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Ars Thinks Google Takes a Step Backwards For Openness
An anonymous reader writes "Over at Ars Technica, Peter (not so) Bright gives a long-winded four pages of FUD about how Chrome dropping support for H.264 is a slight against openness. 'The promise of HTML5's video tag was a simple one: to allow web pages to contain embedded video without the need for plugins. With the decision to remove support for the widespread H.264 codec from future versions of Chrome, Google has undermined this widely-anticipated feature. The company is claiming that it wants to support "open codecs" instead, and so from now on will support only two formats: its own WebM codec, and Theora. ... The reason Google has given for this change is that WebM (which pairs VP8 video with Vorbis audio) and Theora are "open codecs" and H.264 apparently isn't. ... H.264 is unambiguously open.'"
Peter (not so) Bright gives a long winded, read 4 pages of FUD
I come to slashdot for the articles but stay for one-sided submission summaries.
Not that I support Google's move but, come on, this is summary is a troll unto itself.
Trolling is a art,
I think that the original editorial does have a point in one regard. The height of "openness" and freedom to me is the ability for me, as the user, to CHOOSE whatever format I want to watch or use for myself. Now, I'm sure that there will be some extension for Chrome that allows for H.264 support. But, having said that, I still never feel more "free" when someone REMOVES support for a format.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
RARRR WTF, so much FUD blah blah blah... (continue raging in the way that the submitter is hoping for)
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
The stupid ad hominem attacks by the anonymous submitter aside, Peter Bright isn't really that far off the mark. He is quite correct in the claims he makes, which essentially boild down to two points: One, H.264 is an open standard, where "open" needs to be read in the context of standards, and none of the other are (though they are "open" in other senses of the word). And two, the move is more about having a free-as-in-beer standard than a free-as-in-speech one.
I don't really think that Google is the least bit worried about a few million bucks, so I am doubtful of his 2nd argument as far as it regards Chrome. But there are a couple good points in his first argument, especially when it comes to the question of control.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The specifications are fully open for anyone to -freely- implement both coding and decoding for. The specifications were fully open in the sense that not a single commercial entity was responsible for drafting and controlling it, but any company that wanted to partake; so-called open participation. These are undisputable facts about the MPEG codecs. The problem here isn't that H.264 isn't as open as Google wants it to be - the problem is that it isn't as FREE as they want it to be. In order to make use of the MPEG "technology" in a _commercial_ context, you need to pay, and Google does not want to pay.
I just don't understand the bit of reasoning Peter Bright made about why Google dropping H.264 is a bad thing because they may incur licensing fees. Especially this last bit:
It's not as if Google can't afford the $6.5 million a year, and by paying that money the company would enable web users to view open, standards-compliant, H.264 video.
What, just because a company can afford the licensing fees means that it MUST pay the licensing fees, especially in the face of other open source alternatives that doesn't require them?
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
You can argue that it is a step backwards for "openness", or, you can argue that Google is digging their feet in to ensure that their own 'truly open' video format will become the standard. Both POV's have validity but WebM is probably better for consumers in the long run.
H264 is not open, it is patent encumbered, it will not be open until all relevant (a word which has become very stretched recently) patents have expired. The Ars article tries to address this by claiming that there are no royalties that need to be paid for videos that can be accessed without a paywall; yet the document they cite says this is only for "0 - 100,000 units" which clearly creates a problem for libre software that has millions of users. Furthermore, the line that the licensing terms draws for "(a)" and "(b)" sublicensing is artificial and wholly incompatible with free software licensing.
Palm trees and 8
WebM is an open 'proprietary' implementation. It can easily be retroactively declared a standard, or achieve defacto standard status, but it is a technology championed by a single company without a standards body overseeing it. This is not necessarily a bad thing (and can even be a good thing, standards bodies frequently mess things up). It is unarguably open, but it isn't standard.
One could make the case that h264 is not 'open', because of the royalties, but it *is* a standard because the work was done with the standards bodies to make it so.
He does point out the obvious that the rhetoric of 'we believe in open' is really better read as 'we are too cheap for licensing decoders for a free browser', but that one sentence was really all that needed to be said on the matter and most people immediately realized that.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
the licensing fees eventually reflect on the end users through development costs and proliferation rate of applications/services. free, is good for me, the end user.
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It's open and free like a franchise is open and free.
Remember to maintain your supply of
Summary rant aside, how would it affect x.264? Isn't that an open-standard of the h264 spec? If not, just use x264.
Trolling is a art,
Just come out with one standard codec or include all codecs to every browser...problem solved.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I SEE THREE PAGES!
That doesn't make any sense it IS AN OPEN STANDARD. It's just not free as in beer.
so there is nothing left to talk about. i am creeped out like any one else about google's increasing ability to know everything about our lives, but in this case, google did the right thing in the name of openness by denying H.264
good job google, thank you. ignore the paid prostitutes howling about not including H.264. we who have genuine opinions, not opinions derived from corporate pay, are on your side, and support your decision. thank you
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This is more bastardization of the term "open". Refer to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Definition
Published and usable under reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms is a very common definition of an open standard. See most ISO standards. The requirement to be free to implement is a relatively new addition to the definition (within the last 10-15 years).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
so, its not free, and open.
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The standard is open, and there are open source encoders and decoders. So in that sense, it's open: Everything is fully and publicly documented. However, it is also covered by hundreds of patents, which means you can't actually use any of that information without getting a licence from the patent holders. One of whome is Microsoft, who stands to make a lot of money from it. Others include Sony and Apple, who stand to make a lot too. So far the consortium that administers the patent pool has been quite reasonable about terms - free for noncommercial use, low costs even for commercial - but there is a fear that if x264 were to become so established it were impossible to do without it then there would be a temptation for them to start milking more money from those patents.
If he wants to pay Chrome's licensing fees for H.264, then he can have his support back.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
h.264 is about as open as you can get. 'Open' never meant 'free', they are separate topics. In this case however 'Open' is 'Free' for how all of you use h.264 as MPEG-LA has already stated. At least h.264 has undergone, and continues to go through the 'open' review process for the hidden cost of patent infringement. The source code for h.264 is readily available, there are multiple projects out there working to improve h.264, and at this point, it clearly outperform WebM. I am not sure how anyone can consider h.264 to be 'not open' since it is probably the most transparent codec development process the community has ever seen. WebM on the other hand was a closed source development process that stole, seemingly at will from open source projects and implemented those ideas poorly. Bad decisions aside, the single most important reason to not use WebM is that it has absolutely -zero- support from the professional community. It isn't used in production, there is no hardware support, it isn't used anywhere, period. More importantly, it isn't likely to be used anywhere as it lacks the fundamental technical support of advanced containers. MKV folks, is a no substitute for the way that TS, MP4, and MXF, all open standards, are used today. You also have to consider that the CE companies (sony, panasonic, microsoft, apple, etc) all have a vested interest in h.264, for all the right reasons. They chose a codec technology that is open, highly advanced, and can be used nearly transparently from professional studio production to broadcast to consumer distribution. There are many flavors (levels and profiles) of h.264 and each has their place in the food chain. There is only one WebM, and guess what, its a consumer technology, implemented poorly although it is improving under the care of google, and there is no desire to drive it upmarket where it can be used in the professional applications. So on the one hand you have Google and WebM, an untested (deep patent waters), under supported, and non-professional codec, and on the other hand you have every single CE company (read the bulk of the wealth in technology) as well as every single studio/broadcast/telco/cable operator who has already made a commitment to h.264. And yes, while their are issues in the patent portfolio for h.264, at least they are being dealt with and we can move forward. This doesn't even begin to touch the rest of the ecosystem that is part of the video distribution technology portfolio (AAC/MP4/AC-3/DTS/AMR/etc, etc, etc) for all of which there is a working, in use solution that works alongside of, and in tandem with, h.264. WebM is the new Real, don't believe everything you read here, and this is one case where I think Google is doing the world a disservice.
Time to define "open" like we did "free." There is free speech, and free beer, and that is now clear... So lets go with the code is open, the standard is open, the store is open. Clear now?
what kind of bullshit you are smoking ?
so, its better to pay for a closed proprietary standard AND also pay the development fees ? are you aware of the issues and problems flash generates in video formats, browsers, content delivery, for example ?
with proprietary standard, you have to wait for the owner to come up with solutions. with an open standard, your developer, who you are paying for its time, can do anything you want.
if you see no advantage in this for web anything 'in general', quit your i.t. job and start selling real estate or something.
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It seems the new-speak has redefined "open". Remember the good ole days when "open" meant fully documented?
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
The alternative is WebM, which is owned by Google. Google also owns YouTube, Google Video Search, and Chrome, and is leveraging the fact that YouTube, Video Search, and Chrome are popular to try to force everyone to adopt their owned product WebM, without providing any kind of financial assurances to people who do that there are, in fact, no encumbering patents. See a problem here?
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
it is precisely as thus - ars technica is redefining 'open', in order to make it not open, despite being called open, so that proprietary sources can retain custody of standards, mooching money off of it to the detriment of end users and internet proliferation by raising costs as thus.
no, i dont have the moral obligation to pay any third party for anything i do on the web, while open standards are available, neither as a startup, nor as an end users to which costs are reflecting on indirectly. and if anyone tries to redefine open, like the moron in ars technica does, i will take that person not only as 'not bright', but also an enemy of my freedom and interest as a citizen.
open is open. if any party retains custody of something in the form of ownership, then it means that thing is NOT OPEN. actually the anonymous submitter was quite level headed in his inflammatory summary. i would have directly labeled someone who tried to redefine open, for supporting private interests, as a paid whore.
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Just as free as in speech is not the same as free as in beer, open as in standards is not the same
as open as in source.
H.264 is an open, international standard. Indeed, there is nothing left to talk about.
Free != "open"
Open source != "open" (in this context)
This has nothing to do with "paid prostitutes". The reason H.264 costs money is that there is a shitload of patents that all have been dealt with as part of the patent pool. WebM may be encumbered, it may not — but we don't know. It's it's most certainly not an open standard in the same way the MPEG family of international standards are.
It seems to me some OSS types get a little hypocritical in that they talk about OSS being all about openness as in source. They claim that the idea is that you can share improvements and so on. It isn't about money, it is about information.
Well, H.264 is open in that way. It is a standard open to anyone that wishes to implement it under fixed terms. The x264 project is a great example. If you want to see a working H.264 implementation, and try your hand at improving it, well then have at it. The code is there for the taking. Of course if you then wish to make use of it in certain contexts, like implementing it in video editing software, you'll need to pay licensing fees. It isn't free, however it is open.
However it seems that the OSS types then get mad that any money is being charged. All of a sudden openness isn't what it is about. It is no longer a matter of "free as in speech" it is "free as in I want to sleep on your couch for a year." Only things which cost nothing are acceptable, for some reason "open but not zero cost," isn't ok anymore.
In the case of browser H.264 support I think Google is wrong to force WebM. I'm not at all unhappy that there is the WebM standard, I think it is great that a completely free format is out there because face it, we can't all pay royalties. However H.264 is superior in terms of quality per bit and thus has a reason to be used. So the option should be offered.
If it is an issue of money, which I can accept since Chrome is free (though you are right it isn't a big deal to Google) then all they should do is use the system's H.264 codec, if it has one. Windows 7 and OS-X ship with an H.264 decoder, and you can get H.264 decoders for older versions of Windows and I presume for Linux. So just use them if present, and don't play it if not.
Really I think that's the right way for browsers to do HTML 5 video period. Simply pass the request on to the OS's media layer. That way any format the OS knows how to play, you play.
Well, personally I think it's a huge difference between the proprietary only-for-licensed-parties "standards" like say BD+ for BluRays and standards that are made by a major standards organization and is published, open for all to participate and under RAND licensing - on a scale of open to closed they're much more open. Like for example there's a huge difference that for H.264 you have x264, while trying to reverse engineer proprietary formats is pure hell. I think you're far too optimistic as to how uniquely "open" or "open stanadard" is defined.
The dictionary lists 23 uses of open, many of which apply to that. And the expression itself is no clearer, from Wikipedia:
For example, the rules for standards published by the major internationally recognized standards bodies such as the IETF, ISO, IEC, and ITU-T permit their standards to contain specifications whose implementation will require payment of patent licensing fees. Among these organizations, only the IETF and ITU-T explicitly refer to their standards as "open standards", while the others refer only to producing "standards".
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http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1949162&cid=34861568
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While others focus on the definition of "open", I want to focus on the definitions of bright, long-winded and FUD. In defining these terms, I think you are a bit confused. You seem to be using the "bright" to imply having a reasonable amount of information or insight. After reading Mr. Bright's article, I learned a handful of things that I didn't know before, so I guess I would have to consider him at least a little bright. I imagine the rolling of your eyes while reading his article made you a bit dizzy, preventing you from having a similar experience. Or maybe you just know a lot more than I do.
When you define FUD, perhaps you mean that he has a different opinion than you. No matter which side of this argument a person is on, I think that it is easy to agree that this is going to make implementation of the video tag by web developers more difficult and less likely to happen in the next couple of years.
When you define long-winded, perhaps you mean "taking the time to build his position". Clearly from your submission, you are a man of few words. I can admire someone like you that doesn't let information get in the way of expression. I can only wish that life was that easy for me. I keep getting bogged down in considering positions other than my own.
One thing I can say that Mr. Bright has on you though... he was willing to put his name on his position. For all the effort you put into adding your own brand of color to your submission, I just can't understand why you wouldn't want to take full credit.
Very concise and accurate summary. Please mod the parent up.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers - Pablo Picasso
I summed up some arguments to Ars' art here: http://lwb.elka.pw.edu.pl/trac/lwb/blog/rysiek/2011/01/13/on_google_h264_and_openness In short, h264 is a "standard" but a patented, "trojan" one; Google should just submit WebM to ISO and be done with it.
WebM and Chrome are both open sourced under public licenses. To say Google "owns" them is to not understand how these open licenses work. Also, the patents behind VP8 have been released, irrevocably, to the public.
Remember to maintain your supply of
I have to agree with Peter on this. I certainly don't begrudge Google creating and supporting the WebM standard. I think WebM is a good thing, and will foster further open source video codec advancements. But h264 is a solid video standard. I don't like the royalty/patent burden, but that it has already been embraced by many browsers makes it the incumbent codec. I support choice for video encoders and viewers alike, and that means more options rather than fewer. In cutting out the largest codec Google will be limiting choice and eliminating the only standardized codec. Google controls WebM development, whereas h264 is controlled by a standards body, not by any one technology patent holder.
I guess we could all argue semantics but the definition of Free/Open Source really needs to be expanded to specifically exclude patent-encumbered technologies that do not grant unlimited, royalty-free use in both commercial and non-commercial uses alike. Also, I think if x264 should become so established, the MPEG-LA will start milking ridiculous fees.
So if I make a proprietary door with no documentation, it won't function because I've made a door that can't be open...
Google claims that as far as they know, there are no patents on WebM other than those owned by Google. There are others who have looked at the codec and agree that it's probably unencumbered. As for Google owning it, the license they offer ensures that you will never have to pay for it. H.264 may be free for most people today, but that can change - and will. When H.265 or whatever comes along, they'll start charging sites a lot more for using H.264 than 265 to force everyone to switch. See that? It's a treadmill that you can't get off. Google wants us to change now, and then again only when there is something truely better, as opposed to when they have a fresh set of patents to charge use for.
Having a register of all valid licenses for videos created also has a downside when it comes to privacy. If a h.264 video is put on the Internet anonymously, it can be taken down easily by pointing out it has no valid license. Even if that license is free, it might be dangerous to register such a license for organization and individuals depending on the content of the video. This can also be a cost, a human cost. It's what the economists call externalities. MPEG LA is a client of the American legal system, and sometimes the legal system in USA is dysfunctional.
If h.264 videos are seen as the file-format that will have the most widespread support for the video-tag, then I will consider HTML5 a failure. And HTML is one of the key-technologies that drives the Internet. Both Thomas Jefferson and Voltaire was fierce opponents of making h.264 de-facto standards for video on the web. It's all about the free speech.
The alternative is WebM, which is owned by Google. Google also owns YouTube, Google Video Search, and Chrome, and is leveraging the fact that YouTube, Video Search, and Chrome are popular to try to force everyone to adopt their owned product WebM, without providing any kind of financial assurances to people who do that there are, in fact, no encumbering patents. See a problem here?
Actually, a quick read of the "Additional IP Rights" in the License section of the WebM Project website you are granted protection so long as you do not modify the VP8 codec. If you chose to modify the VP8 codec, you do so at your own risk.
Will I need to dump my GPU/laptop/phone to the landfill in 2 years if I want stable HD streaming because only new hardware support WebM? Can we stick with what is already working great without generating more e-waste?
Open, Shmopen. A cartel of mega-corporations submitted a format to ISO - An organisation that lost credibility when it approved OpenXML, which not even MS adhered to at the time of approval.
The market will ultimately decide what codecs they'll support but a mandated spec of *required* formats ought only include those patent and royalty free, is the point being made here.
A better validation of openness - does H.264 meet the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG)? No, it doesn't.
I predict YouYube will switch exclusively to WebM late this year. At that point, most people will either get a plugin or already have a browser that supports it natively. After that, there is no reason but legacy video support for anyone to use H.264. And there will be zero incentive for anyone to switch to the new patented codec that will replace 264.
The problem is that H.264's license structure is based around traditional producer-consumer relationships, which is not compatible with the concept behind free software. Royalty payments are inherently incompatible with the free software model, because it prevents people from liberally copying and sharing software. Note that royalties are the problem; other payment models are perfectly fine (I can, for example, charge you money for copies of Debian -- prior to widely available broadband connections, this sort of thing was not so uncommon).
Palm trees and 8
How come no one is talking about the Unisys GIF Compression patent? Have we not learned from history, that having a single standard always ends with some company controlling what we do ? I may not love Google, or Apple or Microsoft, but I absolutely hate patents on "standards", they always raise the price I pay as a developer, I am always afraid my company will end up being sued. So just on that basis I laud Google for being the bad guy in the short run, and creating an environment where Open source standards provide an alternative. REMEMBER UNISYS, FIGHT FOR NONPATENTED STANDARDS
This is a myth. H.264 is free for free streaming. But there is a licensing fee for every encoder and decoder regardless of whether the software is open or closed source, commercial of given away for free. Said licensing fee costs Google US$6.5 million a year. Mozilla would be forced to pay the same to add support to Firefox.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
you are probably aware that 'much more open' compared to 'more closed', still does not mean open.
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Peter Bright Microsoft Contributor Peter Bright dropped out of university after about five minutes to work as a software developer writing C++ and C#. After several years of Java development in the financial services industry, he joined the British Library, where he worked to preserve the ever-growing legacy of digital information. When not musing about the future of Microsoft, he enjoys programming for fun, burritos, and photography.
Make your own conclusion about the author... Hint: not exactly a defender of "openness", they should've added cool-aid drinker to that list.
Here we go again!
And most of the rhetoric only mentions one, and open means too many things.
There is standard versus nonstandard (.doc vs appleworks).
There is open versus proprietary (C++ versus Java).
There is open source versus closed source (x264 versus apple's H.264 coder)
There is unencumbered versus encumbered by patents and license fees.
We have formats across all forms that are varying degrees of all of these. The thing that the h.264 people are saying is look - h.264 is the better half in almost all of those cases! It is a standard that was agreed upon by a standards board, not by a single company. The spec is out there and available for everyone to implement, not controlled by a single company. It is free to license for most uses! And it is supported by everyone and everything.
From all business perspectives outside of the open source mindset, it is a *great* standard. You don't have to worry about Apple, Microsoft, or Adobe changing it, or wait on them to make their decoder not suck. It is attached to so many different businesses that there is a huge incentive to keep licensing fees from becoming ridiculous. And it works everywhere.
Do people remember .mov and .wmv files? Do you remember real media's proprietary standards? From a *use* standpoint and a consumer standpoint, h.264 is a great and "open" standard.
The problem is when you run up against the open source concerns about infrastructure. It *is* controlled by somebody. It does have patents, so if you don't have money you can't make a business out of it. It is not "free" - either as beer or speech.
I think the argument the article makes is that perfect is the enemy of good. H.264 is *vastly* more open, consumer, and business friendly than that which it replaces - proprietary, nonstandard, closed video players from Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, and Real. Going to it as a web standard would be a huge boon for consumers and businesses, and it already has real momentum to do that.
WebM would be better, from a "free" perspective... but, argues the author, it's much less likely to succeed, as it isn't a standard, and it isn't ubiquitous. And so we should go with something that is already a huge improvement over the status quo instead of hoping for some "perfect" free solution. Getting to an open standard is already a major victory for nearly everyone involved. Or is installing a plugin to add h.264 support so much more odious than already installing one for flash? At least you can have your choice of which h.264 implementation you want to use.
I guess we could all argue semantics but the definition of Free/Open Source really needs to be expanded to specifically exclude patent-encumbered technologies that do not grant unlimited, royalty-free use in both commercial and non-commercial uses alike.
Allow me to introduce you to GPLv3:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
Palm trees and 8
Instructions on how to open the door wouldn't be "fully documented."
Fully documented would be if I gave you all the instructions on how to build said proprietary door.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Google does not really remove anything: anybody can freely broadcast a fork of chrome that has h264 enabled.
I think the point is to make WebM relevant enough so that MPEG-LA will go to the courts
My opinion is that a codec is just a couple of mathematic algorithms and as such should not be patentable.
IANAL, but I think that Google has a good case for patent dispute. I dream of a revocation of all the patents that prohibit innovation.
ffmpeg apparently does it. It's also the most widely used open source video library, and there aren't many other open source video encoders at all.
I dont really get why people are getting so up in arms google dropping h.264 from chrome. They're essentially coming out in support of things like mozilla and opera, but they market share for the browser is not astronomical.
It really is a non-event because if people wanted to be able to support tag on their servers and be able to support say IE and firefox (the majority of browsers i believe?), they'd already have to produce both formats. Irrelevant of what google do with chrome.
Now, if google came out and said "we'll only have webm on youtube for the tag in html5", that would be a very different story, and one worth talking about.
I think the article is written by a cretin personally (the ars article), but alot of people are getting up in arms about a non-event.
We (most of us) are idiots for encoding video in something we have no rights to.
Mp4 is not open.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
You're redefining "open" as it relates to standards, not the OP. The traditional definition of "open standards" is a standard propagated by one or more international standard setting bodies (in this case ISO and ITU) and implemented by companies or other organizations in ways that may or may not in turn be "open". In other words, C++ is an open standard. g++ is an open implementation of that standard. The C++ compiler in Visual Studios is a close implementation of the same standard. Both are C++, both are based on the same open standard. H.264 is an open standard. Right now the only implementation of that standard is a closed product. Until the MPEG-LA patents expire there is unlikely to be an open implementation of H.264. It doesn't make the standard any less open.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Sure it may be a problem. It seems like leveraging one monopoly to gain market share elsewhere. Or is it.
Chrome is definitely not dominant.
YouTube, however, is arguably a monopoly.
Now would encoding YouTube fully in WebM and dropping Flash and H.264 there be anti-competitive behaviour? I don't think so - it'd be silly to demand they support all those formats. And third parties may freely create their own compatible players for WebM. It's easy enough and reasonable to argue that they do Youtube in WebM only for business reasons.
Dropping support for H.264 from Chrome might be considered so - but then Chrome is just a minority player, nr 3 at the moment behind FF and IE. Dropping H.264 and having many other video sites not work any more may be a problem for many users, who then drop Chrome.
At the moment, the "worst" outcome I see of YouTube dropping H.264 would be that FF and IE are forced to adopt WebM in their browsers. Alongside H.264 and whatever codecs they want to add. Or YouTube losing their visitors who en masse flock to the new competitor H264Tube instead.
It is far from been open standard AND its actually uses H264 under the hood. I will not congratulate Google on been Champion of Open Source until Chrome will stop having Flash EMBEDDED into it.
It's (probably) deliberate, but the continued confusion of orthogonal axes really doesn't help the debate.
H.264 is open, anyone may contribute to ISO/ITU projects (including those holding patents). WebM is closed, it was developed and is owned by On2/Google.
H.264 costs money to license and deploy; it is not free. On2/Google are currently the only bona-fide identified owners of the technology in WebM (as far as I know), and they do not charge for it.
There are open-source implementations of H.264 and other royalty-bearing codecs. I am aware of at least one codec (which I can't name) which had a free license but for which the source was only available on agreement; it was closed-source.
So, open/proprietary usually refers to the development process and the ownership and control of the specification. Open-source/closed-source refers to the availability and visibility of the source code. Royalty-free/royalty-bearing refer to whether payment has to be made to patent owners in order to deploy. I suspect that almost any combination of these choices is possible.
So, if I understand this right, if Microsoft honestly felt that H.264 is the best standard for the internet, they could simply release everything (including patents) for free, relinquish all control and legally open H.264. Then Google would happily support H.264 again.
So why don't they? If they are being open and honest, they have said they don't ever plan to 'clamp down' on their H.264 rights, so they are losing nothing. Of course, if they are completely lying, and fully plan to milk it for every dollar as soon as it becomes the standard, then I guess they would do exactly what they are doing now...
cut bullshit. a standard that is not open, and subject to licensing fees, is NOT open. you cant redefine open.
Well then perhaps you should stop trying to do so. Open means documented and interoperable, it does not mean patent-unencumbered. It means you can see what is happening and make changes, but it doesn't guarantee you the right to redistribute those changes, which is why we need a distinction between Open and Free software and why the OSI is the enemy of Free Software; it attempts to conflate the two by redefinition of the term "Open" to mean something almost-but-not-actually like Free Software and dilutes it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
in case you have noticed, im not saying 'open standards'. im saying OPEN.
anything that is owned by private parties, is not open, since the openness depends on the whim of the private party, and the private party is able to reverse the 'open standard' status of the standard at any given point through usage of patents and licensing fees.
that makes it not OPEN.
Read radical news here
During those good old days it was not possible to patent software. Sadly, the word has changed focus with the times.
As for Google owning it, the license they offer ensures that you will never have to pay for it.
What is "it" here? VP8? VP8 isnt standardized and can be changed at any moment. There is no body declaring what is and is not VP8.
..and even if you swallow that that promise is somehow iron clad (which it isn't, they have already made changes the WebM license.. ie, they can change it whenever the fuck they want), there is still no getting around the fact that VP8 isnt a standard. Its a moving target that is still under development.
Google has promised that the current version of VP8 will be free and so forth..
"His name was James Damore."
I wouldn't call it pro-Google, just anti-MPEG-LA. In the past they have proven themselves litigious and have a patent portfolio big enough to call any shots they want in their field. In the eyes of some this makes them a trust.
Published and usable under reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms is a very common definition of an open standard.
This is a definition used by assorted proprietary player's marketing departments trying to redefine reality for their own profitable ends. Not by the vast majority of people and not until relatively recently.
See most ISO standards.
ISO is the opposite of what you are trying to claim. Most ISO standards are completely free to use though it may be necessary to pay for the standards document. That payment is for the document and to help maintain the standards body, not for the use of the standard. Nothing stopping you reading somebody else's copy (e.g. in a library) to make many implementations though and many regard even the payment for the document as onerous.
The requirement to be free to implement is a relatively new addition to the definition (within the last 10-15 years).
Not really. Open means free to use and has always meant free to use. Just because a proprietary standard is owned by a cartel and not by an individual company doesn't mean you can redefine open.
I'm not free to use the H.264 standard as I please without paying somebody some money for the privilege and that makes it proprietary. Not open. End of story.
---
How many million man hours has unsolicited the advertising industry cost today?
a standard that is not open, and subject to licensing fees, is NOT open.
Here you refer to a standard and its status of openness or non-openness. H.264 is an open standard by any traditional definition. It does not have an open implementation. This has been the case for many "open standards" throughout the history of computing in the early days of the standard. Often the "standards body" will approve a "standard" which is open, but based on a proprietary implementation. Later, when the patents on the closed implementation expire open implementations of the open standard come into being.
I know what you (and Google) are trying to say, but you're trying to redefine a lot of vocabulary in order to say it. Say what you mean. Leave standards out of it. H.264 is clearly an open standard, you object to the fact that there are no open implementations. That's fine. Say that. OP is not trying to redefine any terms, he is using the traditional definition of a term you are trying to redefine.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
A standard can be openly documented, but heavily patented and licensed. A competing standard can be almost documented and a work-in-progress, but free to use. Which is better? H.264 would be a poor choice going forward; not because of openness or technical capability, but because the IP owners are luring implementers in, in the hope that early adopters will be irrevocably committed to a patented technology when the usage terms start to become a cash cow. What we need is good abstraction, so that we can freely switch between adopters of the standard interface: like having a graphics API that lets you use Direct-X or OpenGL just by flipping a switch.
Google does have one rather large bullet in their arsenal.... YouTube.
I've been interested in seeing the advances they have made in getting h.264 video and the HTML5 video tag to work over at YouTube sans Flash, and was pretty sure that's the direction things were going.
Now if Google shifts away from this format, will they drop support over at YouTube?
And will they stop streaming to mobile devices like the iphone that have built in YouTube players and hardware h.264 video support?
That seems like a bigger deal than Chrome, which seems to be a nice developer browser, but doesn't have huge enough market share to matter.
Google claims that as far as they know, there are no patents on WebM other than those owned by Google. There are others who have looked at the codec and agree that it's probably unencumbered.
The last thing I read was "this thing is so similar to h.264 in many parts, that it is totally unconceivable that it is not covered by some h.264 patents".
The browser market share in Europe is FF 38.11%, Chrome 14.58%, Opera 4.57%, all of which either support or will support WebM. That's 57% of the browser market, and if YouTube goes WebM IE and Safari will have no choice but to support it as well.
Also since FF cannot include H.264 that means encoding your video in H.264 instead of WebM costs you nearly 40% of users.
My UID is prime. Hah!
You are free to buy in and it's open to anyone who wants to? So yeah, not open as in open source.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Everyone kept right on using it, I recall. There was an unpatented alternative created, PNG - but, even though it was superior in every way, it didn't take off until the Unisys patent expired. GIF just had too much momentum at the time: Every browser supported it. It's still the format most used for trivial animation on the internet, even though it's technology is terribly dated, because it's the one format for trivial animation you can be sure works.
This is pretty bad for an Ars Technica article. They usually do a good job examining both sides and avoid favoring one side heavily. This piece completely dismisses everything said by the other side. No mention of the possibility of raised fees, ignoring the burden on OSS developers, parroting Gruber's lines about how support Flash is hypocritical, etc. It's a sad day for the standard of Ars Technica's writing.
The terms are not reasonable, if I have to fork out money as a web site provider.
And yes, we'll go with the "new" definition of open which includes "free to implement", and reject the old definition of "having to line some cocksucker parasite's pocket in order to use".
Not really but as MP3 is also a patent encumbered format (and is supported in the audio tag) it is the very logical next step to do not ?
Mod me down but you can't mod down the truth is that a company that is doing this move about openness should ban all non patent encumbered formats...
I admit that I don't completely understand the point you are trying to make. Your post seems a little contradictory in places. Again, I support WebM. It's a Good Thing. But the way to support free and open development is not to exclude more restrictive solutions. It's to embrace multiple solutions, so that the best solution may ultimately prevail, by whatever metrics the best solution is determined.
And no, VP8 is not truly Free as in Freedom. If there are indeed patent problems that will hamstring the codec. Further, while the source may be available, Google is going to keep a tight rein on the official WebM development track. I don't see many forks of WebM really seeing any success.
Google; believed by many to be the salvation of proprietary wares on the net becomes large enough to claim they "run the net" by limiting choices to their approved list. Sounds to me like they have become the 800 pound gorilla and are doing exactly what they said they were here to end. So whose next in line to tout the "free bird" mentality so we can jump on their bandwagon.
This is what the outcome will be - arguments for removing support for H.264 fall flat since Google knows this is what will eventually happen (especially now that Chrome has become much more popular). The end result will be that fewer web sites will be iOS-compatible thereby strengthening Android, since it does support Flash. This is Google playing corporate BS games using "openness" as a guise, plain and simple... Guess they took some lessons from Apple.
WebM and Chrome are both open sourced under public licenses.
Isn't this the best thing about open source under public license. If anyone dislikes the way Chrome is going to go with video formats, fork it and create your own browser?
"wahts woring iwth my tyoping?"
Funny, I was thinking of the MP3 patents.
Since I'm not insane, I predict that doing the exactly the same thing will wind up with exactly the same outcome: MPEG will come out demanding money from everything that touched the codec, everyone will ignore them, they'll pick on some little people to make examples out of, and Linux distributions will move the codecs to the super-sekrit repositories for lawbreakers, and instructions for enabling them will be left on obscure forums for googlers to find. And everyone will continue to ignore the patentholders.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
'open standard' means what you speak of. open does NOT mean 'possible to encumber with patents'. open means open.
Read radical news here
'open standard' as a term, and a standard that is open, differ, in linguistics. what you describe only means 'open FOR now', since the openness of that standard, is under the control of a private interest.
Read radical news here
yes. as long as it is replaced with an open format that no private party controls.
Read radical news here
Nope. The MPEG-LA does not guarantee you are getting all the patents either. They only state you are getting a license to the ones they hold. Stop spreading FUD.
The problem is that Google is giving exactly the same assurances as MPEG LA?
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Have the patents been released? I was under the impression that the irrevocable thing was the license to use the patents specifically for VP8 implementations. Google still owns the patents and can still sue if you use them in non-VP8 applications. I remember reading that Google might want patent defense, so that if someone goes after VP8, Google can fire a salvo right back at H.264 (i.e., Google supposedly knows of VP8 patents that cover H.264 and could sink them).
Also, the patents behind VP8 have been released, irrevocably, to the public.
He isnt being informative. He is being dishonest.
.. then at least one entity will have its license to use VP8 revoked.. and in the event that Google is found to be infringing, EVERYONE will have their license revoked.
The specific text of Googles license reads "Google hereby grants to you a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell..."
Emphasis mine.
The exception reads "If you or your agent or exclusive licensee institute or order or agree to the institution of patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that this implementation of VP8 or any code incorporated within this implementation of VP8 constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, or inducement of patent infringement, then any patent rights granted to you under this License for this implementation of VP8 shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed."
In other words, in the event of any patent litigation regarding VP8
"His name was James Damore."
WebM and Chrome are both open sourced under public licenses. To say Google "owns" them is to not understand how these open licenses work.
Yes, that's right. And Oracle doesn't "own" Java either.
In Soviet Russia, articles before post read *you*!
We might also see an open, possibly technologically superior alternative created that then never catches on due to the installed support base of the preexisting solution. GIF had PNG, MP3 had OGG. WebM might be the counterpart in h264. Open, free, and possibly even superior (I really don't know), but unable to overcome the advantage that comes from being the first to become widespread.
Seriously MP3 needs to look at having its patents seriously inspected. Those things run out in 2017. I think the open web would benefit a great deal from having a patent free implementation of MP3.
MP3 patents started expiring in 2007 and will all have expired by 2017. *Sigh* I wish US patents expired in 5 years.
"reasonable" in this context does not mean "so cheap every mom&pop can afford it". In this context, "reasonable" means you can't charge 52 gazillion trillion just to be sure you technically have an offer available for everyone, while in reality you want only your friends, whom you've given different terms, to really have it.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
You read that wrong: http://www.webmproject.org/license/additional/
It says that if YOU sue them or help someone sue them then YOUR rights to use the patents expires, not everyone.
Remember to maintain your supply of
Most people don't know that in order to support EVERY video format for HTML5, you still have to encode a video 3 different times. But this site has a great explanation on which browsers support what, this history of the video formats, and even describes the history of licensing HTML5(i.e. went from paying for encoders, players, AND transmitting to just paying for encoders to players).
http://www.diveintohtml5.org/video.html
Here is the "official" statement: http://www.webmproject.org/license/additional/
The wiki page uses different wording:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vp8
According to the WebM site, the only way you could lose your rights to use the patents is if you sue them.
Remember to maintain your supply of
That's correct. However, the odds of there being someone not in the patent pool, who holds patents that apply to H.264, who does not also hold patents to WebM, are vanishingly small. That's the whole point of the pool.
The odds of there being someone who isn't Google, who holds patents to WebM, are large enough that Google's not willing to warrant that such patents do not exist financially.
You do the math.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
No. What days are you speaking of? I remember when standards, meant fully documented, and accepted by the proper groups. Never heard it called open.
Open used to mean usable by anyone without cost. This would include some standards, as well as specific documentation.
For example:
Sony used to be open in that I could write them and ask for a schematics and documentation about their hardware. Once there reply even included sets of small screws for the CD player I was fixing. No charge.
In fact, My experience with Sony is why I am always shocked at there behavior regarding the PS3.
And because it's relevant, I'll bring it up:
I've been involved in the electronics and software industry for over 30 years.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If they support H.264, which was their previous position, open source people will cry foul.
If they support WebM, fans of H.264 will whine about the loss of quality.
If they support both, HTML 5 video tag will be standardize sometime in 2027, when all of H.264's patents run out, invoking the wrath the open source Flash-hating population.
You forgot to mention a major website that does only the html5 video tag and doesn't provide any other method. Don't forget that Chrome comes with flash support out of the box, and flash has h264, so any site that falls back on to flash would still work.
Flash is the industry standard for players, not built in h.264 support in browsers for the video tag, what are you talking about?
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
The exception reads "If you or your agent or exclusive licensee institute or order or agree to the institution of patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that this implementation of VP8 or any code incorporated within this implementation of VP8 constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, or inducement of patent infringement, then any patent rights granted to you under this License for this implementation of VP8 shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed."
In other words, in the event of any patent litigation regarding VP8 .. then at least one entity will have its license to use VP8 revoked.. and in the event that Google is found to be infringing, EVERYONE will have their license revoked.
This exception only gives Google the right to revoke the patent license, if you sue them with the help of this license (e.g. by using the VP8 code). So, as long as you are not attacking Google for the VP8 related code, you have an irrevocable license. In other words: Only you can invalidate Google's license for yourself.
Now, how do you read into this that if Google is found to be infringing, everybody would have their licenses revoked?
The flash specification is open and Adobe is trying to push it as a standard (just not giving up control of what defines that standard) and flash is free.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
you gotta start somewhere. if you attempted a slow migration, the private interests would have a lot of time to prevent it or send it off track.
Read radical news here
If it's patent encumbered, then it isn't truly interoperable, now is it? If the folks over at Haiku OS have to pay for a license to interoperat, they probably aren't going to have the money to do it, at least not without cutting substantially in other areas. Same goes for other small non-commercial environments.
Ugh.. Software patents were created in the 80's. Having to pay a royalty has nothing to do with being fully documented.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
"reasonable" in this context does not mean "so cheap every mom&pop can afford it".
Then maybe it's not a very reasonable definition of "reasonable".
Still, it's nice to know that the giant corporations haven't given up on attempting to redefine the language to suit their own needs.
Open didn't mean free.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
The MPEG-LA does not either do this either. It does not matter the odds. Both offer the same patent claim protection, that is only from themselves. For all you know Google now holds patents that H.264 infringes on. Until there is a law suit, and there has now been plenty of time for one, this is just FUD.
> This makes H.264 an open standard in the same way as, for example, JPEG still images, or the C++ programming language, or the ISO 9660 filesystem used on CD-ROMs?
All of these are royalty free standards. So these are unusual comparisons to make a case.
The definition of "open" has changed a bit over the years due to open source.
"Open" in "OpenWindows" released by Sun in 1989, is quite different than the "Open" in "OpenOffice" released by Sun in 2000, or the 2006 "OpenDocument" format.
if YouTube goes WebM IE and Safari will have no choice but to support it as well.
It's a good thing that YouTube can't be perceived to have a monopoly on online video distribution or that might be a dangerous strategy.
That is the case, isn't it?
> Well then perhaps you should stop trying to do so. Open means documented and interoperable, it does not mean patent-unencumbered.
"open" does not mean that according to any dictionary. Open generally means "not closed".
As for "open standard", generally open source developers have a different definition than the one you give.
Using the dictionary expansion of "open", we get "a standard which is not closed".
I guess "closed standard" has a different meaning to different people.
Here is the "OSI" definition of "open standard", which is different from the ISO definition.
http://opensource.org/osr
Ars does get overly-haughty. Perhaps over-use of Latin can leave one with delusions of being a Roman Senator.
However, it is also covered by hundreds of patents, which means you can't actually use any of that information without getting a license from the patent holders. One of whom is Microsoft, who stands to make a lot of money from it. Others include Sony and Apple, who stand to make a lot too.
The 30-odd H.264 licensors are - with a bare handful of exceptions - are global giants in manufacturing. Companies like Mitsubishi Electric, Samsung. JVC, Panasonic, Philips and Toshiba.
They are in the business of selling HD hardware - in the consumer market. Studio production. Broadcast, cable and satellite distribution.
Industrial security and military applications. Medicine.
there is a fear that if x264 were to become so established it were impossible to do without it then there would be a temptation for them to start milking more money from those patents.
Too late:
List of video services using H.264/MPEG-4 AVC
I don't see why the H.264 patent holders can't just grant an irrevocable free license to anybody for displaying H.264 content. Make their money on the production side. Charge more on that end if that's what it takes. Yeah, some producers may opt for a cheaper format, but as it is, they may end up losing the whole game.
Ultimately, internet technologies are healthiest when the consuming end is free (in every sense of the word). And it's not really necessary to attempt to collect royalties from the consumer. They're not making the choice to use the technology - they're just trying to consume what's out there. The producer chooses the technology, and the producer should bear any royalty costs.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
No, you're granted protection from Google. Google steadfastly refuses to grant you future protections against others who may sue you, as a user of WebM, for violating their patents (that Google claims do not exist). Massive legal difference.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
It does not matter the odds? So since crossing the street at a crosswalk and jumping out of a plane without a parachute might both kill you or leave you unscathed, they're equally dangerous? Come on.
MPEG-LA is comprised of everyone the group could find that might conceivably hold patents. They are also agreed to help fight, buy, or otherwise mitigate any new patent claims that arise. Google is comprised of ... google. Who steadfastly denies any claim that they'll fight on behalf of the adopters of WebM if patents come up.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
So, as long as you are not attacking Google for the VP8 related code
You mean, so long as you are not attempting to force Google to stop using your patents as if they were its own.
Now, how do you read into this that if Google is found to be infringing, everybody would have their licenses revoked?
Google does not have the standing to license other peoples patents. Why is this so hard?
"His name was James Damore."
http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx for the record, btw - a veritable who's who in the video space.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
It says that if YOU sue them or help someone sue them then YOUR rights to use the patents expires, not everyone.
Unless you win, then everyones rights go poof.
Why is this so god damned hard?
"His name was James Damore."
The requirement to be free to implement is a relatively new addition to the definition (within the last 10-15 years).
And yet the requirement of being free to implement has been at the core of the internet since the 1960s when RFC0001, defining the protocol for IMP host communications, was published. ISO's involvement in the internet didn't really come until they published the dead-on-arrival OSI protocol suite in the early 80s.
So a requirement of being free to implement is 100% in line with historical precedent for internet related standards.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Open didn't mean free.
On the internet it always has, all RFCs are free to implement.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
How is your version any less speculative than any other presented out there? They've already done a ton of research into their patents verses others out there. They have to because of potential liability. If someone could win against VP8 then they could win against H.264 too. Especially considering we'd been doing video for many years prior to H.264 and VP8.
Remember to maintain your supply of
How is your version any less speculative than any other presented out there?
My version of what?
They've already done a ton of research into their patents verses others out there. They have to because of potential liability. If someone could win against VP8 then they could win against H.264 too.
Oh I see, so "my version" is that VP8 is infringing, is that it?
Sorry buddy. My version is that Google has not given rights to those patents irrevocably, in spite of everyone constantly claiming that they have.
Google explicitly gives some terms for revocation in their license. Thats a period and end of fucking story on the dishonesty of the fanboys that keep claiming that VP8 is "free" and "open" when clearly it is patent encumbered.
At a minimum those would be Googles patents that it is encumbered with, with licensing terms that come with restrictions ("don't you dare sue us")
"His name was James Damore."
Wrong. Take RFC 2281 (Cisco Hot Standby Router Protocol) for example:
US Patent number 5,473,599 [2], assigned to Cisco Systems, Inc. may be applicable to HSRP. If an implementation requires the use of any claims of patent no. 5,473,599, Cisco will license such claims on reasonable, nondiscriminatory terms for use in practicing the standard. More specifically, such license will be available for a one-time, paid up fee.
Even better to this discussion is RFC 3984 - RTP Payload Format for H.264.
You can look that one up.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
H.264 is a real standard, developed and governed by a multi-party process, recognized by international standards organizations, and extensively documented.
That is all well and good, but, the fact stands that it is impossible to legally create an open source H.264 enabled browser (in countries where patents are valid). Because of that, H.264 is simply not suitable as a standard for the open web - if only closed-source browsers can view the web, it is no longer open.
To clarify that point: Even if Google or Mozilla paid MPEG-LA royalties for their own browsers, the browsers would not be freely redistributable, which violates a fundamental principle of free and open source software. MPEG-LA's current business model is simply not compatible with open source software and the open web.
The interesting question would be, what would happen if MPEG-LA made an exception for open source implementations of H.264. Total guess, but I suspect Google approached MPEG-LA with that or something similar, got rebuffed, and went through on their bluff to remove H.264 from Chrome. MPEG-LA's next move will be interesting (remember that they already made H.264's licensing more lenient several times, in response to Google's previous moves of buying On2 and announcing WebM).
That's a standard patent retaliation clause, that many open source licenses (Apache, etc.) include. There is nothing nefarious about it.
Canonical are a license holder too.
They could potentially make some money from it with their support options but at least they give away their primary product for free.
No, there is nothing nefarious about it. There is something very "revocable" about it.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Wrong. Take RFC 2281 (Cisco Hot Standby Router Protocol) for example:
Ok, then for the first 30 years they were free to implement. Then somebody decided to redefine what an RFC was.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
It's open to look at, not open to use and implement.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
What you mean is a cartel that should be rightfully labeled an illegal trust.
How so? RFC always and still stands for "Request For Comments" by the Network Working Group. Patents on software didn't exist until the 1980's, but nothing in the RFC prevented patented software from being used.
Not all RFCs were protocol definitions, some were operational notes like "Activity Reports", "How to handle documents", etc.
These were sharing of ideas amongst academia (and government scientists) and not all of them used components that were free.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Like you decided to redefine what a "Request For Comments" is? They are proposals for Internet standards and conventions, some of which have indeed become de facto standards. Their use makes no claims, in an of itself, as to cost, only openness and transparency.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
I do not see a requirement of being free (as in beer) to implement. Free (as in freedom) is a given, and is what the parent poster is arguing as the definition of "open".
Or do you mean to say that Open Source Software has a requirement to be free (as in beer)?
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Microsoft does not make money out of its share of MPEG LA license pool. It pays more into it to use H.264 (e.g. in Win7) than it gets out of it.
On the one hand, the fact you've posted this a bunch of times to the thread is a surefire sign that you're APK.
On the other hand, the grammar and punctuation are at least vaguely sane. So I have to wonder; APK, have you been medicated?
If you attempt a fast migration, you end up as GNU/Hurd while the world moves along without you.
So far the consortium that administers the patent pool has been quite reasonable about terms - free for noncommercial use, low costs even for commercial - but there is a fear that if x264 were to become so established it were impossible to do without it then there would be a temptation for them to start milking more money from those patents.
No, it's worse than that already. Any cost for commercial use is fundamentally incompatible with the GPL, and makes distribution of a GPLed implementation of the standard illegal in every country that honours this patent.
So if you want an "open" standard with no GPL reference implementation - or rather, with a perfectly good GPL reference implementation which is illegal - then choose H.264. But if your definition of "openness" requires that it be legal to code the algorithm as Free Software - then there's no way in a million years H.264 could even begin to be called open.
It's a culture clash between the Web and the media industry. It seems like so many Web developers are so used to standards being truly open that you've forgotten what the implications of non-open standards are - that you will be legally prevented from using these tools. No Free Software libraries for you! No distribution in the standard Debian repositories. Or code it, and risk lawsuits.
WebM "might" be infringing some weird submarine patent, one day - maybe. But H.264 definitely is. That puts it right out, if you want to obey the law, live in the USA, and write GPL code.
It's not about what H.264 "might" do in the future, though that looks pretty bad. It's what it's destroying right now: the GPL.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
FF already has WebM :)
To say that Google doesn't 'own' them is to not understand how these licenses work.
Google owns the copyright, the license does not change that. They may not be able to revoke the license on existing bits of code already out there, but that doesn't stop them from changing the rules tomorrow to suit their wants for all future modifications.
And of course, the exact same thing applies to x264.
I won't even start on the fact that regardless of what you think an OSS license has 0 affect on patents being used against you.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Like you decided to redefine what a "Request For Comments" is?
Classic nube mistake to take the name literally. RFCs are part of a process that produces standards - not just defacto standards, but actual standards too. See rfc1796 for a discussion of the process.
In addition, Bill the Engineer's citations are off the mark - RFC 2281 - Cisco HSRP - is informational only. In the case of RFC3984 - RTP Payload Format for H.264 - there is no patent encumbrance on the standard described. It's just a description of how to packetize an h264 datastream but no patents are required to implement that packetization. Arguing that it does require patent licensing would be like arguing that HTTP requires patent licensing because h264 can be streamed over HTTP.
So I stand by my original assertion with a minor modification - the RFCs on which the internet have been built are fully free to implement.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
He isnt being informative. He is being dishonest.
No I don't believe he is.
The exception reads "If you or your agent or exclusive licensee institute or order or agree to the institution of patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that this implementation of VP8 or any code incorporated within this implementation of VP8 constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, or inducement of patent infringement, then any patent rights granted to you under this License for this implementation of VP8 shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed."
There may be discussion as to how effective patent retaliation clauses are, but they're a common feature of many open source licences, such as the Apache licence, and inkeeping with the Free Software philosophy. The intent is to preserve the patent idemnity for all users of the software, not deny it.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
It seems the new-speak has redefined "open". Remember the good ole days when "open" meant fully documented?
I remember when "open" also meant legal to be implemented without restrictions.
H.264 isn't.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Then maybe it's not a very reasonable definition of "reasonable".
Or maybe you need to realize the entire world does not revolve around you and your budget. Industry standards regularily discard mom&pop in favour of, well, standardization.
I can only repeat: "reasonable" does not mean dirt cheap, and doesn't have to be, and there is no corporatism or redefinition of language involved.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Published and usable under reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms is a very common definition of an open standard. See most ISO standards. The requirement to be free to implement is a relatively new addition to the definition (within the last 10-15 years).
Correct, but in the last fifteen years the Web and the Open Source movement happened. "Open" in the context of Open Source now also carries the connotations of the information not just being documented but also legal to implement without restrictions.
It is openness in the OSI definition of the term that is important (even in more pragmatic approach than Free Software - OSI "Open" promises less freedoms than FSF "Free", but still is far more open than RAND "Open").
Can we agree to say that H.264 is "RAND Open" but is NOT "OSI Open" or "Open Culture Open", is certainly not Libre, does certainly not comply with Stallman's Four Freedoms (even after 2014 the Zeroth Freedom), is not compatible with Cand because of this is most certainly not a suitable foundation for the implementation of media in a as pervasive a cultural institution as the World Wide Web?
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
What? Just admit you were mistaken and move on... It's not a contest, just a conversation.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
rar. "Is not compatible with Creative Commons or GPL licences and..."
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
It seems to me some OSS types get a little hypocritical in that they talk about OSS being all about openness as in source.
The analogy is quite straightforward:
Open source = you get the source, you can compile it, run it, and distribute the source and the binaries you create without paying anybody (however, you can charge people if you like)
Open standard = you get the specification, you can implement it, run it, and distribute your implementations without paying anybody (however, you can charge people if you like).
If either the source or the standard is patent-encumbered, i.e., if you can't use it or distribute it without patent restrictions, the thing ceases to be open.
So, the meaning of the term "open" is used quite consistently. And just like software under "shared source", "non-commercial", or "research" licenses is not considered open source, so standards under RAND terms (like H.264) haven't traditionally been considered "open standards".
Since people pretty quickly realized that open standards were better than proprietary standards, a number of companies have been trying to muddy the waters and redefine "open standard" to mean "formal standard with RAND licensing terms". But that's like oil companies trying to project a "green" image; it's marketing fluff.
Only things which cost nothing are acceptable, for some reason "open but not zero cost," isn't ok anymore.
Money isn't the issue. You are free to charge for the distribution of open source software, and many people do. What you cannot do is restrict the ability of other people to redistribute. That's the defining characteristic of "open source". A consequence of that is that you can't derive a mandatory licensing fee from downstream distribution. But that's not because people begrudge you the money, it's because that would give you control over downstream distribution, and that is incompatible with openness.
And H.264 is an example of how dangerous such restrictions get, because H.264 licenses don't just say "you have to pay us $1 for every instance", they impose a complex set of restrictions on the content you can create with the technology. That's what makes H.264 lack of openness dangerous in a way that goes beyond just a little money.
Open means documented and interoperable, it does not mean patent-unencumbered.
I agree that the term "open" in the patent world does not mean non-patent-encumbered, but since 1998 it has in the Open Source world. To argue that "open" in the context of the Web does NOT mean non-patent-encumbered is not strictly correct.
However, yes Libre in the FSF sense would be a better term to use since it is less ambiguous.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
I think the sooner H.264 dies, the better: it's a piece of proprietary software that nobody needs given that there are good open alternatives.
However, sometimes for the adoption of FOSS, it's important to support proprietary standards. Ubuntu works so well for many people because it support a few proprietary components, like nVidia. The result of the uptake of such successful Linux distributions is that vendors don't think you're completely crazy anymore when you ask about Linux support.
One has to watch out that incorporating some proprietary components doesn't become a slippery slope. But usually, things go the other way: proprietary components get replaced with open ones as vendors start seeing the benefits, and patents expire, turning patented standards into open ones.
Chrome should encourage the use of WebM and other open standards. Maybe Chrome could even go as far and pop up a dialog first time H.264 is used to alert users, and from then on show a little scary logo on the player controls for proprietary codecs. But it should be able to play H.264 fairly unencumbered because otherwise, it will make the life in FOSS environments unnecessarily harder.
What? Just admit you were mistaken and move on... It's not a contest, just a conversation.
What? As far as I can tell you are the one who is mistaken.
What part of the internet being built on free to implement standards is new?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
That is all well and good, but, the fact stands that it is impossible to legally create an open source H.264 enabled browser
BZZZZT!!! WRONG! You can use a browser that supports playing any media content for which your host computer has a codec. It isn't even particularly difficult to do so. You can therefore play any H.264 content you wish in your open source browser. You won't even have to pay a licensing fee.
No magic required, just no need to rule the world like Google wants to. H.264 is, with some margin, the only modern and open standard for video available. It is also the codec in which all the content producers are going to publish their content. I hope you prefer You Tube kittens over ESPN and Comedy Central.
If the folks over at Haiku OS have to pay for a license to interoperat,
It doesn't mean that you have a right to interoperate, only an ability. They are motivated to give you the right because if they don't, you won't. That's a separate issue. Indeed it can exist in the reverse relationship; you are required to follow building codes, but you have to pay to get them!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There is no one definition of open. Rather, there are many different ways that something can be open. The more open something is the better.
For example
- Least open would be something like Fairplay.
- WMA/WMV is a little better cause it is licensable under published terms.
- H.264 is better still cause it is also open-source.
- Ogg codecs/WebM are better yet for being freely licensable and not patent encumbered.
I feel that Mozilla and Opera have made a very strong case that the incremental openness of the Ogg codecs/WebM are very important for the Web and are consistent with the openness of the rest of the web standards, but they aren't suggesting that it is as simple as "ogg open, h264 closed".
VP8 was arraprently designed by taking h.264 and a list of its patents, and making the smallest possible changes so that none of the H.264 pattents apply. The only real risk to it is that it might infringe patents not in the H.264 pool at the time it was created, or those minimal changes might my it fall into a patent that is almost but not quite applicable to H.264
However nobody will actually change WebM because of Mutual Assured Destruction. Google's VP8 patents are belied to cover H.264, and Google will not license them for that use. If anybody tries to apply H.264 patents to WebM, Google reserves the right to seek a mass injunction against all creation of H.264 content, killing H.264 completely. Thus no H.264 patent holder will sue, or they will lose all of their H.264 licensing revenue.
Which just goes to show why patents are a very bad idea.
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
Wrong. H.264 was created to create a STANDARD.
Great. If they want a standard, they're welcome to it. And if the members of the patent pool want the pool to protect their intellectual property and mine the value, then that's their privilege.
If they want a *web* standard, though, that's different.
You do not have a open web -- in the free/libre sense -- when its clients can't be freely implemented and re-implemented. Imagine a world where HTML itself was controlled by a patent association that charged fees to anyone who implemented authoring or rendering software and you start to get the idea. Yet some people are apparently OK with playing exactly that game with a key piece of the HTML5 spec.
WebM is a step away from that.
I wish people would just stop drinking the Google Cool-Aid and think about WHY they are making this move. It's not about the money. it's not about openess. It's about trying to make the standard that they bought the standard for video on the web. Next thing, they will limit the licensing to their competitors so that they can't do everything they are doing with video on the web.
Google has granted a perpetual, royalty-free patent license to VP8/WebM.
Who's drinking kool-aid again?
Tweet, tweet.
it IS AN OPEN STANDARD. It's just not free as in beer.
It's not free as in libre either if you can't freely re-implement.
Imagine a world where HTML itself was controlled by a patent association that charged fees to anyone who implemented authoring or rendering software.
You're essentially arguing for that.
Tweet, tweet.
It's not really a separate issue as nobody can provide the support without paying the license. Meaning that without a substantial user base willing to pay, the support isn't provided. I'm not sure exactly how that isn't a failure to interoperate due to an inability to pay.
I asked MPEG-LA what I would need to do to correctly license an open source h264 implementation. They fedexed me a massive contract:
http://trog.qgl.org/20110114/the-mpeg-la-license-agreement/
I'm not interested in reading that whole thing. I would happily give them some money to get a "correctly" licensed ffmpeg thing for commercial use.
Could MPEG-LA package up a version of ffpmeg/x264 and sell it off their site or would that violate the license of those software packages, I wonder...?
Using the codecs on the computer leaves the choice to the user, that is freedom. What FF and Google are doing is the opposite of freedom, they force the user to use what the FF and Google teams are mandating.
If Devs from FF and Opera have issues with using codecs on the existing computer they are just being lazy. The main issue with doing this is control and the ability to "pre-approve" a codec for a specific browser. Again, FF and Chrome are limiting the choice for the user. How that is freedom and openness is not entirely clear. It is like the old Ford "saying": You can have your car in any color you want, as long as it is black.
The intent is to preserve the patent idemnity for all users of the software, not deny it
What patent indemnity? Google has NOT indemnified anyone who uses VP8/WebM. If you use VP8 then you yourself can be the one who is sued for patent infringement for VP8, and Google has not promised to look after you in any way at all.
If you think that Google would never allow something like that, please see the patent disputes against Android phones. Google isnt helping anyone being sued for using Android.
"His name was James Damore."
> He isnt being informative. He is being dishonest.
He is informative. It's just that you did not realize that Google is granting third parties a licence. Google is not granting itself a licence. And why should they? They own the copyright.
And even if they did, I am not sure it's legally possible for Google to revoke a licence to itself.
And even if it could, Google would need to take someone else to court, claiming VP8 violates, to quote, "direct or contributory patent infringement, or inducement of patent infringement."
None of this makes sense. Not in the least.
open standard != FLOSS
You are mostly correct, but these days, Free Libre Open Source Software is the correct term. Yes, it's a pity that we needed to refine the name as much as we did, but hey. It works; for now.
Both seem quite fair. If I decide to pick a fight with Google claiming that VP8 is encumbered, then Google will cut of my right to use that product. If it is later decided that Google doesn't really have the right to use VP8, then of COURSE everyone loses access.
The second issue is simply the law at work - Google doesn't even have to revoke the licenses since they're null anyway. The first issue is definitely a few notches down from any definition of 'free', and definitely is 'revokable'.
Which part of my conversation did I say that?
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Which part of my conversation did I say that?
Really? You are mister semantics now? What happened to "this is a conversation?'
I said that on the internet "open" has always meant free and I cited RFCs in general.
You cite a couple of RFCs that were extremely weak exceptions to the general example.
That doesn't invalidate my original point that on the internet open means free even if that's not the case in other areas but here you are saying "just admit you made a mistake.
Congratulations - your focus on trivialities totally brought new insight to the "conversation."
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Nothing you made a huge leap in logic and tried to put words in my mouth.
And I said you were wrong because open meant fully documented, and pointed out that not all RFC reference totally free protocols.
One of many. You should really read up on this stuff.
You haven't even come close to proving that "open" means "free". You can wish really really hard, but that doesn't count. You bring up RFCs but then again it's apparent that you don't fully understand their intent.
Whatever. You can insult me all you want, but it still doesn't lend any credence to whatever point you were trying to prove.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
That is all well and good, but, the fact stands that it is impossible to legally create an open source H.264 enabled browser
Nonsense. There are many Open Source licenses. Not all of them are Free Software. It would be perfectly possible to do so.
To clarify that point: Even if Google or Mozilla paid MPEG-LA royalties for their own browsers, the browsers would not be freely redistributable, which violates a fundamental principle of free and open source software.
No, it's not. The principle of Open Source is about having the source code available. It has nothing to do with not charging money for the software. Even the GPL allows you to charge money for software.
It's amazing how many people here pontificate about FOSS, without even understand the most basic principles. It's not about free beer at all.
... and then they built the supercollider.
You are correct that not all open source licenses are free software. I intended FOSS and not just open source, I apologize if that was not clear.
You are also correct that the GPL allows you to charge money for software. However it is important to be clear - you would still be providing the software under the GPL, which gives the users all the regular software freedoms.
To be more specific, H.264's business model is incompatible with the the W3C, with the GPL, with Debian's policies on openness, etc. For those reasons I think H.264 is not suitable for the open web.
It seems to boil down to definition of openess. That is "open" ? And this is not a " what is 'is' " type of question - this is relevant.
For me "open format" means being able to adopt, interoperate or reimplement format without unnecessary hurdles of any kind and then use it without restrictions. Open source or not. It's not just lack of documentation that limits openess. Other problems might be: too much documentation (eg. CORBA), patents or vendor changing format too frequently, lack of useful reference implementation etc. From this point of view H.264 is not open regardless how fancy documentation they provide and how many chairmen their standardizing commitee consisted of.
Open source happens to be a pretty good benchmark of openness. Usually when it is possible to implement an open source implementation of a format and use it without restrictions, it may be considered as open. Unfortunately, latest Oracle/Java fiasco somewhat blurs this distinction.
Also, it's funny to see how big business is trying to redefine "openess" to fit their agendas. With all this OpenXML, OpenJDK and other encumbered crap with "Open" in its name, corporations succeeded in creating such a mess in what open means, that Mr. Goebbels should be proud of.
wrong, proven many times open source creators and users can flex their muscle and make a dent in the big corporations budget and way of doing things. We've done it before and we should try it with this video standard. We will make the definition of "reasonable", we've done it before and we can do it again.
You are arguing idealistically. The current use of the word in this context is exactly as I described. You can dislike it and wish for a change, that's fine. But you need to be truthful and accept that it makes you the one who is doing a re-definition.
I'm not saying your ideals are wrong. But if you want to change the world, do say that you want to change the world, and not that your vision of its future is reality already.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
But it isn't relevant in this context. It doesn't make Google evil, as you seem to believe. It's a perfectly common protection clause, and will not allow Google to revoke anything otherwise.
Yeah, that was kinda my point. Before software patents, any fully documented software was by definition "open" in the sense that you could imitate or interoperate with it freely. Post-patents, it's hard to call some of the more encumbered software "open" when the threat of litigation hangs over it. Thus has the meaning of the word shifted when applied to software. It is not because the people who use the word have grown lazy about using it with precision, but that the landscape has moved beneath us, and the way we talk about it has changed.
By open source, you mean GPL? Yes, GPL forbids usng patented ideas, but not all open-souce liceneses do.
You are correct, I should have been more clear.
It is at odds with the GPL, MPL, etc., and for that matter the DFSG, and even the W3C. That makes it unusable for the open web IMHO.