Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
David Hyatt wrote: Fear of submarine patents is only one reason Apple is not interested in Theora. There are several other reasons. H.264 is a technically superior solution to Theora. Ignoring IP issues, there would be no reason to pick Theora over H.264. Everyone wants an open freely implementable codec, but it doesn't follow that Theora should automatically be that codec. About the only argument I've heard in favor of Theora is that it's open, but that is an argument based purely on IP and not on technical merits. Openness is a prerequisite. Technical adequacy is a prerequisite. The technically best solution is not a prerequisite. In case it isn't obvious yet, an open, adequate format is preferred over a better proprietary one. If you consider mobile devices that want to browse the Web, then depending on the constraints of the device, a hardware solution may be required to view video with any kind of reasonable performance. A mandate of Theora is effectively dictating to those mobile vendors that they have to create custom hardware that can play back Theora video. Given that such devices may already need a hardware solution for existing video like H.264, it seems unreasonable for HTML5 to mandate what hardware a vendor has to develop just to browse Web video on a mobile device. Thanks. I wasn't previously convinced we needed to mandate *any* particular format, but you just convinced me. If hardware is support is required for some devices, then it does indeed sound like a good idea to mandate some minimum level of conformance. It is far better that this minimum level of conformance be an open, freely implementable standard such as Ogg/Theora than a known patent encumbered format such as H.264. Or put another way, imagine that GIF was an open format but PNG was IP-encumbered. Would you really want to limit the Web to displaying only GIFs just because it was the only open image format available? Please stop attacking straw men. No one has suggested that. Under those circumstances, I absolutely would support requiring all browsers to display GIFs. This would not prohibit them from also displaying PNGs if they chose to license the relevant patents. Technical arguments are relevant here, so take some time to consider them before accusing people of having shady ulterior motives. Technical arguments are relevant, but do not control. They are neither the only nor the most important consideration. Furthermore, when apparently intelligent people persist in making simple logical and rhetorical errors, it is difficult not to infer that an ulterior motive may be present. -- Elliotte Rusty Harold [EMAIL PROTECTED] Java I/O 2nd Edition Just Published! http://www.cafeaulait.org/books/javaio2/ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596527500/ref=nosim/cafeaulaitA/
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous* , SHOULD, and other matters
On Tue, 11 Dec 2007, L. David Baron wrote: In this case, most implementors following the SHOULD and implementing Theora might help companies whose concern is submarine patents become more comfortable about shipping Theora, especially if some of the implementors are companies similar in size or wealth to those non-implementors. Hixie replied: As it stands, all the vendors who would implement Theora due to the SHOULD in the spec already are implementing Theora. David's note got me to wondering if inclusion of the SHOULD language by the W3C might ultimately reduce the liability to companies who actually implement Theora. That is, a judge who discovered that the W3C acted in good faith in attempting to find an unencumbered codec when it in turn recommended to Big Company A that it should use Theora might be quite receptive to A's defense against Scavenger S's claim against A. I don't know if patent law (like copyright law, at least in the US) makes allowances for innocent infringement, but if it did that would certainly lend some protection to both W3C and those who might follow its advice. This would be a question for the attorneys who I gather will ultimately be called in to help the W3C WG with its deliberations. Another question of a similar nature: while I understand that Big Company A might indeed extend its vulnerability by actually conducting patent searches (various aspects of law seem to be likewise counter-intuitive, even paradoxical), would that remain true if Big Companies A, B and C were to underwrite a large-scale patent search by W3C? W3C might be able to shield the sponsoring companies from whatever incidental discoveries it made midst its deep search and hence limit their liability. Re-iterating some things I said earlier, either there is wiggle room remaining to create a new video (or audio) formats in the gaps between existing patents or there isn't. It seems unlikely that all available space has been carved out particularly given that JPEG and GIF87 are already out there and given the requirement that a patent be nonobvious. Conceptualizing sequences of video frames as a time-based spatial frequencies analysis seems obvious. From there it would seem that almost infinitely many data compression schemes exist. For example, one ordinarily would tend to match the redundancies of frame i with those at allied locations in frame i+1. Suppose we consider an arbitrary frame to be a clipped rectangular subregion of a larger realm over which the camera actually moves. Then the compression technique might consist of first building hypotheses about the larger realm and then calculating interframe redundancy based on those hypotheses. With sound we have strings (of sinusoidal amplitudes) being concatenated together in each discrete moment in time; string similarites across moments maybe recast as multidimensional substring problems hence transforming what might look at first like a conventional Fourier analysis into something based more on discrete mathematics in very high dimensional space. I guess all I'm saying is that the number of methodologies that could be applied to the problems seems large and that one outcome that should not be foreclosed is the development of an obvious (hence non-patentable) codec from scratch with the collective talents of those so inclined to cooperate. If each step in the production of such a format is obvious, then all of its components would, by definition, be patent free. If no such wiggle room exists then the granters of those patents have arguably been overzealous and at least some of those patents must, it seems, be invalid. Something that is suggested to me in the arena of international treaty work on IP harmonization that the W3C may be interested in adding its voice to would be large scale indemnification -- WIPO working in conjunction with W3C or some such thing. Certainly, reform of patent law is apparently mandated, though doing such work on a country-by-country basis seems like slow work. In the world of Real Property, the common law concept of eminent domain or compulsory purchase is extended as a power to governments to allow for creation of technologies (like roads or utilities) that would otherwise be encumbered by known molecular obstacles (like barns or fast food restaurants). When those obstacles become invisible and non-molecular (in the world of IP) and when they fail to have coordinates in Euclidean space, the regional jurisdiction of the government seems ill-suited to deal with those obstacles. Creating a treaty which allows the W3C to condemn a patent that I might hold might give a bit too much power to some folks (and I can imagine a zillion folks, and twice that many bots, voting against such a treaty) but in the long run. it might be necessary to think such thoughts in order to allow interoperability on our info-highways. cheers, David Dailey
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
On Dec 12, 2007 4:08 PM, Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: El Mié 12 Dic 2007, Robert Sayre escribió: On Dec 11, 2007 6:51 PM, David Hyatt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: SHOULD is toothless. Spefications aren't laws. MUSTs are toothless as well. It carries absolutely no weight. I don't think it's appropriate for such weak language to be in the HTML5 spec. It should either be a MUST (which is inappropriate at this juncture for reasons that Dave Singer. Ian Hickson and myself have posted about in previous messages) or just not be mentioned at all. It isn't weak language. It places the blame squarely on the party who fails to meet the requirement. Agreed with you, Robert. If SHOULD carries absolutely no weight... then why don't we just leave the paragraph there? Stop eluding this question. I disagree. If somebody is implementing the spec and are looking for a recommendation of the W3C for which video codec to use, the SHOULD has a large effect. If there is no codec mentioned, they will go looking for what others have implemented and start a complicated decision process with an uncontrollable outcome. If a SHOULD clause, i.e. a recommendation, is all we can agree on, then it is better than not mentioning a codec at all. I was happy with the previous formulation of the paragraph and I am happy to go through a technical assessment of the existing codecs wrt the criteria that Ian has written into the spec right now. I am sure we will come to the same conclusion that we did before and Ogg Theora/Vorbis will be written back into the spec as a recommendation, but this time around it will be stronger because we have done an assessment of its merits and decided that they are the only ones coming even close to fulfilling the needs. I have no issues with this process. Regards, Silvia.
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
Also as Maciej said earlier, we at Apple did not ask that the SHOULD wording be removed and had stated we could live with it. dave On Dec 12, 2007, at 1:12 PM, David Hyatt wrote: On Dec 12, 2007, at 6:38 AM, Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote: David Hyatt wrote: Fear of submarine patents is only one reason Apple is not interested in Theora. There are several other reasons. H.264 is a technically superior solution to Theora. Ignoring IP issues, there would be no reason to pick Theora over H.264. Everyone wants an open freely implementable codec, but it doesn't follow that Theora should automatically be that codec. About the only argument I've heard in favor of Theora is that it's open, but that is an argument based purely on IP and not on technical merits. Openness is a prerequisite. Technical adequacy is a prerequisite. The technically best solution is not a prerequisite. In case it isn't obvious yet, an open, adequate format is preferred over a better proprietary one. I don't think that is obvious at all, especially when the video tag's chief competition, Flash, is using the technically superior solution. Why would authors switch away from Flash if video doesn't offer any technically compelling reason to switch? If you consider mobile devices that want to browse the Web, then depending on the constraints of the device, a hardware solution may be required to view video with any kind of reasonable performance. A mandate of Theora is effectively dictating to those mobile vendors that they have to create custom hardware that can play back Theora video. Given that such devices may already need a hardware solution for existing video like H.264, it seems unreasonable for HTML5 to mandate what hardware a vendor has to develop just to browse Web video on a mobile device. Thanks. I wasn't previously convinced we needed to mandate *any* particular format, but you just convinced me. If hardware is support is required for some devices, then it does indeed sound like a good idea to mandate some minimum level of conformance. It is far better that this minimum level of conformance be an open, freely implementable standard such as Ogg/Theora than a known patent encumbered format such as H.264. Good. I also believe there should be a mandated baseline. That's why I think SHOULD is too weak, and that we should be working towards a MUST. Or put another way, imagine that GIF was an open format but PNG was IP-encumbered. Would you really want to limit the Web to displaying only GIFs just because it was the only open image format available? Please stop attacking straw men. No one has suggested that. Under those circumstances, I absolutely would support requiring all browsers to display GIFs. This would not prohibit them from also displaying PNGs if they chose to license the relevant patents. Right, but, continuing the analogy, the issue you run into is if the Web at large considers PNG to be superior and just ends up using it anyway, then specifying SHOULD use GIF is rather irrelevant. I do not think people will switch to video using Theora when a technically superior alternative exists that will also work in Internet Explorer (Flash). We have to make sure that video is on par technically with what Flash can do. Technical arguments are relevant here, so take some time to consider them before accusing people of having shady ulterior motives. Technical arguments are relevant, but do not control. They are neither the only nor the most important consideration. Similarly an inadequate open standard should not be proposed as the only way forward simply by virtue of its openness. Wanting an open standard does not mean that Theora should just be automatically chosen to be that open standard. It is also a logical error to assume that openness is not desired by a vendor merely because one potential open format is not approved by that vendor. dave ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
On Dec 12, 2007, at 6:38 AM, Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote: David Hyatt wrote: Fear of submarine patents is only one reason Apple is not interested in Theora. There are several other reasons. H.264 is a technically superior solution to Theora. Ignoring IP issues, there would be no reason to pick Theora over H.264. Everyone wants an open freely implementable codec, but it doesn't follow that Theora should automatically be that codec. About the only argument I've heard in favor of Theora is that it's open, but that is an argument based purely on IP and not on technical merits. Openness is a prerequisite. Technical adequacy is a prerequisite. The technically best solution is not a prerequisite. In case it isn't obvious yet, an open, adequate format is preferred over a better proprietary one. I don't think that is obvious at all, especially when the video tag's chief competition, Flash, is using the technically superior solution. Why would authors switch away from Flash if video doesn't offer any technically compelling reason to switch? If you consider mobile devices that want to browse the Web, then depending on the constraints of the device, a hardware solution may be required to view video with any kind of reasonable performance. A mandate of Theora is effectively dictating to those mobile vendors that they have to create custom hardware that can play back Theora video. Given that such devices may already need a hardware solution for existing video like H.264, it seems unreasonable for HTML5 to mandate what hardware a vendor has to develop just to browse Web video on a mobile device. Thanks. I wasn't previously convinced we needed to mandate *any* particular format, but you just convinced me. If hardware is support is required for some devices, then it does indeed sound like a good idea to mandate some minimum level of conformance. It is far better that this minimum level of conformance be an open, freely implementable standard such as Ogg/Theora than a known patent encumbered format such as H.264. Good. I also believe there should be a mandated baseline. That's why I think SHOULD is too weak, and that we should be working towards a MUST. Or put another way, imagine that GIF was an open format but PNG was IP-encumbered. Would you really want to limit the Web to displaying only GIFs just because it was the only open image format available? Please stop attacking straw men. No one has suggested that. Under those circumstances, I absolutely would support requiring all browsers to display GIFs. This would not prohibit them from also displaying PNGs if they chose to license the relevant patents. Right, but, continuing the analogy, the issue you run into is if the Web at large considers PNG to be superior and just ends up using it anyway, then specifying SHOULD use GIF is rather irrelevant. I do not think people will switch to video using Theora when a technically superior alternative exists that will also work in Internet Explorer (Flash). We have to make sure that video is on par technically with what Flash can do. Technical arguments are relevant here, so take some time to consider them before accusing people of having shady ulterior motives. Technical arguments are relevant, but do not control. They are neither the only nor the most important consideration. Similarly an inadequate open standard should not be proposed as the only way forward simply by virtue of its openness. Wanting an open standard does not mean that Theora should just be automatically chosen to be that open standard. It is also a logical error to assume that openness is not desired by a vendor merely because one potential open format is not approved by that vendor. dave ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
Dnia 12-12-2007, Śr o godzinie 00:21 -0500, Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) pisze: Look, guys. I don't think I've explained myself well, partly because I've come on too strong. There is no evidence of malice. There's also no evidence of profiteering. There *is* evidence of immorality, if you define spreading falsehoods as immoral (see Ogg is proprietary comment). The rest of the discussion is basically a disagreement on how risky it would be to implement Ogg on browsers. Some of us don't feel it's risky, others feel it's too risky to even consider (I understand -- billions of dollars may be at stake). And both threads are pointless and irrelevant.
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
Dnia 11-12-2007, Wt o godzinie 16:37 -0500, Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) pisze: Well, instead of hoping, maybe we can draw more attention to this issue so public pressure helps us do the job. This mailing list is not the best place to draw more attention though. It seems you are wasting your time (and everybody else's). Chris
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
Dnia 11-12-2007, Wt o godzinie 13:21 -0500, Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) pisze: alternatives -- thank god for Linux). I don't want to experience it all over again, especially since I know that even today, that crapware isn't even gonna be made for Linux, and I'm going to be screwed again. Meaning Totem would be unable to play what? Totem is unable to play Macromedia Flash but Flash is not being discussed here. Chris
[whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
Allow me to be the voice of the small Web developer -- which I consider to be the foundation of the World Wide Web. In reference to: http://html5.org/tools/web-apps-tracker?from=1142to=1143 The recent removal of the mention of Ogg in HTML5 and the subsequent replacement of its paragraph with the weasel-worded paragraph that would make Minitrue bust their collective shirt buttons in pride: p class=big-issueIt would be helpful for interoperability if all+ browsers could support the same codecs. However, there are no known+ codecs that satisfy all the current players: we need a codec that is+ known to not require per-unit or per-distributor licensing, that is+ compatible with the open source development model, that is of+ sufficient quality as to be usable, and that is not an additional+ submarine patent risk for large companies. This is an ongoing issue+ and this section will be updated once more information is+ available./p is a preposterous and gross mischaracterization of fact (dare I say lie). At the very least, it's FUD. It pains me to state what is and has always been public knowledge, and is being intentionally ignored just to get the spec published: - The Xiph developers were extremely zealous and almost fiduciarily diligent in researching all possible patent threats to Vorbis technology, and for more than a year they found none -- they even did the research *before* beginning to code, explicitly to avoid submarine patents. I know, because I was subscribed to their mailing list and read status updates of this research, practically at the start of the project. I also know that big-name software houses and media players manufacture products with Vorbis technology, and none of them have been sued. It's been what, seven years now? - The Theora codec has had its patents practically relinquished by On3 with a perpetual royalty-free license. - Ogg and its audio/video codec technologies are the ONLY free software media technologies with implementations widely available on all consumer computing platforms -- from WM codecs to Linux DLLs, passing through the entire range of hardware (floating-point and fixed-point) and OSes. - Without guaranteed Ogg support (whose integration in user agents I think I already established to be sort of a weekend-level junior programmer project at NO COST, due to the ready availability of the technology in all platforms), authors *will be* forced to use patent-encumbered technology. Remember MP3? Well, with HTML5 it's 1997 all over again. Ian, revert. This compromise on basic values is unacceptable, *whatever* the practical reasons you have deemed to compromise for. If you don't revert, you will be giving us independent authors the shaft. And we will remember it forever. -- Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Rudd-O.com - http://rudd-o.com/ GPG key ID 0xC8D28B92 at http://wwwkeys.pgp.net/ Someone is speaking well of you. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
I'm sure that many people would be happy to see a mandate if someone were willing to offer an indemnity against risk here. You seem quite convinced there is no risk; are you willing to offer the indemnity? Large companies (Nokia, Microsoft, and Apple) have expressed anxiety, and are asking (among other things) that an independent analysis be done. The W3C staff are, I believe, actively working on the issue. I'm sure that they would be pleased to consider whatever background material you can offer them. I fail to see how asking for an analysis of the problem is giving anyone the shaft, since no decision has yet been even offered let alone reached. Did you read the piece that I edited from the discussions at the HTML meeting? At 3:27 -0500 11/12/07, Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) wrote: Allow me to be the voice of the small Web developer -- which I consider to be the foundation of the World Wide Web. In reference to: http://html5.org/tools/web-apps-tracker?from=1142to=1143 The recent removal of the mention of Ogg in HTML5 and the subsequent replacement of its paragraph with the weasel-worded paragraph that would make Minitrue bust their collective shirt buttons in pride: p class=big-issueIt would be helpful for interoperability if all+ browsers could support the same codecs. However, there are no known+ codecs that satisfy all the current players: we need a codec that is+ known to not require per-unit or per-distributor licensing, that is+ compatible with the open source development model, that is of+ sufficient quality as to be usable, and that is not an additional+ submarine patent risk for large companies. This is an ongoing issue+ and this section will be updated once more information is+ available./p is a preposterous and gross mischaracterization of fact (dare I say lie). At the very least, it's FUD. It pains me to state what is and has always been public knowledge, and is being intentionally ignored just to get the spec published: - The Xiph developers were extremely zealous and almost fiduciarily diligent in researching all possible patent threats to Vorbis technology, and for more than a year they found none -- they even did the research *before* beginning to code, explicitly to avoid submarine patents. I know, because I was subscribed to their mailing list and read status updates of this research, practically at the start of the project. I also know that big-name software houses and media players manufacture products with Vorbis technology, and none of them have been sued. It's been what, seven years now? - The Theora codec has had its patents practically relinquished by On3 with a perpetual royalty-free license. - Ogg and its audio/video codec technologies are the ONLY free software media technologies with implementations widely available on all consumer computing platforms -- from WM codecs to Linux DLLs, passing through the entire range of hardware (floating-point and fixed-point) and OSes. - Without guaranteed Ogg support (whose integration in user agents I think I already established to be sort of a weekend-level junior programmer project at NO COST, due to the ready availability of the technology in all platforms), authors *will be* forced to use patent-encumbered technology. Remember MP3? Well, with HTML5 it's 1997 all over again. Ian, revert. This compromise on basic values is unacceptable, *whatever* the practical reasons you have deemed to compromise for. If you don't revert, you will be giving us independent authors the shaft. And we will remember it forever. -- Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Rudd-O.com - http://rudd-o.com/ GPG key ID 0xC8D28B92 at http://wwwkeys.pgp.net/ Someone is speaking well of you. Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part. Attachment converted: DaveG49:signature 96.asc (/) (001050A8) -- David Singer Apple/QuickTime
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
On Tue, 11 Dec 2007, Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) wrote: http://html5.org/tools/web-apps-tracker?from=1142to=1143 The recent removal of the mention of Ogg in HTML5 and the subsequent replacement of its paragraph with the weasel-worded paragraph that would make Minitrue bust their collective shirt buttons in pride: p class=big-issueIt would be helpful for interoperability if all+ browsers could support the same codecs. However, there are no known+ codecs that satisfy all the current players: we need a codec that is+ known to not require per-unit or per-distributor licensing, that is+ compatible with the open source development model, that is of+ sufficient quality as to be usable, and that is not an additional+ submarine patent risk for large companies. This is an ongoing issue+ and this section will be updated once more information is+ available./p is a preposterous and gross mischaracterization of fact (dare I say lie). At the very least, it's FUD. It is intended to be exactly truthful, actually. I apologise if you believe this to be fear mongering. It pains me to state what is and has always been public knowledge, and is being intentionally ignored just to get the spec published: - The Xiph developers were extremely zealous and almost fiduciarily diligent in researching all possible patent threats to Vorbis technology, and for more than a year they found none -- they even did the research *before* beginning to code, explicitly to avoid submarine patents. While this is very true, and admirable, and impressive, it is sadly not a guarantee. Certain companies (Nokia and Apple among them) have reported that they still fear that undisclosed patents may exist that cover the relevant codecs, as they might exist for other formats like MPEG4/H.264. The difference is that while Apple (for example) have already assumed the risk of submarine patents with H.264, they currently have taken no risks with respect to the aforementioned codecs, and they do not wish to take on that risk. Given the extremely large sums of money that are awarded for patent violations (cf. Microsoft's recent settlements), it is understandable that companies with the high profile of Apple and Nokia would not wish to take on such risks. I also know that big-name software houses and media players manufacture products with Vorbis technology, and none of them have been sued. It's been what, seven years now? MP3 is and old codec as well, yet the threat of submarine patents covering MP3 surfaced recently, much to Microsoft's chagrin. Unless the codecs are older than the patent lifetime, there is unfortunately no guarentee. Patent trolling companies are patient and will wait for bigger targets, as has been seen time and time again. (As an example of this, the Eolas patent case is still fresh on everyone's minds, I'm sure.) - The Theora codec has had its patents practically relinquished by On3 with a perpetual royalty-free license. I do not believe anyone doubts that On3 is acting in good faith. It is not On3 that people are worried about. - Ogg and its audio/video codec technologies are the ONLY free software media technologies with implementations widely available on all consumer computing platforms -- from WM codecs to Linux DLLs, passing through the entire range of hardware (floating-point and fixed-point) and OSes. As much as I am personally a supported of the free software development model, I cannot let that control the spec's development. I agree, however, that any codec selected absolutely must be compatible with free software licenses, as is clear in the paragraph that you so rashly called FUD. - Without guaranteed Ogg support (whose integration in user agents I think I already established to be sort of a weekend-level junior programmer project at NO COST, due to the ready availability of the technology in all platforms), authors *will be* forced to use patent-encumbered technology. Remember MP3? Well, with HTML5 it's 1997 all over again. Ogg is not necessarily the only solution that avoids patent encumbrence. There are codecs that have been in existence for longer than the patent lifetime, for instance. Dave Singer posted a quite thorough analysis of this issue recently. Ian, revert. This compromise on basic values is unacceptable, *whatever* the practical reasons you have deemed to compromise for. If you don't revert, you will be giving us independent authors the shaft. And we will remember it forever. Apple, Nokia, Microsoft and other large companies have stated that they will not support Theora purely based on the requirement in the spec. Having or not having this requirement in the spec thus makes no difference to independent authors. In the meantime, having this requirement is causing difficulties for those of us actually trying to find a true solution to the problem. I assure you that your needs are not being
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
Ian Hickson schrieb: The difference is that while Apple (for example) have already assumed the risk of submarine patents with H.264, they currently have taken no risks with respect to the aforementioned codecs, and they do not wish to take on that risk. Which surely means that they won't ever support any new codecs or new features at any point in the future. This would be the only way to stop adding new risks. I totally understand that companies want to keep their risks low. If this gets abused as cheap excuse as why they won't support anything but their pet-formats things are getting pretty shallow, though. If patents are such a threat to big companies they better should drive serious efforts to get the patent lottery into a more sane state or they innovation potential is endangered. As much as I am personally a supported of the free software development model, I cannot let that control the spec's development. I agree, however, that any codec selected absolutely must be compatible with free software licenses, as is clear in the paragraph that you so rashly called FUD. The problem is that the requirements describe the emtpy set, as is correctly described with However, there are no known codecs that satisfy all the current players. MPEG codecs are non-free, incompatible with free software and are carrying additional submarine risks for all those who haven't yet licensed them. The requirements ask for codecs that are not an additional submarine patent risk for large companies. What about small companies? Why should e.g. Opera or Mozilla want to license MPEG and be subject of MPEG submarines instead of choosing codecs that were designed to avoid patents since the initial planning stages? I guess it may appear to be more desirable to take the submarine risk of free codecs and in exchange get all the benefits of not getting into the IP licensing mess. To put it into a nutshell: To respect the needs of the big players for sure is important - but same shall apply to the needs of the not-so-big ones. I know you don't intend anything else, but the current wording may be a bit unfortunate. There are codecs that have been in existence for longer than the patent lifetime, for instance. Dave Singer posted a quite thorough analysis of this issue recently. I doubt those old codecs can help implementing video and audio functionality in a way satisfying current demands. I can't imagine streaming e.g. audio with ADPCM or GSM ;-) Maik
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
On Tue, 11 Dec 2007, Maik Merten wrote: Ian Hickson schrieb: The difference is that while Apple (for example) have already assumed the risk of submarine patents with H.264, they currently have taken no risks with respect to the aforementioned codecs, and they do not wish to take on that risk. Which surely means that they won't ever support any new codecs or new features at any point in the future. This would be the only way to stop adding new risks. One would imagine that they would happily take new risks if the rewards were great (e.g. a better codec). Sadly the rewards in the case of Ogg Theora are low -- there isn't much content using Theora, and Theora isn't technically an especially compelling codec compared to other contemporary codecs like, say, H.264. One way to get a company like Apple to want to take the risk of implementing Theora would be to cause there to be a large pool of existing Theora content out there. Obviously, this presents a bootstrapping problem (aka a chicken and egg problem). If patents are such a threat to big companies they better should drive serious efforts to get the patent lottery into a more sane state or they innovation potential is endangered. I assure you that this is happening, but it's somewhat out of the scope of the work on HTML5. :-) The problem is that the requirements describe the emtpy set, as is correctly described with However, there are no known codecs that satisfy all the current players. Indeed. Work is ongoing to address this. If we had a solution today, we wouldn't be having this discussion, the spec would just be updated to require that. Sadly, work to get a solution here is likely to occur mostly behind closed doors, since it's principally a political problem and not a technical one. I am not actively involved in the work to find a solution here. To put it into a nutshell: To respect the needs of the big players for sure is important - but same shall apply to the needs of the not-so-big ones. I know you don't intend anything else, but the current wording may be a bit unfortunate. I think the current wording in the spec is actually biased towards the small players more than the big ones, but if you think it's the other way around then I probably have struck the right balance. -- Ian Hickson U+1047E)\._.,--,'``.fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A/, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
Ian Hickson schrieb: One would imagine that they would happily take new risks if the rewards were great (e.g. a better codec). Sadly the rewards in the case of Ogg Theora are low -- there isn't much content using Theora, and Theora isn't technically an especially compelling codec compared to other contemporary codecs like, say, H.264. If keeping the web free of IP licensing horrors and being interoperable with as many players as possible (commercial and non-commercial entities, open source or not, free software or not) isn't much of a reason things are looking cheerless for the web indeed. I don't exactly see why the web should embrace non-free standards just because the big players made the mistake of licensing definitely-encumbered formats and are unwilling to take further risks. (I am aware this is a pretty hard wording and that things aren't quite that easy.) The old wording was a SHOULD requirement. No MUST. If the big players don't want to take the perceived risk (their decision) they'd still be 100% within the spec. Thus I fail to see why there was need for action. One way to get a company like Apple to want to take the risk of implementing Theora would be to cause there to be a large pool of existing Theora content out there. Obviously, this presents a bootstrapping problem (aka a chicken and egg problem). In a world where content is served on a per-user basis (streaming, DRM encrypted media files) I don't think this is much of an argument. HTML5 is a future standard which will serve future content. I think the current wording in the spec is actually biased towards the small players more than the big ones, but if you think it's the other way around then I probably have struck the right balance. I was specifically thinking of the additional submarine patent risk for large companies part. Nobody wants to get struck by a submarine, so either this requirement should be extended to all sort of entities or dropped completely (as its hard by definition to make an informed statement about submarine patents). Maik
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
Am Dienstag, 11. Dezember 2007 09:27 schrieb Manuel Amador (Rudd-O): Hello, Ian, revert. This compromise on basic values is unacceptable, *whatever* the practical reasons you have deemed to compromise for. If you don't revert, you will be giving us independent authors the shaft. And we will remember it forever. This is a part of a bigger problem. Today an important part of our culture is stored digitally. To not lose this culture for coming generations it's necessary to have fileformats and codecs for text, images, audio, video, ... that could be used free independent of specific computersystems and companies. For example an UNESCO World Heritage Committee for fileformats and codecs: - Choose usable fileformats and codecs - Set a deadline - After this deadline it's not allowed to claim any kind of rights to this fileformats and codecs to avoid problems like with JPEG in the past. tschuess [|8:)
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
On Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:11:57 +0100, Geoffrey Sneddon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 11 Dec 2007, at 13:36, Maik Merten wrote: The old wording was a SHOULD requirement. No MUST. If the big players don't want to take the perceived risk (their decision) they'd still be 100% within the spec. Thus I fail to see why there was need for action. There's a question within the W3C Process whether patents that are covered by a SHOULD via a reference are granted a RF license similarly to anything that MUST be implemented. Both Nokia and MS raised concerns about this relating to publishing the spec as a FPWD. And these concerns are total rubbish (as pointed out by Apple and others): [[[ 8.1. Essential Claims Essential Claims shall mean all claims in any patent or patent application in any jurisdiction in the world that would necessarily be infringed by implementation of the Recommendation. A claim is necessarily infringed hereunder only when it is not possible to avoid infringing it because there is no non-infringing alternative for implementing the normative portions of the Recommendation. Existence of a non-infringing alternative shall be judged based on the state of the art at the time the specification becomes a Recommendation. ]]] - http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/#def-essential In other words, the patent policy makes it clear that to be covered, something must be required in order to implement. A SHOULD-level requirement is clearly not required. So any such concern about the wording that was in the spec is more FUD than fact. cheers Chaals -- Charles McCathieNevile Opera Software, Standards Group je parle français -- hablo español -- jeg lærer norsk http://my.opera.com/chaals Try Opera 9.5: http://snapshot.opera.com
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
On 11 Dec 2007, at 18:09, Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) wrote: Fact: Vorbis is the *only* codec whose patent status has been widely researched, nearly to exhaustion. Repeating the same FUD over and over again (which you just did) may lead the world to believe this to be false, but it's TRUE. You should at least have talked to Monty @ Xiph before jumping to rash conclusions. So undisclosed patents have been looked at? How? -- Geoffrey Sneddon http://gsnedders.com/
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
El Mar 11 Dic 2007, Dave Singer escribió: I'm sure that many people would be happy to see a mandate if someone were willing to offer an indemnity against risk here. You seem quite convinced there is no risk; are you willing to offer the indemnity? No. Unlike Apple, I don't have a huge patent portfolio. My patent count reaches the awesome number of *zero*. Would you be willing to offer patent indemnity to unlicensed users of your Apple AAC audio format? Because I fail to see why leaving users without a free choice for audio *helps* things. I dunno, maybe I'm just dumb as a rock. Large companies (Nokia, Microsoft, and Apple) have expressed anxiety, and are asking (among other things) that an independent analysis be done. The W3C staff are, I believe, actively working on the issue. I'm sure that they would be pleased to consider whatever background material you can offer them. I fail to see how asking for an analysis of the problem is giving anyone the shaft, since no decision has yet been even offered let alone reached. The fact that no decision has been finalized is somewhat relieving, because it means we can still revert to the pro-free stance. Did you read the piece that I edited from the discussions at the HTML meeting? No. I just recently enlisted here. -- Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Rudd-O.com - http://rudd-o.com/ GPG key ID 0xC8D28B92 at http://wwwkeys.pgp.net/ signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
On Dec 11, 2007, at 1:21 PM, Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) wrote: I actually think this Slashdot comment summarizes the sentiment perfectly: Methinks you are being a bit myopic here. Where would we be today if the HTML spec didn't specify jpg, gif, and png as baseline standards for the image tag? Can you imagine a huge mishmash of competing proprietary image standards, many of which wouldn't even render in free software browsers like Firefox? That would be a nightmare, but unfortunately, that's what's currently happening with video. Much like the image standard in HTML means that any browser can display anything in an image tag, so too must the video standard in HTML guarantee that any browser can display anything in a video tag. That's what the proposed specification is about. That's interesting, because none of the HTML specifications up until now have actually mandated *ANY* format for baseline standards. Really. Go check out the HTML 4.01 specs: http://www.w3.org/TR/ html401/struct/objects.html All that's said is Examples of widely recognized image formats include GIF, JPEG, and PNG. Now HTML5 may very well change this, but the argument that the HTML specification mandated JPEG/GIF/PNG and this what made image rendering standards work on the web is fundamentally flawed; the specification mandated no such thing. -Henry
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
No, I won't pay. It's not my problem, and they can foot the bill. If they were wise, they would fund patent reform efforts as the most enduring way to prevent these disasters from continually arising. But they won't because they also benefit from the patent racket. And even if Apple gets sued for patent infringement, that doesn't mean that the suit has merits -- experts already looked at the evidence surrounding Vorbis and patentability, and unanimously said it's clear. That's not what Dave is meaning: If Apple gets sued for patent infringement, will you pay however many billion USD they have to? If you truly believe there are no patents covering Ogg/etc. then you can safely agree knowing that you'll never have to give away any of your money. -- Geoffrey Sneddon http://gsnedders.com/ -- Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Rudd-O.com - http://rudd-o.com/ GPG key ID 0xC8D28B92 at http://wwwkeys.pgp.net/ Q: How was Thomas J. Watson buried? A: 9 edge down. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
On 11 Dec 2007, at 20:12, Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) wrote: It was intended as meaning recognized in the sense of browsers recognising them. No currently shipping browser recognises either Ogg Vorbis or FLAC. If I use EMBED on Konqueror pointing to an Ogg Vorbis file, I get a nice player with streaming and everything. Konqueror's shipping, isn't it? There is at least *one* browser that already supports, through GStreamer, Ogg in video tags. I'd give you the link but it apparently fell off the end of Planet GNOME so I can't find it... Now hold on, it's not shipping, but that doesn't mean it won't be shipping tomorrow. What you actually wanted to say (but couldn't/didn't/were unwilling to) is: No currently shipping browser by any of the major proprietary software vendors support Ogg Vorbis or FLAC. Nor any of the minor ones, nor most open source ones. Also, I assume through Konqueror relying on GStreamer that Konqueror doesn't support it itself (or through a required dependancy, which is needed to actually conform to such a clause that existed). WebKit trunk also supports Ogg in video if you have the needed QT component (which is supporting it as much as Konqueror supports it). Opera 9.5 beta has built in support for Ogg/etc. and supports nothing else. There are still large questions about when Fx will support (which I assume from your later post is what you were referring to) video natively, though it may well be in Fx 3.0 in early '08. It's just dollars. Apple does not license Apple Lossless to anyone else AFAIK, OK. So they sell fewer iPods because iPods don't play Ogg Vorbis without Rockbox. Same outcome. Oh, look, they are already losing custom through not supporting WMA. It doesn't look like they particularly care about that, does it? and the only standards that MPEG-LA collects money for that Apple receives any share of whatsoever is MPEG-4 Systems and IEEE 1394 (Firewire). Neither of these have anything to do with audio/video codecs. Saying that Apple has a financial interest in wanting MPEG codecs mandated in HTML 5 is totally untrue. I didn't say Apple wanted MPEG codecs mandated in HTML 5, so don't put words in my mouth or attempt to smoke-and-mirrors us with straw men. This is either a fumble on your part or an attempt to derail the discussion into wreckland. No, it is me trying to understand what you're meaning. I said Apple doesn't want Ogg Vorbis because they don't control the tech, and because they would very much rather have consumers prefer (in the sense of being screwed with no choice) DRM-encumbered AAC (note it's not the codec, but the controlling of the consumer that matters here). AAC doesn't support DRM natively. It's a proprietary extension. iTunes has always ripped CDs by default into non-DRM-encumbered AAC (i.e., an open standard, and compatible with numerous players). Apple has never, anywhere where it has a choice, favoured DRM-encumbered standards. -- Geoffrey Sneddon http://gsnedders.com/
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
Charles, I find Opera's efforts commendable. More organizations should follow Opera's lead in this direction, just as they've followed Opera's lead in several other innovative efforts. I trust your comment in favor of Ogg is not just because Opera already has it (which, by the way, proves technical feasibility beyond a shadow of doubt) but because Ogg in HTML5 is the right thing to do. We're disappointed to see the spec go in this direction. I think it is a backward step. Me too. There is no voting in WHAT-WG, and there is not much in W3C, but there is a reasonable process there that hopefully allows for this stuff to go back into the specification, unless we find a better alternative (i.e. still free). Let's keep hoping. Well, instead of hoping, maybe we can draw more attention to this issue so public pressure helps us do the job. -- Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Rudd-O.com - http://rudd-o.com/ GPG key ID 0xC8D28B92 at http://wwwkeys.pgp.net/ Don't you wish you had more energy... or less ambition? signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
On Dec 11, 2007, at 3:46 PM, Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) wrote: Apple and Nokia seem to think that there *are* hamburgers in the moon, and that those hamburgers will cost them billions of dollars in submarine sandwich lawsuits. Of course, that's what they are *saying*. It doesn't take a Feynman or a Chomsky to understand the real reason why they want the Ogg hamburger off HTML5. Maybe you should take some time to read the previous discussions of this issue before making such inflammatory accusations. Fear of submarine patents is only one reason Apple is not interested in Theora. There are several other reasons. H.264 is a technically superior solution to Theora. Ignoring IP issues, there would be no reason to pick Theora over H.264. Everyone wants an open freely implementable codec, but it doesn't follow that Theora should automatically be that codec. About the only argument I've heard in favor of Theora is that it's open, but that is an argument based purely on IP and not on technical merits. If you consider mobile devices that want to browse the Web, then depending on the constraints of the device, a hardware solution may be required to view video with any kind of reasonable performance. A mandate of Theora is effectively dictating to those mobile vendors that they have to create custom hardware that can play back Theora video. Given that such devices may already need a hardware solution for existing video like H.264, it seems unreasonable for HTML5 to mandate what hardware a vendor has to develop just to browse Web video on a mobile device. Or put another way, imagine that GIF was an open format but PNG was IP- encumbered. Would you really want to limit the Web to displaying only GIFs just because it was the only open image format available? Technical arguments are relevant here, so take some time to consider them before accusing people of having shady ulterior motives. dave ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
David Hyatt wrote: Fear of submarine patents is only one reason Apple is not interested in Theora. There are several other reasons. H.264 is a technically superior solution to Theora. And absolutely noone has said that you can't use H.264. You are perfectly free to do so. What is offensive to the people is using encumbered technologies as a baseline as you are basically suggesting. This is untenable. Theora is the least unencumbered option, and likely is totally unencumbered. Ignoring IP issues, there would be no reason to pick Theora over H.264. Everyone wants an open freely implementable codec, but it doesn't follow that Theora should automatically be that codec. About the only argument I've heard in favor of Theora is that it's open, but that is an argument based purely on IP and not on technical merits. Perhaps the only argument is IP (again, what a crappy, loaded term that is), but don't underestimate the importance of that argument. If you consider mobile devices that want to browse the Web, then depending on the constraints of the device, a hardware solution may be required to view video with any kind of reasonable performance. A mandate of Theora is effectively dictating to those mobile vendors that they have to create custom hardware that can play back Theora video. Bullshit. How long will it take for HTML5 to have a reasonable penetration? You don't think there will be hardware implementations by then if its part of the spec? That's a completely disingenious argument. Given that such devices may already need a hardware solution for existing video like H.264, it seems unreasonable for HTML5 to mandate what hardware a vendor has to develop just to browse Web video on a mobile device. Cop out. Its completely reasonable. If you have to use hardware to implement it, then that's the price you pay (and then the customers pay, because you're going to pass the cost along), or perhaps you choose not to be HTML5 compliant on that device. To threaten the design of a supposedly open and free spec because of the potential hardware needs to implement is what is unreasonable. That amounts to Apple, et al, holding the community hostage to your commercial desires. I'm sorry, I'm not going to help Apple screw me over. I will not quietly accept the w3c ensconcing a non-free codec into HTML5 and subjecting me and everyone else to another decade or so of being screwed over by avaricious big companies. Or put another way, imagine that GIF was an open format but PNG was IP-encumbered. Would you really want to limit the Web to displaying only GIFs just because it was the only open image format available? Once again you twist the argument to the point of breaking. Noone is saying anything about restricting the formats that are allowed. We're only talking about a baseline requirement. In other words, yeah, I would be fine with requiring GIF as a baseline in that sort of spec (which is de facto what we have anyway), but PNG et al can still be implemented, just as you can still implement H.264 if you like. -- Jeff McAdams They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
On Dec 11, 2007, at 9:13 AM, Charles McCathieNevile wrote: On Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:11:57 +0100, Geoffrey Sneddon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 11 Dec 2007, at 13:36, Maik Merten wrote: The old wording was a SHOULD requirement. No MUST. If the big players don't want to take the perceived risk (their decision) they'd still be 100% within the spec. Thus I fail to see why there was need for action. There's a question within the W3C Process whether patents that are covered by a SHOULD via a reference are granted a RF license similarly to anything that MUST be implemented. Both Nokia and MS raised concerns about this relating to publishing the spec as a FPWD. And these concerns are total rubbish (as pointed out by Apple and others): FWIW that was my personal opinion based on reading the patent policy, not an official position of Apple Inc. Regards, Maciej
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
At 20:21 -0500 11/12/07, Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) wrote: El Mar 11 Dic 2007, Dave Singer escribió: At 13:09 -0500 11/12/07, Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) wrote: Fact: Vorbis is the *only* codec whose patent status has been widely researched, nearly to exhaustion. You are clearly completely unaware of the extensive analysis done of other codecs, including those that are licensed. And all those other analyses have yielded us this stalemate? I am not yet ready to say we are at a stalemate here; I simply believe that it is desirable to get everyone (including Nokia and Microsoft as well as Apple) on board. That's in all our interests, and I continue to work to that end. That is a testament to the value of standards. No one ever said you didn't make standards. I claimed you made *proprietary* standards. That is an oxymoron. Ogg is NOT a standard; it is an open-source effort. H.264 (for example) is NOT proprietary, but a multi-vendor-developed international standard. But you knew this; you're just trying to use emotional terms. Playpens where only the big boys get to play and the rest get to pay. But in all fairness, I should bring up that you also made Zeroconf possible, and that's awesome. Thank you. -- David Singer Apple/QuickTime
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
Le 12 déc. 2007 à 03:21, Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) a écrit : Where would we be today if the HTML spec didn't specify jpg, gif, and png as baseline standards for the image tag? FWIW, in fact the HTML 4.01 spec did NOT mandate any image formats. http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/objects.html#edef-IMG This attribute specifies the location of the image resource. Examples of widely recognized image formats include GIF, JPEG, and PNG. Plus the compression algorithm in GIF was covered by patents. Unisys woke up. The Burn All GIFs campaign started. Many shareware and freeware disappeared. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIF#Unisys_and_LZW_patent_enforcement -- Karl Dubost - W3C http://www.w3.org/QA/ Be Strict To Be Cool
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
On Dec 11, 2007 4:46 PM, Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Apple and Nokia seem to think that there *are* hamburgers in the moon, and that those hamburgers will cost them billions of dollars in submarine sandwich lawsuits. Yes, it seems that way. Or, at least, the edits to the specification speak for themselves. Of course, that's what they are *saying*. It doesn't take a Feynman or a Chomsky to understand the real reason why they want the Ogg hamburger off HTML5. That sounds too accusatory to me. I'd be surprised to find malice, immorality, or profiteering at the root. I do think the recent changes to the document are supported by weak pseudo-legal doubletalk from engineers afraid to get in trouble. Don't expect good quality specifications from such a climate. -- Robert Sayre I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
On Dec 11, 2007 6:51 PM, David Hyatt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: SHOULD is toothless. Spefications aren't laws. MUSTs are toothless as well. It carries absolutely no weight. I don't think it's appropriate for such weak language to be in the HTML5 spec. It should either be a MUST (which is inappropriate at this juncture for reasons that Dave Singer. Ian Hickson and myself have posted about in previous messages) or just not be mentioned at all. It isn't weak language. It places the blame squarely on the party who fails to meet the requirement. -- Robert Sayre I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
That sounds too accusatory to me. I'd be surprised to find malice, immorality, or profiteering at the root. I do think the recent changes to the document are supported by weak pseudo-legal doubletalk from engineers afraid to get in trouble. Don't expect good quality specifications from such a climate. Look, guys. I don't think I've explained myself well, partly because I've come on too strong. There is no evidence of malice. There's also no evidence of profiteering. There *is* evidence of immorality, if you define spreading falsehoods as immoral (see Ogg is proprietary comment). The rest of the discussion is basically a disagreement on how risky it would be to implement Ogg on browsers. Some of us don't feel it's risky, others feel it's too risky to even consider (I understand -- billions of dollars may be at stake). The spec is also very good, overall. -- Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Rudd-O.com - http://rudd-o.com/ GPG key ID 0xC8D28B92 at http://wwwkeys.pgp.net/ Things past redress and now with me past care. -- William Shakespeare, Richard II signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
El Mié 12 Dic 2007, Robert Sayre escribió: On Dec 11, 2007 6:51 PM, David Hyatt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: SHOULD is toothless. Spefications aren't laws. MUSTs are toothless as well. It carries absolutely no weight. I don't think it's appropriate for such weak language to be in the HTML5 spec. It should either be a MUST (which is inappropriate at this juncture for reasons that Dave Singer. Ian Hickson and myself have posted about in previous messages) or just not be mentioned at all. It isn't weak language. It places the blame squarely on the party who fails to meet the requirement. Agreed with you, Robert. If SHOULD carries absolutely no weight... then why don't we just leave the paragraph there? Stop eluding this question. Oh, prepare for a barrage of uneducated comments. My article just hit Digg front page and is climbing rapidly in diggs. I edited the text on the article a bit to discourage uneducated participation on the list. -- Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Rudd-O.com - http://rudd-o.com/ GPG key ID 0xC8D28B92 at http://wwwkeys.pgp.net/ Q: How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out of the way. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
On Dec 11, 2007 8:31 PM, Dave Singer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That is an oxymoron. Ogg is NOT a standard; it is an open-source effort. H.264 (for example) is NOT proprietary, but a multi-vendor-developed international standard. A multi-vendor effort does not make the codec non-proprietary. For example, it could be the offering of a cartel. In this case, you have to pay to use it, so it's pretty clear that it is proprietary. At least for those of us that speak English as a first language. http://www.answers.com/proprietaryr=67 -- Robert Sayre I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.
Re: [whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*
On Tue, 11 Dec 2007, L. David Baron wrote: In this case, most implementors following the SHOULD and implementing Theora might help companies whose concern is submarine patents become more comfortable about shipping Theora, especially if some of the implementors are companies similar in size or wealth to those non-implementors. As it stands, all the vendors who would implement Theora due to the SHOULD in the spec already are implementing Theora. -- Ian Hickson U+1047E)\._.,--,'``.fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A/, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
