The JavaScript on 64 bit Linux never got the tracing interpreter everyone else got in 3.5. They went from the 3.0 javascript engine straight to method JIT/tracing JIT in this release.
That's a change from "OMG slow" to "Zing!" on my platform of choice...
Since Firefox and it's extensions are also written in JavaScript, it's quite an improvement..
Windows and Mac come with a license for personal use, but other operating systems like Linux and FreeBSD do not. Also, if you want to use it for commercial use, you need a separate license.
Yes, Youtube, Windows, and Mac are licensed, and you can use the web like a cable TV.. That's exactly my point. If we want nothing more than we have today, H.264 is fine. If we want freedom for code slingers and artists to choose their own path we need free standards.
Innovation requires freedom. I produce some small commercial videos and I write code. I cannot legally do what I want with H.264 without licensing, and they won't sell me a license. For me the choices are to break the law, use free standards, or drop the project. You'll see millions of instances of this over the next 17 years until H.264 patents expire if we don't have a free standard that's supported everywhere.
You want to have a website with paid tutorial videos? Can't use H.264 to sell content without a license.
Want to use the excellent handbrake video encoder? Can't without breaking the law.
You want to build a distributed, self-generating screensaver that produces web video? Cant without free standards.
Patented standards hamper innovation and economic growth. The most important examples of this are the ones we haven't come up with yet...
Innovation happens when consumers become producers.
That's the magic of open standards, with end-to-end connectivity.
The Internet's growth is the best argument for the necessity of limiting restrictions on the formats of interchange. If you needed a patent licensed server and browser to be on the net, would we have seen the innovation and growth?
It's IMPORTANT that the web does not become Cable. Cable is where you pay money for content, and that's the end of it. The use of open standards on the web allows for end users to make the software and content they choose.
If you only want cable, buy that, but stay out of the net neutrality and codec war, because its not *for* you.
No. Forcing the WebM/Theora video issue should also have the side effect of bringing support for vorbis.
The goal is not to drop patented algorithms, it is to force everyone to support unpatented alternatives. I think dropping H.264 should be enough to accomplish this goal. If not, then yes, I do support dropping MP3.
H.264 High Profile is undoubtedly more efficient them WebM. WebM quality should have an upper bound of about the same as H.264 Main Profile.
I think in that Mozilla, Google, and Opera are right on this one. This is about openness and innovation. H.264 stifles innovation, while non-patented codecs allow greater innovation.
Today, H.264 seems to make sense, but limits the freedom of people to build software, hardware, and services based around web video.
The lesson of the internet is that libre and gratis standards combined with connectivity help foster growth and innovation like nothing else we've ever created.
I support dropping H.264, at least until all browsers support a freely available codec. Free standards should be mandatory, and costly ones optional.
Unfortunately, the only way to help move some players to free standards is to refuse to support the paid ones.
I'd rather have the option of using both, but value the innovation of having free standards everywhere over that option as a short term tactical move.. That's exactly what Google, Firefox, and Opera are doing.
You want to charge for video on the web? You can't use H.264 without paying licensing fees, and they don't talk to small potatoes.
Yes, you have noise about threat of patent for Theora for over 6 years(still no action), and WebM for 7 months (no action).. What we have is FUD against 2 probably open standards vs 1 definitely patented one.
And once again:
Also, remember Theora is still available in multiple browsers, and other codecs will appear in the future. A vote against H.264 is not necessarily a vote for WebM, though it is probably the best choice at the moment.
This is MUCH broader than just H.264 VS WebM. I can legally do whatever I want with WebM, Theora, and Dirac today. If I break the H.264 patent agreement I get willful infringement charges, with WebM it would be much lower normal infringement charges *if* patents ever are asserted.
Formats will come and go, but we have one chance to push for open vs closed ecosystem.. The Internet is a great argument for open, remember AOL and compuserve was once better also..
I think in the short term this will push many sites back to flash video, in the medium term it will be good for the web, and in the long term patents don't matter, so H.264 is probably a better choice *from that perspective*.
I support dropping H.264 as a good move, as innovation matters, and patented H.264 will stifle innovation. Pushing everyone to support non-patented WebM/theora/Dirac/etc as an option at least is the best move.. Unfortunately the only way to make that a viable option is to drop support for H.264. Otherwise MS and Apple are unlikely to ever support non-H.264 codecs.
H.264 is an open but not free standard. The patent grant is both costly and non-transitive. WebM is a closed standard, with a libre and transitive license and patent grant and libre reference implementation.
Also, remember Theora is still available in multiple browsers, and other codecs will appear in the future. A vote against H.264 is not necessarily a vote for WebM, though it is probably the best choice at the moment.
I know of no linux that has x264 out of the box. In many countries, it's illegal to use x264 without paying licensing fees, as all encoders and decoders require licenses. Today there are 3 legal ways to play H.264 on Ubuntu in the USA: the Flash player, and http://www.fluendo.com/shop/product/complete-set-of-playback-plugins/ and Google Chrome.
Freedom is freedom for innovation. You want to build a new video software application or hardware device with H.264? Time to pay the piper. And the piper doesn't sell 10 packs of licenses.
You want to charge for video on the web? You can't use H.264 without paying licensing fees, and they don't talk to small potatoes.
We need a free format for video to be widely supported. What would have happened to the web if you had to buy a patent license to create commercial content, servers, or browsers? It would have a few thousand users probably.
Innovation matters. Don't burden the future with what might make sense today.
Mozilla could certainly license H.264 and distribute Mozilla binaries with H.264 if they chose too, they just couldn't do it under their current tri-license stream.
Currently, Chrome ships with H.264, but the open source Chromium does not.
Mozilla could do a similar thing, they just don't think it fits their project goals, and would harm projects like Wikipedia and downstreams like Linux distributions who would like to rebuild from source themselves.
Strangely enough, Flash manages in a free product.
Adobe's Flash player isn't Free in the sense of Free Software. Flash just doesn't cost the end-user anything.
Flash is a free product, just not a Free or libre one. RMS does not define the word free.
If they included it in their browser, they'd either violate the patent licensing conditions, or the code licensing conditions.
Source? They could have decided to provide it linked in their official downloads, but not in the free version, much like Google did with Chome(included H.264) and Chromium(did not). They just decided that was the wrong thing to do from the perspective of freedom on the web.
If my post wasn't clear, I think the short term outcome of not supporting H.264 in HTML5 is bad for the web, in the medium term it is good for the web, and in the long term it is neutral to slightly bad.
I'm mostly trying to have people consider that things can be bad for a time and still be good overall, and perhaps that this is even the most common case in legal matters. Also I wish to help people make their arguments about this topic more clear by naming and focusing on the timeframe they think is important.
H.264 is an open but not free standard. The patent grant is both costly and non-transitive. WebM is a closed standard, with a libre and transitive license and patent grant and libre reference implementation.
H.264 High Profile is without question technically superior, but WebM should be able to come near to the quality of H.264 Main Profile.
That's a whole lot of trade-offs to consider, and I fully suspect that others will disagree with me on whether this is a good thing or not in any particular time frame. Personally, I think Mozilla, Opera, and now Google are doing the right thing in terms of both programmer and end user freedom for video on the web.
Strangely enough, Flash manages in a free product.
Mozilla could afford the licensing fees, but they don't wish to. They can't pass on their license to other Mozilla partners like linux distros who build their own packages, and think it's worth either the monetary cost or the cost to the ecosystem.
BTW, I think Mozilla, opera, and now Google did the right thing for the web ecosystem, as I have the mid-term view in mind. I just think it's worth examining the likely outcome in the short term and long term also..
Mozilla were the first ones to take a stand, even when theora was the best free option. Opera agreed and followed suit. It's only afterwards, now that Google has proven WebM code and hardware available that they are growing a pair also.
I think in the short term this will push many sites back to flash video, in the medium term it will be good for the web, and in the long term patents don't matter, so H.264 is probably a better choice.
How you feel about this greatly depends on the timeframe you reference...
I'm for as little government regulation and oversight as is necessary to protect citizens from the profit motivated capitalistic forces.
"Net neutrality" is the term that should mean just that in the telecom space, so I'm for the principle.
It's also one of those terms that many different parties want to claim has different meanings, so I'm not always for specific implementations of the policy.
In most cases you use encryption to hide something from someone.
In DRM, you want them to see it, but not copy it. In general, DRM is impossible, you can't let someone have access to something and not have access to it at the same time.
However, most DRM schemes last a while until people can route around it.
I interpret this summary (and a scan of the full text II.A on pages 14-29) to mean the emails were deemed admissible. However, I read packet traces and HTTP transactions for a living, not legal documents, so it is entirely likely I am mistaken.
(1) Warshak enjoyed a reasonable expectation of privacy in his emails vis-a-vis NuVox, his Internet Service Provider. See Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967). Thus, government agents violated his Fourth Amendment rights by compelling NuVox to turn over the emails without first obtaining a warrant based on probable cause. However, because the agents relied in good faith on provisions of the Stored Communications Act, the exclusionary rule does not apply in this instance. See Illinois v. Krull, 480 U.S. 340 (1987)
You're not stealing the knowledge, as you are not depriving them of it. What you might be doing is depriving them of the benefits of having a monopoly of that data collection. What you are not depriving them of is the data collection itself.
Copying without permission is not theft of the item being copied. That doesn't mean it's automatically morally or legally ok, just that it differs from theft in substantial ways.
From the reviews so far it sounds like they made an awesome music video for Daft Punk. The takeaway seems to be go see it at the imax, turn off your brain, and enjoy the music and light show.
Yes, this means that evidence obtained in this manner in the future would be inadmissible in court. According to the brief, they decided in this case since the law had not yet been deemed unconstitutional and the officers acted in good faith, the evidence was still admissible for this particular case.
Whether or not you can sue your ISP is a civil matter, pertaining to contract law, and this ruling should not apply.
No other company I ever worked with made it so hard. Unless you were a megacustomer, it was actually fairly difficult to actually buy anything from them.
In contrast, buying RedHat on the small scale is click, click, done.
Here's a summary of Ellison's rant on why Sun died, notice the complaints are mostly about sales and engineering decisions, open source had very little to do with it:
Slashdot Mirror
The JavaScript on 64 bit Linux never got the tracing interpreter everyone else got in 3.5. They went from the 3.0 javascript engine straight to method JIT/tracing JIT in this release.
That's a change from "OMG slow" to "Zing!" on my platform of choice...
Since Firefox and it's extensions are also written in JavaScript, it's quite an improvement..
Cameras can record in it, but not legally for commercial use.
http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA
Windows and Mac come with a license for personal use, but other operating systems like Linux and FreeBSD do not. Also, if you want to use it for commercial use, you need a separate license.
Yes, Youtube, Windows, and Mac are licensed, and you can use the web like a cable TV.. That's exactly my point. If we want nothing more than we have today, H.264 is fine. If we want freedom for code slingers and artists to choose their own path we need free standards.
Innovation requires freedom. I produce some small commercial videos and I write code. I cannot legally do what I want with H.264 without licensing, and they won't sell me a license. For me the choices are to break the law, use free standards, or drop the project. You'll see millions of instances of this over the next 17 years until H.264 patents expire if we don't have a free standard that's supported everywhere.
You want to have a website with paid tutorial videos? Can't use H.264 to sell content without a license.
Want to use the excellent handbrake video encoder? Can't without breaking the law.
You want to build a distributed, self-generating screensaver that produces web video? Cant without free standards.
Patented standards hamper innovation and economic growth. The most important examples of this are the ones we haven't come up with yet...
Innovation happens when consumers become producers.
That's the magic of open standards, with end-to-end connectivity.
The Internet's growth is the best argument for the necessity of limiting restrictions on the formats of interchange. If you needed a patent licensed server and browser to be on the net, would we have seen the innovation and growth?
It's IMPORTANT that the web does not become Cable. Cable is where you pay money for content, and that's the end of it. The use of open standards on the web allows for end users to make the software and content they choose.
If you only want cable, buy that, but stay out of the net neutrality and codec war, because its not *for* you.
No. Forcing the WebM/Theora video issue should also have the side effect of bringing support for vorbis.
The goal is not to drop patented algorithms, it is to force everyone to support unpatented alternatives. I think dropping H.264 should be enough to accomplish this goal. If not, then yes, I do support dropping MP3.
Also note, MP3 decoder patents likely expire in 2012, and encoder patents expire in 2017, vs 2028 for H.264. That's a whole different kettle of fish on those timescales.
H.264 High Profile is undoubtedly more efficient them WebM. WebM quality should have an upper bound of about the same as H.264 Main Profile.
I think in that Mozilla, Google, and Opera are right on this one. This is about openness and innovation. H.264 stifles innovation, while non-patented codecs allow greater innovation.
Today, H.264 seems to make sense, but limits the freedom of people to build software, hardware, and services based around web video.
The lesson of the internet is that libre and gratis standards combined with connectivity help foster growth and innovation like nothing else we've ever created.
I support dropping H.264, at least until all browsers support a freely available codec. Free standards should be mandatory, and costly ones optional.
Unfortunately, the only way to help move some players to free standards is to refuse to support the paid ones.
I'd rather have the option of using both, but value the innovation of having free standards everywhere over that option as a short term tactical move.. That's exactly what Google, Firefox, and Opera are doing.
Read the whole thing again:
You want to charge for video on the web? You can't use H.264 without paying licensing fees, and they don't talk to small potatoes.
Yes, you have noise about threat of patent for Theora for over 6 years(still no action), and WebM for 7 months (no action).. What we have is FUD against 2 probably open standards vs 1 definitely patented one.
And once again:
Also, remember Theora is still available in multiple browsers, and other codecs will appear in the future. A vote against H.264 is not necessarily a vote for WebM, though it is probably the best choice at the moment.
This is MUCH broader than just H.264 VS WebM. I can legally do whatever I want with WebM, Theora, and Dirac today. If I break the H.264 patent agreement I get willful infringement charges, with WebM it would be much lower normal infringement charges *if* patents ever are asserted.
Formats will come and go, but we have one chance to push for open vs closed ecosystem.. The Internet is a great argument for open, remember AOL and compuserve was once better also..
Let me clarify, as my statement isn't clear:
I think in the short term this will push many sites back to flash video, in the medium term it will be good for the web, and in the long term patents don't matter, so H.264 is probably a better choice *from that perspective*.
I support dropping H.264 as a good move, as innovation matters, and patented H.264 will stifle innovation. Pushing everyone to support non-patented WebM/theora/Dirac/etc as an option at least is the best move.. Unfortunately the only way to make that a viable option is to drop support for H.264. Otherwise MS and Apple are unlikely to ever support non-H.264 codecs.
H.264 is an open but not free standard. The patent grant is both costly and non-transitive. WebM is a closed standard, with a libre and transitive license and patent grant and libre reference implementation.
Also, remember Theora is still available in multiple browsers, and other codecs will appear in the future. A vote against H.264 is not necessarily a vote for WebM, though it is probably the best choice at the moment.
No hardware support you say? Hardware rendering of WebM in soon to be shipped hardware was shown at CES:
http://blog.webmproject.org/2011/01/availability-of-webm-vp8-video-hardware.html
http://blog.webmproject.org/2010/12/chips-delivers-vp8-hd-video-hardware.html
I know of no linux that has x264 out of the box. In many countries, it's illegal to use x264 without paying licensing fees, as all encoders and decoders require licenses. Today there are 3 legal ways to play H.264 on Ubuntu in the USA: the Flash player, and http://www.fluendo.com/shop/product/complete-set-of-playback-plugins/ and Google Chrome.
Freedom is freedom for innovation. You want to build a new video software application or hardware device with H.264? Time to pay the piper. And the piper doesn't sell 10 packs of licenses.
You want to charge for video on the web? You can't use H.264 without paying licensing fees, and they don't talk to small potatoes.
With most video cameras that support H.264, you're breaking the law if you use them for commercial purposes. http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA
We need a free format for video to be widely supported. What would have happened to the web if you had to buy a patent license to create commercial content, servers, or browsers? It would have a few thousand users probably.
Innovation matters. Don't burden the future with what might make sense today.
[citation needed]
Mozilla could certainly license H.264 and distribute Mozilla binaries with H.264 if they chose too, they just couldn't do it under their current tri-license stream.
Currently, Chrome ships with H.264, but the open source Chromium does not.
Mozilla could do a similar thing, they just don't think it fits their project goals, and would harm projects like Wikipedia and downstreams like Linux distributions who would like to rebuild from source themselves.
Adobe's Flash player isn't Free in the sense of Free Software. Flash just doesn't cost the end-user anything.
Flash is a free product, just not a Free or libre one. RMS does not define the word free.
If they included it in their browser, they'd either violate the patent licensing conditions, or the code licensing conditions.
Source?
They could have decided to provide it linked in their official downloads, but not in the free version, much like Google did with Chome(included H.264) and Chromium(did not). They just decided that was the wrong thing to do from the perspective of freedom on the web.
Personally, I was expecting to see Rick Astley sing to me when I clicked this link. You missed a good opertunity, Slashdot...
If my post wasn't clear, I think the short term outcome of not supporting H.264 in HTML5 is bad for the web, in the medium term it is good for the web, and in the long term it is neutral to slightly bad.
I'm mostly trying to have people consider that things can be bad for a time and still be good overall, and perhaps that this is even the most common case in legal matters. Also I wish to help people make their arguments about this topic more clear by naming and focusing on the timeframe they think is important.
H.264 is an open but not free standard. The patent grant is both costly and non-transitive. WebM is a closed standard, with a libre and transitive license and patent grant and libre reference implementation.
H.264 High Profile is without question technically superior, but WebM should be able to come near to the quality of H.264 Main Profile.
That's a whole lot of trade-offs to consider, and I fully suspect that others will disagree with me on whether this is a good thing or not in any particular time frame. Personally, I think Mozilla, Opera, and now Google are doing the right thing in terms of both programmer and end user freedom for video on the web.
Strangely enough, Flash manages in a free product.
Mozilla could afford the licensing fees, but they don't wish to. They can't pass on their license to other Mozilla partners like linux distros who build their own packages, and think it's worth either the monetary cost or the cost to the ecosystem.
http://shaver.off.net/diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codecs/
They estimate it would cost $5mil, and they had revenues of $104 mil in 2009. They could afford it if they deemed it necessary.
http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/annualreport/2009/sustainability.html
BTW, I think Mozilla, opera, and now Google did the right thing for the web ecosystem, as I have the mid-term view in mind. I just think it's worth examining the likely outcome in the short term and long term also..
For good or ill, this is Mozilla's fault.
Mozilla were the first ones to take a stand, even when theora was the best free option. Opera agreed and followed suit. It's only afterwards, now that Google has proven WebM code and hardware available that they are growing a pair also.
I think in the short term this will push many sites back to flash video, in the medium term it will be good for the web, and in the long term patents don't matter, so H.264 is probably a better choice.
How you feel about this greatly depends on the timeframe you reference...
That's my point, so far all I've seen are assumptions at the moment. There is no announced unlimited plan, and no announced pricing. The claim
tuaw has details about the pricing of their (unlimited) data plans as well as the hotspot app.
is false as far as I can tell, and we have only (educated) guesses at this point.
Where? I see where they quote the prices of the current Droid plans, but no datails on iPhone plans..
I don't think of myself as right or left wing.
I'm for as little government regulation and oversight as is necessary to protect citizens from the profit motivated capitalistic forces.
"Net neutrality" is the term that should mean just that in the telecom space, so I'm for the principle.
It's also one of those terms that many different parties want to claim has different meanings, so I'm not always for specific implementations of the policy.
If these things are in fact problems, we as a world need to deal with them. The US simply cannot afford to bankrupt itself in never-ending war.
DRM is not traditional encryption.
In most cases you use encryption to hide something from someone.
In DRM, you want them to see it, but not copy it. In general, DRM is impossible, you can't let someone have access to something and not have access to it at the same time.
However, most DRM schemes last a while until people can route around it.
I hit send too early ;-)
I interpret this summary (and a scan of the full text II.A on pages 14-29) to mean the emails were deemed admissible. However, I read packet traces and HTTP transactions for a living, not legal documents, so it is entirely likely I am mistaken.
Is there something I am missing?
From the court's opinion linked to from the article:
https://www.eff.org/files/warshak_opinion_121410.pdf
(1) Warshak enjoyed a reasonable expectation of privacy in his emails vis-a-vis
NuVox, his Internet Service Provider. See Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967).
Thus, government agents violated his Fourth Amendment rights by compelling NuVox
to turn over the emails without first obtaining a warrant based on probable cause.
However, because the agents relied in good faith on provisions of the Stored
Communications Act, the exclusionary rule does not apply in this instance. See Illinois
v. Krull, 480 U.S. 340 (1987)
You're not stealing the knowledge, as you are not depriving them of it.
What you might be doing is depriving them of the benefits of having a monopoly of that data collection. What you are not depriving them of is the data collection itself.
Copying without permission is not theft of the item being copied. That doesn't mean it's automatically morally or legally ok, just that it differs from theft in substantial ways.
From the reviews so far it sounds like they made an awesome music video for Daft Punk. The takeaway seems to be go see it at the imax, turn off your brain, and enjoy the music and light show.
I'm down with that...
Not a lawyer, I don't even play one one TV.
Yes, this means that evidence obtained in this manner in the future would be inadmissible in court. According to the brief, they decided in this case since the law had not yet been deemed unconstitutional and the officers acted in good faith, the evidence was still admissible for this particular case.
Whether or not you can sue your ISP is a civil matter, pertaining to contract law, and this ruling should not apply.
Did anyone ever try to buy things from Sun?
No other company I ever worked with made it so hard. Unless you were a megacustomer, it was actually fairly difficult to actually buy anything from them.
In contrast, buying RedHat on the small scale is click, click, done.
Here's a summary of Ellison's rant on why Sun died, notice the complaints are mostly about sales and engineering decisions, open source had very little to do with it:
http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2010/05/13/oracles-ellison-sun-execs-were-astonishingly-bad-managers/