It's not a strawman. My point is that Google is certainly no better than the MPEG-LA here, and unlike that organization (which anybody can join for a one time payment of $2000) Google will control every aspect of VP8.
Listen kid, Google did not write VP8 "in html." They wrote it in C. The only reason they did this is because they don't want to pay millions of dollars per year to the MPEG-LA, whose codec Google uses to make tens of billions of dollars per year just from Youtube. There may be a motivation to stop paying the dollar or whatever it is per Android phone too.
However, Google has never actually legally indemnified Everybody Forever who wishes to implement a VP8 codec for their device. They have never promised ANY SUCH THING! They just said we are releasing a free codec, and enjoy!
Sounds great, right? Except they really promised nothing and are just assuming people will trust them. The WebM codecs are not encumbered with any licensing fees now, but tomorrow or next week or in 10 years Google can change their mind. Of course it's free now, Google is essentially a crack dealer, and they will not charge until you are totally hooked.
The patents only require a license fee if you are selling a device for a profit, or serving content for a profit, and either way it is quite reasonable.
It is completely legal, and totally free, to put an h.264 decoder and encoder on your Linux machine, and access it from the browser. There is not legal injunction against this sort of thing - in fact, the MPEG-LA has specifically indemnified everybody from any possible legal action, in an indisputable and legally binding, non-revocable agreement, for making, downloading, or installing the h.264 codec on a computer no matter what OS it is running!
This is a fake fucking controversy started by Google because they want to stop paying their license fees for h.264 and nothing more. This is not a software freedom issue as VP8 is not even a specification yet, and there are no alternate implementations, and it does not replace h.264 in any way, and VP8 is not included in *any* hardware accelerators at the moment.
If you can't see the writing on the wall, let me direct your eye - Google and more importantly Youtube will eventually stop serving h.264 content. They will announce this decision to the Android phone makers, who will include VP8 on their devices. They will not prepare plugins for Internet Explorer, or Safari, and will offer no particular assistance for iPad and iPhone users (as these compete with Google's own solution) and one day the hammer will drop, and everybody going to youtube.com who is not already capable of seeing VP8, no matter which device they own, will see a message saying "Please click here to get Chrome!" if the user agent detects a computer, and a message saying "Your device does not support VP8" if it's not a computer.
It will be petty and childish and you can bet your ass it will go down just like that. Google is not above fucking over the competition, and this move will prove it. One may wish to bet that they "alter the agreement" that is in place with VP8, and demand money for its implementation on non-computer devices, putting us in the same situation we are in now, with h.264!
I do not believe they have actually legally indemnified all implementations of VP8, current, and future, no matter what. They have just told us that anybody can use it, without that specific indemnification. They may well demand money at some point. Who fucking knows.
It is a benefit to have actual full media player controls for video content. That way you can fast forward through the god damned commercials, pause the content to let it buffer (which might not happen depending on how the video is set up) and have more control.
So the stupid video isn't embedded in the web page like the web designer and their boss wants it to be. Actual real people will either not care at all, fail to notice the difference completely, or actually be happy about the change.
Can't you get VLC or Mplayer for pretty much any free OS? I believe that those will both play most any video format, and will stream almost anything too. It would be trivial for open source browsers to deal with h.264 video by launching one of those programs. As a side effect you'd have all the controls they give you.
There is only one reason that *certain* Free OSs and browsers will not play h.264 video - that is to draw an idealogical line in the sand. You can take a Free OS, download a Free media player application, and play h.264 movies TODAY. I have done this for YEARS. Firefox and chrome won't put it in, and that's ok - there is another way.
h.264 does not cost money for people who are using it as a player, and there are fully legal implementations of the codec which are free. It's free UNLESS you are using it to serve an assload of videos, for profit.
"Wait, did you just say that open standards are worse off because they involve open collaboration?"
The history of specifications is littered with the stillborn and dead specs that were killed by infighting, took too long to complete and were thus obsolete before they were completed, or were intentionally torpedoed by a stealth ninja operative that somehow was included in the standards process.
There is no law of nature that says an industry defined standard must be better than any private, one party solution. You may make that argument on a case by case basis, but be sure to cherry pick your cases because you will lose often enough if they are drawn at random from the de-facto specs which grew out of an ad-hoc process, and official industry standards defined by an assload of big companies, their lawyers, executives, and perhaps eventually an engineer if they bother to throw one in at all.
No, Google sent a bunch of C code in an email. In its current form it is not very useful for somebody who wishes to implement their own version of the codec. It is really not explained at all in the way that an actual specification is expected to be.
See, I don't feel any more guilty than I might if I ride the bus and ignore the ads, or go to a pub and ignore the ads above the urinal. Ads are not a good revenue mod del for a web site, and I prefer to look at them as an annoyance which gives tips to a site, but not the main rvenue chain itself.
Guilt for ad-blocking. What's next, guilt for leaving the room and getting a snack when a commercial appears on TV?
While it is technically possible to use Enlightenment on the Mac or even on Windows, nobody actually does this except as a larf, so this "huge quibble" can indeed be safely ignored.
Well i disagree on the PS controller layout. The Dual Analog controller layout makes absolutely perfect ergonomic sense. The crippled, lazy half assed attempts by Sega, Nintendo, and M to invent a better contoller make my hand ache.
Perhaps if you are the 1/10th of 1% of the people who make up the market that give a rat's ass. If you are the dominate majority of people you think "it's cool because there is one nice slick spot where I can get all my software, and Apple keeps the most flagrant of the shit ware out of my face."
I mean, do you eschew Nintendo WII games because you can only basically buy them online from Nintendo?
All these years, and Sony hasn't heard the biggest complaint about the PSP - the low mounted analog stick is in the very worst place. They should be above the other controllers, mounted where the thumbs will land. Heck, eliminate them entirely in favor of a touch pad.
My prediction is that this thing will flop, and flop hard. After all, unless the machine offers substantially better *games* than the PSP who gives a shit about a touch screen on the back?
First off, not every driver submitted for inclusion in the kernel actually makes it. Sometimes issues of code quality are cited as reasons for disallowing a driver into mainline, and sometimes they are rejected for reasons that are mysterious (code style WTF?) so it's not just tha simple.
Secondly, once a driver is in mainline, there is no guarantee that anybody will actually keep it in a working state. There are many, many drivers in the kernel that are basically unchanged since before 2000 and because there is no corporate sponsorship of these they tend to stay in the kernel, but slowly break over time. I know a person who has had huge problems with a multi-line serial port type terminal device that has been broken for 5 years now, but his cries fall on deaf ears and he can not afford to sponsor a developer.
There are all kinds of problems like this cropping up with old devices. ISA and MCA are both "supported" in the kernel, but good luck getting Linux running on that old 486.
Just because a study is "peer reviewed" does not mean that the research has been independently reproduced by the reviewers. Nowadays, it just means, "Yeah, that dovetails with my prejudices on the matter and would allow our field to rake in a bunch more grant money."
Then again you may not be able to view the actual documentation.
Besides, unless you are probably unfamiliar with banner ads, and it shows. In addition to there being a market for clicked ads, there is one for ad impressions as well.
Also, "fraud?" I don't think this word means what you think it means.
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It's not a strawman. My point is that Google is certainly no better than the MPEG-LA here, and unlike that organization (which anybody can join for a one time payment of $2000) Google will control every aspect of VP8.
Listen kid, Google did not write VP8 "in html." They wrote it in C. The only reason they did this is because they don't want to pay millions of dollars per year to the MPEG-LA, whose codec Google uses to make tens of billions of dollars per year just from Youtube. There may be a motivation to stop paying the dollar or whatever it is per Android phone too.
However, Google has never actually legally indemnified Everybody Forever who wishes to implement a VP8 codec for their device. They have never promised ANY SUCH THING! They just said we are releasing a free codec, and enjoy!
Sounds great, right? Except they really promised nothing and are just assuming people will trust them. The WebM codecs are not encumbered with any licensing fees now, but tomorrow or next week or in 10 years Google can change their mind. Of course it's free now, Google is essentially a crack dealer, and they will not charge until you are totally hooked.
The patents only require a license fee if you are selling a device for a profit, or serving content for a profit, and either way it is quite reasonable.
It is completely legal, and totally free, to put an h.264 decoder and encoder on your Linux machine, and access it from the browser. There is not legal injunction against this sort of thing - in fact, the MPEG-LA has specifically indemnified everybody from any possible legal action, in an indisputable and legally binding, non-revocable agreement, for making, downloading, or installing the h.264 codec on a computer no matter what OS it is running!
This is a fake fucking controversy started by Google because they want to stop paying their license fees for h.264 and nothing more. This is not a software freedom issue as VP8 is not even a specification yet, and there are no alternate implementations, and it does not replace h.264 in any way, and VP8 is not included in *any* hardware accelerators at the moment.
If you can't see the writing on the wall, let me direct your eye - Google and more importantly Youtube will eventually stop serving h.264 content. They will announce this decision to the Android phone makers, who will include VP8 on their devices. They will not prepare plugins for Internet Explorer, or Safari, and will offer no particular assistance for iPad and iPhone users (as these compete with Google's own solution) and one day the hammer will drop, and everybody going to youtube.com who is not already capable of seeing VP8, no matter which device they own, will see a message saying "Please click here to get Chrome!" if the user agent detects a computer, and a message saying "Your device does not support VP8" if it's not a computer.
It will be petty and childish and you can bet your ass it will go down just like that. Google is not above fucking over the competition, and this move will prove it. One may wish to bet that they "alter the agreement" that is in place with VP8, and demand money for its implementation on non-computer devices, putting us in the same situation we are in now, with h.264!
I do not believe they have actually legally indemnified all implementations of VP8, current, and future, no matter what. They have just told us that anybody can use it, without that specific indemnification. They may well demand money at some point. Who fucking knows.
It is a benefit to have actual full media player controls for video content. That way you can fast forward through the god damned commercials, pause the content to let it buffer (which might not happen depending on how the video is set up) and have more control.
So the stupid video isn't embedded in the web page like the web designer and their boss wants it to be. Actual real people will either not care at all, fail to notice the difference completely, or actually be happy about the change.
Can't you get VLC or Mplayer for pretty much any free OS? I believe that those will both play most any video format, and will stream almost anything too. It would be trivial for open source browsers to deal with h.264 video by launching one of those programs. As a side effect you'd have all the controls they give you.
There is only one reason that *certain* Free OSs and browsers will not play h.264 video - that is to draw an idealogical line in the sand. You can take a Free OS, download a Free media player application, and play h.264 movies TODAY. I have done this for YEARS. Firefox and chrome won't put it in, and that's ok - there is another way.
h.264 does not cost money for people who are using it as a player, and there are fully legal implementations of the codec which are free. It's free UNLESS you are using it to serve an assload of videos, for profit.
"Wait, did you just say that open standards are worse off because they involve open collaboration?"
The history of specifications is littered with the stillborn and dead specs that were killed by infighting, took too long to complete and were thus obsolete before they were completed, or were intentionally torpedoed by a stealth ninja operative that somehow was included in the standards process.
There is no law of nature that says an industry defined standard must be better than any private, one party solution. You may make that argument on a case by case basis, but be sure to cherry pick your cases because you will lose often enough if they are drawn at random from the de-facto specs which grew out of an ad-hoc process, and official industry standards defined by an assload of big companies, their lawyers, executives, and perhaps eventually an engineer if they bother to throw one in at all.
No, Google sent a bunch of C code in an email. In its current form it is not very useful for somebody who wishes to implement their own version of the codec. It is really not explained at all in the way that an actual specification is expected to be.
http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/377 explains this all, but I am sure you know all this already.
Actually it's PHP that powers most internet sites, but thanks for playing.
My iPad gives me a good 10 hours of battery life if I watch video, and a whopping 30+ hours of light reading and browsing.
Yeah, aiming at the super premium Android tablet market is probably a brilliant moveÂ
In case you are wondering, that's not an i, but the upside-down exclamation mark, the recognized symbol for sarcasm on the internet.
See, I don't feel any more guilty than I might if I ride the bus and ignore the ads, or go to a pub and ignore the ads above the urinal. Ads are not a good revenue mod del for a web site, and I prefer to look at them as an annoyance which gives tips to a site, but not the main rvenue chain itself.
Guilt for ad-blocking. What's next, guilt for leaving the room and getting a snack when a commercial appears on TV?
While it is technically possible to use Enlightenment on the Mac or even on Windows, nobody actually does this except as a larf, so this "huge quibble" can indeed be safely ignored.
Actually the best way to be protected against API breakage would be to define and stick with a stable API. Anything else is flagrant whimsy.
Well i disagree on the PS controller layout. The Dual Analog controller layout makes absolutely perfect ergonomic sense. The crippled, lazy half assed attempts by Sega, Nintendo, and M to invent a better contoller make my hand ache.
Perhaps if you are the 1/10th of 1% of the people who make up the market that give a rat's ass. If you are the dominate majority of people you think "it's cool because there is one nice slick spot where I can get all my software, and Apple keeps the most flagrant of the shit ware out of my face."
I mean, do you eschew Nintendo WII games because you can only basically buy them online from Nintendo?
Back in your hole Linus!
All these years, and Sony hasn't heard the biggest complaint about the PSP - the low mounted analog stick is in the very worst place. They should be above the other controllers, mounted where the thumbs will land. Heck, eliminate them entirely in favor of a touch pad.
My prediction is that this thing will flop, and flop hard. After all, unless the machine offers substantially better *games* than the PSP who gives a shit about a touch screen on the back?
First off, not every driver submitted for inclusion in the kernel actually makes it. Sometimes issues of code quality are cited as reasons for disallowing a driver into mainline, and sometimes they are rejected for reasons that are mysterious (code style WTF?) so it's not just tha simple.
Secondly, once a driver is in mainline, there is no guarantee that anybody will actually keep it in a working state. There are many, many drivers in the kernel that are basically unchanged since before 2000 and because there is no corporate sponsorship of these they tend to stay in the kernel, but slowly break over time. I know a person who has had huge problems with a multi-line serial port type terminal device that has been broken for 5 years now, but his cries fall on deaf ears and he can not afford to sponsor a developer.
There are all kinds of problems like this cropping up with old devices. ISA and MCA are both "supported" in the kernel, but good luck getting Linux running on that old 486.
There have been quite a few suits agains firearm manufacturers though. What's the difference?
Notice that your comment and the post you're referring to are both at 0 now.
Slashdot: The Unofficial PR Branch of Google(TM).
Just because a study is "peer reviewed" does not mean that the research has been independently reproduced by the reviewers. Nowadays, it just means, "Yeah, that dovetails with my prejudices on the matter and would allow our field to rake in a bunch more grant money."
According to surfacestations.org and the Hadley Climate Research unit leaks, they are kooks and are also fucking frauds.
Hockey stick science designed to throw everybody into a panic serves nobody but those in power.
ADInterstitialView there champ.
Then again you may not be able to view the actual documentation.
Besides, unless you are probably unfamiliar with banner ads, and it shows. In addition to there being a market for clicked ads, there is one for ad impressions as well.
Also, "fraud?" I don't think this word means what you think it means.
Yeah, while the Android phones feel slow and clunky, and the Apple ones have a buttery smooth GUI, I guess the evidence is right in my face.
Maybe if Android ditched their crappy Java knockoff they'd have a product people would line up for.
"Judges dont grant court orders without legal reasons."
Ho hoo! /wipes tear from eye I think you meant to say, judges don't grant orders without legal PRETENSE.