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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."
Steve jobs has NEVER been a nice fellow. :)
Ogg is the container, Theora is the codec. Confusion arises sometimes because Ogg Vorbis music files are typically called "oggs", even though Vorbis is the codec in that case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theora
That plan just happened to slip his mind when he shipped iPhones and iPads with built-in Youtube support, then?
There are 811 AVC/H.264 licensees and 26 licensors
Apple and Microsoft are licensors along with industrial mega-corps like Mitsubishi Electric, Sony and Toshiba.
Google and Canonical are licensees.
H.264 has tremendous strength simply in OEM support and brand-name consumer tech. There are no significant players missing here.
Here's the perspective of Greg Maxwell from Xiph on Steve Jobs' claims:
http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/theora/2010-April/003769.html
It's from a 419 scam bait prank. P-P-P-Powerbook
Don't settle for being 99% sure - go and check:
http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/PatentList.aspx
Apple owns one patent licensed through the h264 pool, "Using order value for processing a video picture", US 7,292,636.
From your references, the AVC/H.264 Patent List is a 49 page pdf file. Each page shows about 10 to 20 patent numbers, or around 700 by a quick calculation.
Interestingly, Apple has only one patent.
There's a difference between FUD and actual legal issues. Mozilla can't support H.264 in Firefox out of the box.
It is a bit annoying, however, that they absolutely refuse to use local libraries (DirectShow, GStreamer, etc) to access what codecs the user has available.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I can't believe what I'm reading here today. The video codec "war" is over; Google doesn't really even have a horse in the race. Apple devices support H.264 and Microsoft is putting it into the next IE version. Between Apple and Microsoft that covers an overwhelming majority of the video players and that's what any sensible web site will be using to encode their video files.
VP8 may be very cool and Theora is nice, too. But see the above and realize that even if all of the "me too" web browsers use open source codecs exclusively they'll insure that they'll remain a "me too" browser. I'm sure that the Firefox users here (like me) have noticed the (still) large number of web sites that are reduced in function or unusable to that browser. If those sites can't even be troubled to write HTML that works on all browsers, what makes anyone think they'll maintain multiple copies (encoded in multiple formats) of each video file so that when some uncommon / open source web browser comes along it'll be able to view the videos? Even mighty Google isn't in a position where they can force a video codec on us.
If open source zealots want to engage in battles like this, they need to pick their battles better. And those intellectually dishonest postings trying to blame Apple for the way things are don't serve anyone. Put some of that time and effort into making a difference instead, OK?
Here's something to think about: is it possible to write a codec that plays H.264 files without infringing any patents? Don't assume it's impossible - it could very well be possible and that could lead to an open source codec that is compatible with what the big boys use. That's a worthy goal; who's going to give it a try?
disclaimer: i have been drinking.
because, douchebag, local libraries make the ui platform dependent. have you looked at the architecture diagram of xul lately?
Theora (or rather the VP3 codec) is older than H.264 by about 3 years.