At 18:14 +0300 28/03/07, Henri Sivonen wrote:
On Mar 27, 2007, at 23:40, Silvia Pfeiffer wrote:
I would be curious for the reasons that 3GPP has taken the requirement
of vorbis out of the spec. Was that a decision based on technical
reasons and could you please explain what these technical reasons
were?
First: I don't know about what goes on inside 3GPP.
However, about one 3GPP stakeholder with significant clout:
When Nokia guys show up Open Source meetings, the FAQ about Maemo is
why they don't ship Vorbis support. The manager of the Maemo
operation has said that Nokia is afraid of Vorbis having some
Fraunhofer-owned stuff in it after all, so Nokia does not want to
ship Vorbis support until their own people have vetted Vorbis for
patent issues. It is entirely unclear to me if they are actively
vetting it.
That's the stated reason.
In addition, it might be relevant that *all* the companies that have
patents in the AAC patent portfolio are 3GPP members. If everyone
used Vorbis, the value of the AAC patents would be diluted both in
terms of licensing revenue and as MAD warheads mounted on defensive
patent missiles.
I think the first reason is more likely. The dominant players in
3GPP are network operators and equipment vendors, and the AAC patent
owners are (to my impression) very much both a minority and less
powerful.
The AAC patent owners are, for the most part, organizations that do
R&D for license -- that's their business, and it's perfectly
respectable. They develop good technology and understand that
without licenses they don't have a business. Just my personal
opinion, you understand; I don't see anything wrong with this
business model, and indeed I think it benefits the industry. (There
are other business models around patents which we need not elaborate,
which I dare say many of us would have a harder time defending).
--
David Singer
Apple Computer/QuickTime
