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Mozilla, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Others Form 'Alliance For Open Media'

Posted by Soulskill on from the one-codec-to-rule-them-all dept.

BrianFagioli tips news that Mozilla, Microsoft, Google, Cisco, Intel, Amazon, and Netflix are teaming up to create the Alliance for Open Media, "an open-source project that will develop next-generation media formats, codecs and technologies in the public interest." Several of these companies have been working on this problem alone: Mozilla started Daala, Google has VP9 and VP10, and Cisco just recently announced Thor. Amazon and Netflix, of course, are major suppliers of online video streaming, so they have a vested interested in royalty-free codecs. They're inviting others to join them — the more technology and patents they get on their side, the less likely they'll run into the issues that Microsoft's VC-1 and Google's VP8 struggled with. "The Alliance will operate under W3C patent rules and release code under an Apache 2.0 license. This means all Alliance participants are waiving royalties both for the codec implementation and for any patents on the codec itself."

3 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. For the Alliance! by LetterRip · · Score: 4, Funny

    That is all...

  2. Which one is heart? by Himmy32 · · Score: 4, Funny

    With our powers combined, we are Captain Codec!

    1. Re:Which one is heart? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Given that there are 7 in the summary list, we need to consider the 6-cornerplane model of elementality.

      Mozilla claims fire because FireFox.
      Cisco gets earth, because their routers form the net-lines of the internet.
      Netflix gets water, because they have many bad boat-related movies.
      Amazon gets air, because they ship so much that way.
      Intel gets positive energy because accomplishing anything requires either their hardware or an imitator's (no, AMD doesn't count as a rival).
      That leaves Google and Microsoft competing for negative energy and the 7th spot. The most likely 7th spot is the region of intersection, most recognizably the realm of shadow in the positive/negative axis.