Fluendo MP3 GStreamer Plugin in Main for Dapper?

[Stephan Hermann]

Hi Eric,

On Friday 30 December 2005 15:10, Eric Dunbar wrote:
> On 12/29/05, Stephan Hermann <sh at sourcecode.de> wrote:
> > [...]
> > It's all about patents. Patents are evil in this case, that we're not
> > allowed to freely use them for non-commercial purposes. It would be wise
> > for Frauenhofer, to make a commitment to the opensource software world,
> > and have a special treatment for the MP3 patent for (F)OSS.
>
> Are the patents evil simply because... people can't do whatever they
> feel like doing because someone else was ingenious enough (and brave
> enough to devote resources to the project) to go out and develop
> something new, or are these patents evil because they were improperly
> granted?

No, but software patents are useless. Take for example this "one click" patent 
stuff from amazon. It's a simple matter of fact, that others can have the 
same idea, a different implementation, but even then they would have problems 
with this. 
Well, I'm writing about software patents here.

> Unfortunately for most whingers, most of the patents covering MP3 fall
> into the former category.

There is a difference if you distribute something which costs money 
(commercial) and something which costs no money (non-commercial).
I understand it, if someones wants to protect his competitor from gaining 
money with his tool, but most of the private people and non-commercial 
developers are not gaining any money at all with implementing it.
As I said, there are different ways to implement a software idea. And 
algorithms are not exclusivley for one organization.

>
> People want want want but these patents are valid*. Just because
> something is popular doesn't mean that patents should be violated
> willy-nilly (of course, many MP3 fans have no qualms about stealing
> <ahem, borrowing> music (simply because they can... we don't steal a
> TV simply because we can) so it's not surprising that the this
> attitude goes hand-in-hand with the idea that it's right to violate
> these patents).

Well, I don't read now your statement, that you think that all people who are 
using MP3 for their music are thieves. I for myself am using mp3 since ages 
to convert it to listen to my legally bought music, which is more then 600 
audio CDs now and over 300 vinyl discs, on my legally bought mp3 player.

> *One may believe that patents, or patents on software are evil but
> they do serve a useful purpose in that they protect innovators from
> theft and encourage the development of new ideas -- without MP3s as a
> model to copy (which came to be b/c the developers could patent their
> work and profit from it), it's doubtful that people would've gone to
> the effort to develop OGG (b/c they wouldn't have had MP3s as
> inspiration).

Well, I don't think so. There are many ideas in the world, which are developed 
without having a predecessor. MP3 wouldn't have been developed if their 
wasn't a requests from some people for a replacement of MP2, which is even 
nowadays a standard in DVB and DAB. MP3 today won't be used from the industry 
in those areas, because AAC is much better for it. And MP3 itself is only 
useful for the private people around the world. The consumer market.
The patent itself is anyhow a bit older for mp3, but they started to make 
money with licensing a bit later.

Vorbis (not OGG, because ogg is only a container) was created, because IMHO 
there was no way to improve MP3 at all. If there would have been a way to 
freely code on the MP3 algorithm, I don't think we would have now two 
different implementations, but we would have a better MP3 implementation.

Well, it's a matter of fact now, that MP3 is for those nifty little players a 
"de facto" standard. Vorbis itself is supported by some manufactures but not 
by all of them. 

> A lot of software patents DO actually meet what is traditionally
> considered a valid and good patent -- something that is non-obvious,
> new and useful.

Which does not apply to MP3. MP3 was patent because of the use in something 
else then the consumer market.

> Plus, keep in mind that patents expire. IIRC the MP3 patents won't be
> around for that much longer, so, like JPEG and GIF before that,
> eventually the algorithms will fall into the public domain!

Well, same here...PNG is a result of a poorly implemented standard like JPEG 
or GIF. If there was a possibility to improve JPEG or GIF (without any 
software patents), I don't think we would have ever seen PNG in this form.
But JPEG and GIF came first, and now they are, so to say, the industry 
standard.

And about the time: http://www.mp3licensing.com/patents/index.html, when I 
remeber a patent is valid for 20 years? So some of them could expire in 2010, 
e.g. the digital encoding patent.

> And, just to let WikiPedia have the last word (arguably, the patents
> in MP3 produce a useful, concrete and tangible result or a technical
> effect):
>
> "However, laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas are
> not patentable. Software inventions implementing algorithms are not
> patentable for this reason unless it produces a "useful, concrete, and
> tangible result" (US law) or technical effect (European law)."

That's why I don't think that Vorbis is completly free of the software patent 
issue of MP3. Because somehow the patents are not only descibing a way to 
implement the format, but as well give an explanation what should it do and 
for what reason. So, if someone comes up with a similar idea, but with a 
different implementation, it would fall under the same patent. We see it 
everyday in our usage of the computer. 

What would be, if the PHP first developer would have patent his software idea 
and/or implementation? We wouldn't see JSP, PSP, or Perl Web Pages...just 
because they are differently implemented but are sharing the same idea.

The idea behind patents were, that if someone created a tool or machine or 
some technical new gadget, and another one wanted to produce this for his own 
commercial use case, the original inventor can give those people the right to 
implement it the way he created it.
But in terms of software, this is not easily possible, because there are 
always different ways of implementation. And an idea is something which 
shouldn't be patented at all.

Anyways, this discussion is over now :)

\sh