As far as I can remember, any and all patents covering *viewing* GIFs were long expired, and the only ones that remained were a bunch covering *creating* GIFs and, therefore, Mozilla was in the clear.
Wrong. You remember clearly that there were no licensing issues with reading and displaying GIF's, and that was true.. but that wasn't because it did not require patented technology.
Unisys, the owners of the LZW patent, simply did not require licensing on that end of it. Thats it. It was still patented and proprietary, and Unisys could have changed the terms at any time (and in fact on several occasions they did change their terms.)
This is another reason that Theora isnt any better. Xiph.org can change the terms on the patents they own at any time. Its just as proprietary as H.264 in that regard, but unlike H.264 (finalized in 2003) its still a work-in-progress, and represents a moving target that may end up using even more patents (or even more patent holders!/i>) that extend out for a much longer timeframe than the H.264 patents.
All known Theora patents have royalty-free license
..right now. You know that Theora is a work-in-progress, right? That right there says GO AWAY to anyone who wants to incorporate direct support in their software.
I fully agree with you on that. I have pointed this out numerous times to people who accept the surface record as gospel. More shameful than the problems with the bad data, however, is that they then manipulate ("adjust") the bad data based on other bad data.
They've had no problem using patented technology in the past (such as GIF) so clearly the arguement is not against patented technology, but instead against licensing fee's.
Well fuck you, Mr PleaseSendUsMoneySoThatWeCanMakeFirefoxBetterWhileIGiveMyselfABigFatBonus. H.264 support would, by definition, make FireFox better.
Your wonderful description of the scientific method describes elegantly why I trust it so much.
What does the scientific method have to do with the IPCC?
The IPCC is not a scientific authority, so when YOU say that 'your wonderful description of the scientific method describes elegantly why I trust it so much' I've just got to laugh my ass off at how naive you are.
If you were talking about the NOAA, or NASA GISS, or some other organization involved in the actual performance of the scientific method... then you might have a leg to stand on.. but what you've just said is that you trust the IPCC because you trust the scientific method. The IPCC is a panel of politicians in the United Nations and has NEVER done any scientific research, E-V-E-R, nor would or should you trust a bunch of politicians to do that sort of thing.
Unisys was not making demands in regards to reading GIF's, but it most definitely was covered by patents.
If the argument that Mozilla shouldn't include any patented algorithms even if it has the rights to do so, then GIF support clearly violated this view.
If thats not the argument, then whats wrong with Mozilla obtaining the rights to implement h.264?
NASA doesnt have a great safety track record any longer. Two shuttles have gone down killing everyone on board.
While the first one with the O-ring maybe was simply tragic, the second one with crappy environmentally friendly tile modifications was most definitely caused by NASA management listening to environmentalist dipshits instead of the experts.
Which of these private firms have the best scientists?
We used to play twitch games all the time back when 56K modems (and thus, latency considerably higher than 80ms) were state of the art. Counter-Strike was born on 56K modems, for example.
The game has to be specifically written to deal with it, but it can be done.
Just the same, I think that this service will be a monumental failure. I just dont see how they will recover the costs, because they can't make it too expensive or the end user can save money by buying a machine that doesnt require their service. Those that already have such a machine (mostly everybody) wont even consider paying the extra costs.
For the tests linked to here the latest official release is slightly slower than Chrome, but the latest alpha build is significantly faster than chrome.
To put this in perspective, the devices were evenly placed on the gaming floor (its a casino) in a public area. This casino has been there for 20 years, and the area in question originally had no network connections (or even power outlets.) Still further, they could not close down the entire area for any length of time because it is a significant 24/7 revenue stream (even in the wee hours of the morning its thousands of dollars per hour in profit) that could not be moved.
Combine the logistics of it all with the pay rate of an IT staff that is only skilled at maintaining a 2 decade old network, and it isnt a very long stretch to believe that they didnt even know what token ring was, or at best failed to actually make a ring.
Packet collisions wouldnt be an issue on a small test rollout. Its when there are a hundred such devices all chattering on the network where suddenly nearly all packets fail to arrive.
I don't work in their IT department. I see the job posting, then nudge my direct co-workers who are standing around looking at the latest postings with me, and point at it and say "thats why."
"Thats less than half of what we make. Why did they post that here?"
This is the same IT department that purchased 100 custom touch-screen terminals for my department for nearly a million dollars about 5 years ago, but failed to ever get them to network correctly (my educated guess is that packet collisions were responsible.) The systems sat there taking up space for almost a year before they were finally removed, never to be seen again.
They eventually got a new system for the same purpose, and for about 3 months that too was unworkable for seemingly the same reason. I suspect that a member of the IT department finally discovered the wonders of Token Ring.
Works fine in the Opera 10.5 pre-release, the latest Safari, and of course the latest Chrome by definition.
Mozilla is in the same boat as Internet Explorer and I for one predict that FireFox development is going to get slower and slower and slower.. still not sure that they will do a full rewrite like last time.. thats still up in the air.
My company (over 10,000 employees, not in the computer industry) does the same thing, but the really annoying part..
..it must be EXACTLY 2 letters, followed by EXACTLY 4 digits.
So even allowing for upper case (which I am not sure that it differentiates), the total password space is only 2704000000.
The size of this space can conveniently fit into a 32-bit value, which is probably what they are doing: storing passwords in an integer field.
Did I mention that they pay our IT department $11/hour?
Yeah, all my coworkers do the same thing: use the same 2 letters every time they need to change it, followed by "1111" then "2222" then "3333" and so forth...
Slashdot Mirror
As far as I can remember, any and all patents covering *viewing* GIFs were long expired, and the only ones that remained were a bunch covering *creating* GIFs and, therefore, Mozilla was in the clear.
Wrong. You remember clearly that there were no licensing issues with reading and displaying GIF's, and that was true.. but that wasn't because it did not require patented technology.
Unisys, the owners of the LZW patent, simply did not require licensing on that end of it. Thats it. It was still patented and proprietary, and Unisys could have changed the terms at any time (and in fact on several occasions they did change their terms.)
This is another reason that Theora isnt any better. Xiph.org can change the terms on the patents they own at any time. Its just as proprietary as H.264 in that regard, but unlike H.264 (finalized in 2003) its still a work-in-progress, and represents a moving target that may end up using even more patents (or even more patent holders!/i>) that extend out for a much longer timeframe than the H.264 patents.
All known Theora patents have royalty-free license
I fully agree with you on that. I have pointed this out numerous times to people who accept the surface record as gospel. More shameful than the problems with the bad data, however, is that they then manipulate ("adjust") the bad data based on other bad data.
Mozilla has money too. A lot of money.
They've had no problem using patented technology in the past (such as GIF) so clearly the arguement is not against patented technology, but instead against licensing fee's.
Well fuck you, Mr PleaseSendUsMoneySoThatWeCanMakeFirefoxBetterWhileIGiveMyselfABigFatBonus. H.264 support would, by definition, make FireFox better.
A degree is statistics is more qualification than a degree in any of the earth sciences.
Global Warming is measured by statistics. None of these "climate experts" have the correct degree. None of them.
Your wonderful description of the scientific method describes elegantly why I trust it so much.
What does the scientific method have to do with the IPCC?
The IPCC is not a scientific authority, so when YOU say that 'your wonderful description of the scientific method describes elegantly why I trust it so much' I've just got to laugh my ass off at how naive you are.
If you were talking about the NOAA, or NASA GISS, or some other organization involved in the actual performance of the scientific method... then you might have a leg to stand on.. but what you've just said is that you trust the IPCC because you trust the scientific method. The IPCC is a panel of politicians in the United Nations and has NEVER done any scientific research, E-V-E-R, nor would or should you trust a bunch of politicians to do that sort of thing.
"Just one more turn"
CIV, CIV2, CIV3, and CIV4 are the best values ever. No other game even comes close. No. Other. Game.
How about "dummy human goes deaf when he breaks the sound barrier"
Unisys was not making demands in regards to reading GIF's, but it most definitely was covered by patents.
If the argument that Mozilla shouldn't include any patented algorithms even if it has the rights to do so, then GIF support clearly violated this view.
If thats not the argument, then whats wrong with Mozilla obtaining the rights to implement h.264?
Just think of how much more fulfilling the lives of our children will be, knowing the once obscure Tibetan gesture for "You're a donkey dong licker".
That one is international. Curl you finger up, making a loose fist with punching side pointed straight up. Now place in front of your lips.
Yeah.. I know that you just did it..
How many of the first 129 attempted flights landed safely?
To balance the equation 2 / N = 0.003%, the answer is obviously that of the first 129 flights, 66667 of them landed safely. Thats freaking awesome.
NASA doesnt have a great safety track record any longer. Two shuttles have gone down killing everyone on board.
While the first one with the O-ring maybe was simply tragic, the second one with crappy environmentally friendly tile modifications was most definitely caused by NASA management listening to environmentalist dipshits instead of the experts.
Which of these private firms have the best scientists?
Translation:
Nobody offered us a bribe.
We used to play twitch games all the time back when 56K modems (and thus, latency considerably higher than 80ms) were state of the art. Counter-Strike was born on 56K modems, for example.
The game has to be specifically written to deal with it, but it can be done.
Just the same, I think that this service will be a monumental failure. I just dont see how they will recover the costs, because they can't make it too expensive or the end user can save money by buying a machine that doesnt require their service. Those that already have such a machine (mostly everybody) wont even consider paying the extra costs.
Everytime this topic comes up I am amazed at how many people think that it's somehow Mozilla's fault that Firefox doesn't support H.264.
Mozilla supported GIF before its patent expired.
Was Mozilla not free back then? Really?
Contrary to popular belief, memory leaks related to midget porn is not smaller the other porn.
Want to throw Opera in there?
For the tests linked to here the latest official release is slightly slower than Chrome, but the latest alpha build is significantly faster than chrome.
To put this in perspective, the devices were evenly placed on the gaming floor (its a casino) in a public area. This casino has been there for 20 years, and the area in question originally had no network connections (or even power outlets.) Still further, they could not close down the entire area for any length of time because it is a significant 24/7 revenue stream (even in the wee hours of the morning its thousands of dollars per hour in profit) that could not be moved.
Combine the logistics of it all with the pay rate of an IT staff that is only skilled at maintaining a 2 decade old network, and it isnt a very long stretch to believe that they didnt even know what token ring was, or at best failed to actually make a ring.
Packet collisions wouldnt be an issue on a small test rollout. Its when there are a hundred such devices all chattering on the network where suddenly nearly all packets fail to arrive.
What is it with these pro-linux butthurt fanatics on Slashdot?
I don't work in their IT department. I see the job posting, then nudge my direct co-workers who are standing around looking at the latest postings with me, and point at it and say "thats why."
"Thats less than half of what we make. Why did they post that here?"
Shit, I thought I had it bad with pay.
This is the same IT department that purchased 100 custom touch-screen terminals for my department for nearly a million dollars about 5 years ago, but failed to ever get them to network correctly (my educated guess is that packet collisions were responsible.) The systems sat there taking up space for almost a year before they were finally removed, never to be seen again.
They eventually got a new system for the same purpose, and for about 3 months that too was unworkable for seemingly the same reason. I suspect that a member of the IT department finally discovered the wonders of Token Ring.
You are right, and wrong, I think.
Some videos seem to play while others report that there isnt a supported video format available.
Maybe Opera is only supporting Theora at this time?
Works fine in the Opera 10.5 pre-release, the latest Safari, and of course the latest Chrome by definition.
Mozilla is in the same boat as Internet Explorer and I for one predict that FireFox development is going to get slower and slower and slower.. still not sure that they will do a full rewrite like last time.. thats still up in the air.
My company (over 10,000 employees, not in the computer industry) does the same thing, but the really annoying part..
..it must be EXACTLY 2 letters, followed by EXACTLY 4 digits.
So even allowing for upper case (which I am not sure that it differentiates), the total password space is only 2704000000.
The size of this space can conveniently fit into a 32-bit value, which is probably what they are doing: storing passwords in an integer field.
Did I mention that they pay our IT department $11/hour?
Yeah, all my coworkers do the same thing: use the same 2 letters every time they need to change it, followed by "1111" then "2222" then "3333" and so forth...