Except there is no price being discussed. The article sums it up nicely at the end:
"All video codecs are covered by patents," Mr. Jobs wrote. "Unfortunately, just because something is open-source, it doesn't mean or guarantee that it doesn't infringe on others patents."
If MPEG-LA believes that VP8 infringes, then they are well within their rights to question it. The OpenSource folks, of which slashdot has a majority, seem to think that all patents are evil. I tend to think both sides have merit, and neither would do well without the other. If Google believes that simply questioning whether or not a patent infringes is anti-competitive, then they have a long road to haul. That said, it does seem like MPEG-LA is dragging this out longer than necessary. Although it's conceivable that they could still be gathering information at this stage, surely they have enough preliminary data at this point to make a legal case (or not).
I suspect this latest bruhaha is just to put pressure on MPEG-LA to put up or shut up.
Yes, because clicking 'OK' is beyond belief. They don't prevent you from downloading it, but they do warn you that it can access adult content. As a parent who might want to control what my children can access, I would appreciate that option (and yes it is optional).
I disagree. All the ribbon did was move ALL the menu items onto the ribbon. It made no difference except things were harder to find among the cluttered graphics barrage of options. Whether you use a 'view' tab or the view menu, finding simple text in alpha order is still easier than hunt/peck amongst a ribbon full of icons with dropdowns.
Is it really that difficult to set the app you want to open a file with? Command - I + Open With is your friend. No need to change all associations either as you can set it for specific files.
The correct action is to call Comcast or whoever your provider is and get an exception. Comcast at the time I had them, and Time Warner now, have no issue with someone running a server on a business contract. If you are using a personal (home) account and running one however, it shouldn't surprise you if you were blocked (I know the article says a business account but it's relevant to the discussion). Both stated that was against the TOS to run servers on 'home' accounts.
Hardly. When this all came to light in 2006, the practice was stopped. This entire article is just making an assumption that 'some day' they FBI could take this practice up again, and even notes proof to the contrary.
now now, this is most certainly change from the GWB "freedom? lol what freedom? regime.
yep, this is worse.
From TFA:
"Since 2006, it appears the bureau has refrained from using the authority it continues to assert, according to another heavily redacted section of the inspector general's report.
"However, that could change, and we believe appropriate controls on such authority should be considered now, in light of the FBI's past practices and the OLC opinion," the inspector general warned."
Curious. I've bought 4 macs over the last 4 years while upgrading old hardware ranging from a mini, a Macbook Pro, and an iMac, and none of them came with pages, keynote, or numbers preinstalled.
I can see you're a bit of an Android minded individual, which tells me that we're not talking on the same level of consciousness.
When it comes to rooting a phone, you are essentially doing hte same thing as jailbreaking an iPhone. In the end you are still at the mercy of the handset vendors. The OS may be open, but the vendors and cell networks most definitely are not. Faced with a choice of letting the provider make the decisions, or the manufacturer, I'd choose the manufacturer every time since they have more incentive to make their hardware a popular buy, where the provider doesn't care once they get you under a contract.
You slam the parent for essentially ignoring Android, and then agree with the parent that the tablets are crap. The parent stated his reason (uncertainty of support from the manufacturer or the community) and the poor state of the current crop of hardware, both of which should be valid concerns for any buyer, yet you dismiss his concerns simply because he opted for hardware that will definitely have vendor support for many years, and has a polished interface.
I should also point out that 3G runs iOS4 with support directly from Apple. I believe you are referring to the iPhone 2g released in 2007 which cannot run iOS4. Unless there is some hidden Android phone I'm not aware of, there are none that were around when the 2G was released. Given it's memory, not a surprising call from Apple, however there is an active mod community for the phone in either case.
I can't think of a single BOGO sale for an iPhone. Ever. Not so for Android.
n AT&T sells new 8GB iPhone 3GS's for $49.
Also, the 3GS is also not 'new', it's 2 years old, so the reduced price for 2 year old hardware is understandable.
The article also says these numbers are for a single quarter (3 months of sales). Unless something drastic changed, I believe iOS still takes the lead in total sales for the past year. Current predictions don't show overall Android yearly sales overtaking iOS until late 2011 or early 2012.
If TFA is only talking about smartphones, then not too worrisome if a single smartphone can hold out against how many 10's (100's?) of vendors selling Android flavors of their smartphone's? This is too much like stating 'PCs' sold more than 'Macs', where stating something like 'Dell outsold Mac' would be more relevant.
The iPhone is still king as there isn't a single Smartphone model on the market that comes anywhere near the number of iPhones sold daily, monthly, or yearly. It will be interesting to see what happens if Android ever upsets that trophy in any case.
I think any business owner would always go with 'profit', since without that, you can never be a success. If you have a huge market share but no profit you are doomed to failure. You bring up the crux of the issue the author so blithely ignores. Apple's business model doesn't require market share (although it could certainly benefit from it). It's model thrives on profit from high end sales, not mass market.
In addition, if those arguments were true, Linux would have overtaken Windows on the desktop years ago. It still hasn't happened and frankly, although Linux is a beautiful product, it's still got some very rough edges. It goes counter to his arguments. Windows == iPhone in this example, yet the next closest Desktop competitor to Windows is yet another closed source software OS (OS X).
The other piece of the equation he's missing is the fact that the handset manufacturer's are going to do everything they can to control their own platforms, and they are already doing so, either in prevent the casual user from upgrading to anti-hacking hardware/software to prevent custom bootloaders.
Although the source may be open, the end result is something in between.
Actually, from the posted video's, this would be a consumer scale reactor. Apparently they claim that they are stringing 125 of these devices together to produce a Megawatt power plant. This whole article reeks of scam though. They published their results in the "Journal of Nuclear Physics", which they also happen to own and operate. They also cannot explain 'how' the device works, but rather just claim the output speaks for itself. Their patent claims have also been rejected because it did not provide 'experimental evidence' or even a theoretical basis as to how it operates. One of the scientists has also been accused of tax fraud and illegally importing gold.
None of these things would seem to encourage anyone to take this seriously.
Interesting read, and it brings up two points which needs repeating. Specifically as to how VP8 does it's intra frame prediction.
From the linked article, Jason Garrett-Glaser (one of the developers of X.264) had this to say:
One specific characteristic of the codec that Garrett-Glaser considers particularly prone to patent risks is its handling of a feature called intra prediction. He accuses On2 of cribbing the technology from H.264.
"VP8's intra prediction is basically ripped off wholesale from H.264," he wrote. "This is a patent time-bomb waiting to happen. H.264's spatial intra prediction is covered in patents and I don't think that On2 will be able to just get away with changing the rounding in the prediction modes."
The other interesting point is the fact that the more a company discusses specific patents, the more they legally expose themselves to potential 'willful' violation in patent claims.
Unfortunately, it could be difficult for Google to provide any unambiguous assurances about VP8's patent status. Under US patent law, companies can be forced to pay triple damages for "willful" infringement—cases in which it can be demonstrated that the company was previously aware of a patent that it infringed. As such, publicly discussing specific patents can dramatically increase a company's exposure to liability.
This is probably why no one is saying much of anything until everyone is ready to lay their cards on the table.
The problem here being that the vast majority of users simply don't care if it's open. Some may fine they like it because it's not Apple. Some just like the commercials. Some like the touch features, or the '4G' (ahem) ads. I don't recall any of the major vendors loudly proclaiming it was based on FOSS in their commercials. It's simply not a selling point and I think that the/. crowd vastly over rates open-ness. The buying public at large doesn't care if they can hack their phone. Hell, most of them don't know what it means and probably visualize axes when you say the term.
It isn't some travesty that they don't see this. It simply is not important to them. The/. crowd has turned into those weird creepy flower people pushing peace at the airport in those 70's movies. You are fringe in this apsect and you simply refuse to see it.
Did you ever stop to consider that no one is suing these folks because they had no one with money behind it? Google is hardly starving in that regard. It makes WebM a very attractive target now that it has deep pockets behind it, which may be what folks have been waiting on all along.
I still fail to see how removing support for an industry standard codec is good for end users. All this will do is strengthen Flash, which is completely proprietary, which they failed to remove. The fans claim that doing so is the wrong time because Flash is so prevelent on the Web. I hate to break it to them but H.264 is the most popular video format on the web as most flash utilizes it under the covers as well.
I already have H.264 support bought and paid for, and now my favorite browser wont' support it, which leaves me with the chore of finding another browser. Google could have simply used the OS support if it's there but they also took that choice away as well (all for my own good I'm sure...)
Google is above reproach these days and the fans are just stumbling over themselves to defend this action claiming it promptes FOSS when all it will do is line Google's pockets in the end. If they were all about FOSS they would have removed Flash support from Chrome as well (it's still bundled in and will continue to be since there has been no mention of removing it).
H.264 is competely free to use when it's not used for profit. It's an excellent quality codec with a huge hardware supported base. All irrelevant and again for our own good apparently.
Google has become just as frightening if not more so than Microsoft ever was. Microsoft was at least up front with it's MS brand Evil. Google has found that a little good PR goes a long way when the end result still sends money back to the company coffers. They have become wrapped around far too much of the internet in a way that should scare the hell out of folks, but no one pays any attention because they offer 'free' services. I have to wonder when it will come back and bite us in the ass.
This appears to be more about Google's pissing match with Apple and less about FOSS. I just wish Google had picked a better bed mate than Adobe.
The judge is partially to blame (although blame may be a bit strong because personally I think this guy deserved punishment). According to TFA, once he sentenced him to incarceration, he essentially gave up any rights to set the terms of incareration. He gave those rights to the US Bureau of Prisons
The BOP is not bound by judicial recommendations, one legal expert said federal sentencing was often "arbitrary".
"The judge can give either incarceration or probation, but if it's incarceration the state gives power to the Bureau of Prisons to determine the nature of incarceration," said Professor Robert Weisberg, director of the criminal justice center at Stanford University in California.
Once it became a 'federal' decision, it's no surprise that he was handled the way he was.
Of course there is. There is little doubt that WebM infringes on MPEG-LA's patents. It would be nearly impossible for it not to, meaning any it is a risk to invest heavily in a technology that may have patent risk in 6 months.
Stating there is no reason they shouldn't support WebM is stretching it a bit. If history teaches anything, then VC-1 is a good example of that.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly. That is the entire benefit of a patent pool so they don't have to deal with every legal patent, but rather get a blank package.
Except there is no price being discussed. The article sums it up nicely at the end:
If MPEG-LA believes that VP8 infringes, then they are well within their rights to question it. The OpenSource folks, of which slashdot has a majority, seem to think that all patents are evil. I tend to think both sides have merit, and neither would do well without the other. If Google believes that simply questioning whether or not a patent infringes is anti-competitive, then they have a long road to haul. That said, it does seem like MPEG-LA is dragging this out longer than necessary. Although it's conceivable that they could still be gathering information at this stage, surely they have enough preliminary data at this point to make a legal case (or not).
I suspect this latest bruhaha is just to put pressure on MPEG-LA to put up or shut up.
Yes, because clicking 'OK' is beyond belief. They don't prevent you from downloading it, but they do warn you that it can access adult content. As a parent who might want to control what my children can access, I would appreciate that option (and yes it is optional).
I disagree. All the ribbon did was move ALL the menu items onto the ribbon. It made no difference except things were harder to find among the cluttered graphics barrage of options. Whether you use a 'view' tab or the view menu, finding simple text in alpha order is still easier than hunt/peck amongst a ribbon full of icons with dropdowns.
You will be happy to know that Lion allows you to resize from any window edge.
Is it really that difficult to set the app you want to open a file with? Command - I + Open With is your friend. No need to change all associations either as you can set it for specific files.
It's called menu pop. Just hit any programmable key combo and you get the apple menus right under the mouse cursor. Free in the app store:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/36095/menupop
Definitely suggested for high resolution monitors.
Combine that with QuickSilver and you rarely need to grab the mouse for common tasks:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/14831/quicksilver
The correct action is to call Comcast or whoever your provider is and get an exception. Comcast at the time I had them, and Time Warner now, have no issue with someone running a server on a business contract. If you are using a personal (home) account and running one however, it shouldn't surprise you if you were blocked (I know the article says a business account but it's relevant to the discussion). Both stated that was against the TOS to run servers on 'home' accounts.
Hardly. When this all came to light in 2006, the practice was stopped. This entire article is just making an assumption that 'some day' they FBI could take this practice up again, and even notes proof to the contrary.
From TFA:
"Since 2006, it appears the bureau has refrained from using the authority it continues to assert, according to another heavily redacted section of the inspector general's report.
"However, that could change, and we believe appropriate controls on such authority should be considered now, in light of the FBI's past practices and the OLC opinion," the inspector general warned."
Not even remotely true. there are any number of alternatives to iTunes on a mac.
http://www.simplehelp.net/2007/07/08/10-alternatives-to-itunes-for-managing-your-ipod/
http://crenk.com/list-of-the-best-free-itunes-alternatives/
http://tuxgeek.me/2008/11/29/itunes-alternative-on-the-mac-songbird-vs-banshee/
Curious. I've bought 4 macs over the last 4 years while upgrading old hardware ranging from a mini, a Macbook Pro, and an iMac, and none of them came with pages, keynote, or numbers preinstalled.
You are confusing iOS with Mac OS. Mac's ship from Apple with no bloatware. You get the OS, XCode, and some misc print drivers.
I can see you're a bit of an Android minded individual, which tells me that we're not talking on the same level of consciousness.
When it comes to rooting a phone, you are essentially doing hte same thing as jailbreaking an iPhone. In the end you are still at the mercy of the handset vendors. The OS may be open, but the vendors and cell networks most definitely are not. Faced with a choice of letting the provider make the decisions, or the manufacturer, I'd choose the manufacturer every time since they have more incentive to make their hardware a popular buy, where the provider doesn't care once they get you under a contract.
You slam the parent for essentially ignoring Android, and then agree with the parent that the tablets are crap. The parent stated his reason (uncertainty of support from the manufacturer or the community) and the poor state of the current crop of hardware, both of which should be valid concerns for any buyer, yet you dismiss his concerns simply because he opted for hardware that will definitely have vendor support for many years, and has a polished interface.
I should also point out that 3G runs iOS4 with support directly from Apple. I believe you are referring to the iPhone 2g released in 2007 which cannot run iOS4. Unless there is some hidden Android phone I'm not aware of, there are none that were around when the 2G was released. Given it's memory, not a surprising call from Apple, however there is an active mod community for the phone in either case.
http://www.redmondpie.com/ios-4.0-for-iphone-2g-ipod-touch-1g/
I can't think of a single BOGO sale for an iPhone. Ever. Not so for Android.
Also, the 3GS is also not 'new', it's 2 years old, so the reduced price for 2 year old hardware is understandable.
The article also says these numbers are for a single quarter (3 months of sales). Unless something drastic changed, I believe iOS still takes the lead in total sales for the past year. Current predictions don't show overall Android yearly sales overtaking iOS until late 2011 or early 2012.
If TFA is only talking about smartphones, then not too worrisome if a single smartphone can hold out against how many 10's (100's?) of vendors selling Android flavors of their smartphone's? This is too much like stating 'PCs' sold more than 'Macs', where stating something like 'Dell outsold Mac' would be more relevant.
The iPhone is still king as there isn't a single Smartphone model on the market that comes anywhere near the number of iPhones sold daily, monthly, or yearly. It will be interesting to see what happens if Android ever upsets that trophy in any case.
I think any business owner would always go with 'profit', since without that, you can never be a success. If you have a huge market share but no profit you are doomed to failure. You bring up the crux of the issue the author so blithely ignores. Apple's business model doesn't require market share (although it could certainly benefit from it). It's model thrives on profit from high end sales, not mass market.
In addition, if those arguments were true, Linux would have overtaken Windows on the desktop years ago. It still hasn't happened and frankly, although Linux is a beautiful product, it's still got some very rough edges. It goes counter to his arguments. Windows == iPhone in this example, yet the next closest Desktop competitor to Windows is yet another closed source software OS (OS X).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems
The other piece of the equation he's missing is the fact that the handset manufacturer's are going to do everything they can to control their own platforms, and they are already doing so, either in prevent the casual user from upgrading to anti-hacking hardware/software to prevent custom bootloaders.
Although the source may be open, the end result is something in between.
Here are a couple of alternatives to iTunes. A 2 second search on google would have netted you that much.
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/29716/heres-five-alternatives-to-itunes-10-for-easily-managing-your-ipod/
http://www.ilovefreesoftware.com/27/featured/8-free-alternatives-to-itunes-for-windows.html
Actually, from the posted video's, this would be a consumer scale reactor. Apparently they claim that they are stringing 125 of these devices together to produce a Megawatt power plant. This whole article reeks of scam though. They published their results in the "Journal of Nuclear Physics", which they also happen to own and operate. They also cannot explain 'how' the device works, but rather just claim the output speaks for itself. Their patent claims have also been rejected because it did not provide 'experimental evidence' or even a theoretical basis as to how it operates. One of the scientists has also been accused of tax fraud and illegally importing gold.
None of these things would seem to encourage anyone to take this seriously.
Interesting read, and it brings up two points which needs repeating. Specifically as to how VP8 does it's intra frame prediction.
From the linked article, Jason Garrett-Glaser (one of the developers of X.264) had this to say:
The other interesting point is the fact that the more a company discusses specific patents, the more they legally expose themselves to potential 'willful' violation in patent claims.
This is probably why no one is saying much of anything until everyone is ready to lay their cards on the table.
I hate to burst your bubble, but the Android Market have the same authority. They can remote kill an app just as easily, no?
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/06/exercising-our-remote-application.html
The problem here being that the vast majority of users simply don't care if it's open. Some may fine they like it because it's not Apple. Some just like the commercials. Some like the touch features, or the '4G' (ahem) ads. I don't recall any of the major vendors loudly proclaiming it was based on FOSS in their commercials. It's simply not a selling point and I think that the /. crowd vastly over rates open-ness. The buying public at large doesn't care if they can hack their phone. Hell, most of them don't know what it means and probably visualize axes when you say the term.
It isn't some travesty that they don't see this. It simply is not important to them. The /. crowd has turned into those weird creepy flower people pushing peace at the airport in those 70's movies. You are fringe in this apsect and you simply refuse to see it.
Did you ever stop to consider that no one is suing these folks because they had no one with money behind it? Google is hardly starving in that regard. It makes WebM a very attractive target now that it has deep pockets behind it, which may be what folks have been waiting on all along.
I still fail to see how removing support for an industry standard codec is good for end users. All this will do is strengthen Flash, which is completely proprietary, which they failed to remove. The fans claim that doing so is the wrong time because Flash is so prevelent on the Web. I hate to break it to them but H.264 is the most popular video format on the web as most flash utilizes it under the covers as well.
http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/01/h-264-66-percent-web-video/
Why keep flash? This is pure politics.
I already have H.264 support bought and paid for, and now my favorite browser wont' support it, which leaves me with the chore of finding another browser. Google could have simply used the OS support if it's there but they also took that choice away as well (all for my own good I'm sure...)
Google is above reproach these days and the fans are just stumbling over themselves to defend this action claiming it promptes FOSS when all it will do is line Google's pockets in the end. If they were all about FOSS they would have removed Flash support from Chrome as well (it's still bundled in and will continue to be since there has been no mention of removing it).
http://www.osnews.com/story/23081/Google_To_Bundle_Flash_with_Chrome_Yup
H.264 is competely free to use when it's not used for profit. It's an excellent quality codec with a huge hardware supported base. All irrelevant and again for our own good apparently.
Google has become just as frightening if not more so than Microsoft ever was. Microsoft was at least up front with it's MS brand Evil. Google has found that a little good PR goes a long way when the end result still sends money back to the company coffers. They have become wrapped around far too much of the internet in a way that should scare the hell out of folks, but no one pays any attention because they offer 'free' services. I have to wonder when it will come back and bite us in the ass.
This appears to be more about Google's pissing match with Apple and less about FOSS. I just wish Google had picked a better bed mate than Adobe.
The judge is partially to blame (although blame may be a bit strong because personally I think this guy deserved punishment). According to TFA, once he sentenced him to incarceration, he essentially gave up any rights to set the terms of incareration. He gave those rights to the US Bureau of Prisons
Once it became a 'federal' decision, it's no surprise that he was handled the way he was.
H.264 is an open standard. It is not proprietary. It is also not royalty free. There is a difference.
Of course there is. There is little doubt that WebM infringes on MPEG-LA's patents. It would be nearly impossible for it not to, meaning any it is a risk to invest heavily in a technology that may have patent risk in 6 months.
Stating there is no reason they shouldn't support WebM is stretching it a bit. If history teaches anything, then VC-1 is a good example of that.