps that could be written in Flash - so they probably want to "protect" "their" endpoints from using apps outside of Apple's iron grip on.
If they did, we'd see a platform like "www.mp3.ru" spring up a Flash-based music store targeted at iPhones within days.
And seeing his cash cow monopoly break would ruin Steve Jobs mood and health, so they have to do whatever it takes to stop that. Including having the police kick in doors of American citizens and the corporate security of Chinese supplier companies bully employees into suicide if new products are leaked. (ref. FoxConn, Shenzhen) - and I wouldn't even be surprised if someone assisted in that suicide.