No comments on this one ?????
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Ridcully Jan 13, 2011 8:44 AM EDT |
I am surprised no-one has commented on this new situation - or perhaps everybody else saw it coming ? I did some research tonight and found out that H.264 is apparently encumbered with patents which at least partially explains Google's actions........I haven't yet found out where the H.264 patents are ultimately held; but Microsoft and a plethora of "closed source" proprietary companies seem to want to see this proprietary codec used as the internet (and other locations) default. Is Google a "white knight" here ? On the surface it seems as if Google is making a very large two-fingered salute to the organisations that consider they "run the internet and its protocols" and Google is taking a stand to force acceptance of an open source alternative rather than the proprietary codec. Or am I missing something ? Whatever, I'd really be pleased to see wiser heads than mine comment on this one. |
| jacog Jan 13, 2011 9:14 AM EDT |
Nah Ridcully - this is good news - nobody ever says anything when there is good news. :) |
| bigg Jan 13, 2011 10:17 AM EDT |
I'll have to leave the wiser heads thing for someone else, but here's my take. Google does not benefit in any way from using anything that's patented. They make their money selling our information. Thus, for them, an all free software world is best. In addition they can shut down revenue streams of competitors. |
| Koriel Jan 13, 2011 1:12 PM EDT |
As the others have said this is good news, I kind of expected it to happen sooner later, really couldn't see Google continue to back patent encumbered H264 over their own open WebM. Although i don't expect it to be an easy ride for google i would not be suprised if WebM encounters a host of patent challenges against it at least in the US as all the closed proprietary sore loosers come out of the woodwork, MPEG LA im talking about you! |
| dinotrac Jan 13, 2011 1:15 PM EDT |
This is where it's good that Google is big and rich. One of the few companies that can say, "Bring it on" and mean it, especially given Supreme Court imposed changes in the standard by which software patents are issued. There might be a few invalidations up ahead if people really want to push them. |
| hkwint Jan 13, 2011 2:07 PM EDT |
WebM is a code-dump with some vague "won't sue" patent-promise, a bit like OOXML. Google bought the codec from On2 (VP-codec) and then dumped the software created by On2. Of course WebM is the 'multimedia container' (wrapper) and not the video codec. Most people including me pollute the debate by saying WebM whereas we mean the formerly proprietary On2 VP8 video codec. So keep that in mind when reading my comment below. On the positive side of things, WebM uses the open Vorbis format for Audio and the open Matroska format as the container. I don't know if people consider it good news there's support for the MS code-dump which was / is OOXML. Of course, OOXML was better than the proprietary legacy MS-Office formats, but it's still a code-dump which was not created by a community where everybody could comment and co-develop. WebM also is a single-company effort, just like OOXML. In contrary to both OOXML and H.264, WebM isn't an ISO-standard, so one could argue H.264 is more open as a standard than WebM. I mean, want the H.264 standard? Wham, there it is, open to anybody. Want the WebM standard? Go to the website, spent years to understand the code and extract your own. So H.264 is a good standard, but there are licensing restrictions and it's not-gratis. WebM on the other hand is gratis, can be distributed together with GPL-software, but it's no standard at all, just a codec released under BSD license. H.264 is known to use lots of patents, while for WebM it's simple 'unknown' at this time. Lawsuits could arise as soon as WebM reaches 'critical mass', meaning "mass adoption by the enterprise with big bank-accounts". Also, I'm not sure if there's even a spec of the standard, when it was announced if I understood correctly, only the current On2 implementation was 'opened' (read: dumped). So think you're shown a bolt and a nut, and when you want to make something that's interoperable, you have to measure the nut, bolt and screw-thread, devise your own standard which is compatible with the existing applications, and then hope your home-brewn software will be compatible. Open standards are not ought to work that way, there ought to be a "table" in which you can look up measures, without "reverse engineering" the standard. Even 'reverse engineering' from an open-source application is still reverse engineering (like say: extracting the OOo-file format from OOo 1.x). So in my opinion, WebM as an open standard fails. Recently, the Theora-community has been co-developing WebM though, FF4 also supports the format quite well, and there's an open mailing list. At CES (and before), some System on Chips with hardware-support for WebM have been displayed / announced. Patents of H.264 are held by MPEG-LA. There's a list (warning: PDF! Look at the list, it's fun and educating) of over 300 patents (possibly) applying to them, held by over 30 different companies. Most of them not tested in count though. Those patents are put in a pool, and you can buy a license for the 'whole' pool. Even if you believe some patents may be invalid, you'd have to license them all, or go to all 30 companies and negotiate your own licenses for every single patent. I have to add, of the 300+ patents, only 1 is from Microsoft, so Microsoft is not really a party in this one. 5 are held by Apple, so guess who of the two is trying harder to push H.264! In fact, it seems Microsoft is kind of neutral on this issue, as they are no party in the WHATWG group which tried to decide which video format should be default for HTML5. It was mainly Apple who was blocking an open format and pushing H.264. Microsoft didn't want to be part of WHATWG, as they announced they were not happy with the way 'patents' were dealt with in the WHATWG charter. For H.264, you might have to pay in the future if you embed those video's on your website. Guess who on the internet is broadcasting the most H.264's and you'll understand WebM is not meant to earn money, but to save money. When OOXML was dumped, I was glad and considered it good news. Other people were more reluctant and saw the 'dump' for what it actually was. This time, I'm the one more reluctant; WebM is only 'yet another format', it might solve halve of the issues GPL software has, it solves lots of monetary problems Google has (last August MPEG-LA announced serving H.264 from your website will remain free for "consumers which can view the content for free") but it isn't an open standard! Sadly most people think Google is going to save us from proprietary standards and software or such a thing, while they fail to see while Apple, MS, AutoDesk and Adobe are the masters of "proprietary software", Google is the champion of "proprietary data". WebM should enable Google to put more hours of video on their Youtube-servers at less cost, safely locking it up behind adds, and hence Google will be the gateway to the internet, and the company which has all the control. What Bill Gates envisioned in his 'tidal wave' memo and what Microsoft failed to do, Google pulled of. So if you think this is good news, go ahead. I was expecting the LXer-crowd to be more critical though, and not buy into the Google-PR of 'not being evil'. So why no discussion? Well, because I assumed LXer readers already knew; I didn't think I told anything new in my reaction above. WebM only draws away attention from real open alternatives, like Dirac and more recently Schrödinger (both developed by the BBC). If they really didn't want to be evil and help the world, they'd had co-developed those ones and not polluting the videoformat-landscape even further by pushing yet another 'half-open' codec. |
| hkwint Jan 13, 2011 2:44 PM EDT |
Oh boy, were I wrong, having taken another glance at the list, I realized about 30 of those patents (US ones) are Microsofts. Suffering from memory loss these days it seems. Meaning (probably) of every H.264 video which is on a website and for which the consumer pays (like VOD), some money will flow to MS. And of course, for every device which has H264 enabled, in software or hardware, which I'd say encompasses any Android-device at this time. Go figure... Also, it seems there's a proposal for a VP8-standard on the WebM website now, though I'm pretty sure it's far from complete. So, less need to reverse-engineer. I swear the proposal wasn't there last time I visited the website, which was a few months ago. |
| bigg Jan 13, 2011 3:10 PM EDT |
@hans Your post is pretty good, however, I would suggest that you copy and paste and post it as a story. It is informative but unfortunately won't be widely read as a comment in this thread. |
| hkwint Jan 13, 2011 3:20 PM EDT |
You're right, most of the times my reactions got out of hand, I keep adding, editing and adding, improving, changing some words and so on. Apart from the issue of being 'unplanned', I'm a bit short on time and think such an article might need a bit more research. Like you see, there were some inaccuracies in the first comment. In my opinion, articles need more research than comments; because normally you're not lynched for lying in the comments. And of course, in articles I'm more cautious when blaming / bashing Google. I did spent time reading the WebM and WHATWG mailing lists though, browsing through the patents mentioned, discussing the issue on our NL-forum (with a famous 'assumed' MS-astro-turfer) and of course the required Wikipedia reading, so I think I'm not fair assuming 'everybody knows'. |
| Scott_Ruecker Jan 13, 2011 4:28 PM EDT |
I second bigg's comment..;-) |
| Ridcully Jan 13, 2011 5:34 PM EDT |
"Me three" on bigg's comment. I knew nothing solid about this and Hans's comments are excellent .....Also, there's an article by Jason Perlow that I have just read which may add something to the details : http://www.zdnet.com/blog/perlow/googles-h264-decision-its-a... Update: And also this http://my.opera.com/haavard/blog/2011/01/13/openness |
| theboomboomcars Jan 13, 2011 6:32 PM EDT |
Some of google's actions recently make it seem they are trying to bring patent cases against them. Perhaps they are tired of the cold war and are trying to see who actually has nukes, if anyone and get rid of them. If this is the case it will probably be good for us, eventually. |
| tuxchick Jan 13, 2011 8:56 PM EDT |
This is all so unnecessary. I communicate via grunts and interpretive dance. What more does anyone need? |
| tracyanne Jan 13, 2011 9:04 PM EDT |
Quoting:What more does anyone need? A large fire, the smoke for the dancing in. |
| dinotrac Jan 13, 2011 9:46 PM EDT |
@tc -- Ugh! Left foot forward. Hip waggle. Left foot back. |
| tracyanne Jan 13, 2011 10:15 PM EDT |
@dinotrac, if I was TC I'd deny that emphatically. |
| dinotrac Jan 13, 2011 10:26 PM EDT |
ta@ - Cr@p. Didn't look at it before I hit "send" That was "Right foot back". Sorry, TC. Didn't mean to offend. |
| Ridcully Jan 13, 2011 10:50 PM EDT |
@tuxchick.......could we possibly have an exemplar video ? Could be most instructive..... :-) I'll paint the large fire and smoke in later. |
| jimbauwens Jan 14, 2011 6:03 AM EDT |
Ridcully wrote:could we possibly have an exemplar videoWhat codec would you recommend her? |
| Ridcully Jan 14, 2011 7:56 AM EDT |
@ jimbauwens....... I know I am going to get "fried" for this, but would you say "Hot.264" would do ? I insist on audio being included however. lol.......and I cannot schtopp laffink...... :-) Okay tuxchick.....mea culpa....suggest a suitable penance. :-D |
| jimbauwens Jan 14, 2011 9:02 AM EDT |
:O |
| tuxchick Jan 14, 2011 11:22 AM EDT |
I knew that reading this thread would give me sufficient justification to have beer for breakfast. |
| dinotrac Jan 14, 2011 12:06 PM EDT |
Who is this person who claims to be @tuxchick? The real tuxchick knows that you don't need any justification for beerfast. |
| hkwint Jan 14, 2011 12:26 PM EDT |
It's always 'after 4PM' at least somewhere in the world! |
| dinotrac Jan 14, 2011 12:42 PM EDT |
@hans -- To heck with 4PM. Its always something somewhere. Rainy, cloudy, light, dark, windy, politically correct, politically incorrect, moody, grumpy, etc. There is never, ever a need to justify beer. |
| hkwint Jan 14, 2011 2:52 PM EDT |
Moody and grumpy is normally when you join our little discussion! Ahem. |
| dinotrac Jan 14, 2011 4:36 PM EDT |
@hans -- Yes, I always try to bring a little sunshine when things are getting dreary. That's my story. I'm sticking to it. |
| gus3 Jan 14, 2011 5:06 PM EDT |
Quoting:I always try to bring a little sunshine when things are getting dreary. And vice-versa, just to be consistent. |
| Ridcully Jan 14, 2011 5:31 PM EDT |
@"You lot".........sigh.......you are all trying to corrupt the few morals I have left that are untarnished. Beer for breakfast !!.....That's almost as bad as the sailor I once saw who loved "redders" so much he actually DID put tomato ketchup on his cornflakes for breakfast....urkk !!.....I'll stick with the single malt scotch after dinner. |
| tuxchick Jan 14, 2011 5:41 PM EDT |
Excellent. Not just derailed, but total train wreck! My work here is done. |
| gus3 Jan 14, 2011 5:58 PM EDT |
The engine exploded, the tanks leaked, the coal cars all spilled out. Grab a broom, TC. You and I are going to be here a while. *taps foot, annoyed* |
| jdixon Jan 14, 2011 6:27 PM EDT |
> My work here is done. I've sometimes suspected that TC's comments are put up just to make Brand X's comments look sane by comparison. But then I re-read the comments by others (myself included), and I can only conclude that, no, she fits in here just as much as the rest of us. |
| Ridcully Jan 14, 2011 6:29 PM EDT |
Hey, Gus3, and Tuxchick......if both of you are good with brooms, please use a "beam me up Scotty" and drop into Brisbane........they sure could use you......I have been looking at the mud being scraped off the streets and buildings......The more hands the better.....you can really get "down and dirty". |
| gus3 Jan 14, 2011 6:33 PM EDT |
Actually, now that I think of it, TC's front-end loader would be more suited to the task. |
| nalf38 Jan 15, 2011 3:32 AM EDT |
H.264 can't be included in any open source browser because the consortium that owns most of the patents has threatened to sue for royalties. They have also said that the open-source x264 implementation of H.264 violates their patents. How on earth can anyone call that an open codec? Ubiquitous, maybe. Flash is ubiquitous, too, but at least they don't pretend that they're 'open.' |
| hkwint Jan 16, 2011 1:01 PM EDT |
nalf: Sadly they also threatened WebM.Quoting:The engine exploded, the tanks leaked, Hey, gus3, seems like you're familiar with the area where I live! This was the leaking tanks which exploded about two weeks ago, 15 miles from where I live. More spectacular explosions on a vid here. Here's the car which spilled ethanol (OK, no coal) last week, 30 miles from here. |
Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]
Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!