Open-source codecs face patent challenge?

Robert P. J. Day rpjday at crashcourse.ca
Wed May 5 13:05:43 UTC 2010


Quoting Basil Chupin <blchupin at iinet.net.au>:

> *If authentic, a new email from Steve Jobs has indicated that Apple and
> Microsoft could be preparing to challenge the validity of open-source
> video codecs.*
>
> Jobs' email to Hugo Roy <http://hugoroy.eu/jobs-os.php> of the Free
> Software Foundation Europe, coupled with a similarly worded announcement
> from Microsoft on Friday, is a shot across the bow of backers of the
> open-source Ogg Theora video codec, used by Mozilla to bring HTML5 video
> technology to Firefox. Both Apple and Microsoft plan to use the H.264
> codec in their HTML5 strategy, which is governed by a licensing body
> called MPEG LA. Apple and Microsoft, along with a host of tech
> companies, are also members of that group.
>
>
> http://www.zdnet.com.au/open-source-codecs-face-patent-challenge-339302805.htm?feed=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20zdnetaustralia%20%28ZDNet%20Australia%29&omnRef=NULL

   an article at osnews suggests that it may be very difficult to  
escape from the clutches of proprietary encoding and that if you  
simply own a camcorder, you're already ensnared:

http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA

rday






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