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Google Chrome's H.264 support not true "free" software

ianweller.org

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Re: Google Chrome's H.264 support not true "free" software

#71

Post by [deleted] »

Sanguinez wrote: post #45
DarkShikari wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VLC is one of the most popular open source programs in the world. Over 100 million copies have been downloaded since the 1.0 release, with an all time download count of nearly 400 million. They support not only H.264--which has a relatively reasonable, low-cost licensing system--but many formats whose licensing models are absurdly overpriced and unreasonable (e.g. MP3). And furthermore, VLC not only supports open sta…

VLC's faq should give you some answer : Regarding Patentable Inventions, the second paragraph of article 52 of the European Patent Convention (EPC) states: The following (..) shall not be regarded as [patentable] inventions: scientific theories and mathematical methods; (...) programs for computers (...). The VideoLAN project only provides software, i.e. "programs for computers". Those are outside the scope of patent…

[deleted]

Re: Google Chrome's H.264 support not true "free" software

#72

Post by GHFigs »

Sanguinez wrote: post #69
GHFigs wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the third time, you're trying to twist this into something about how much I value freedom, rather than actually talking about the actual thing that Mozilla actually does, which is the thing I refer to as being a dumb move. They don't restrict anyone either They do. They have chosen to implement in such a way that users are unable to use it in conjunction with any other format than Theora. Not because users asked…

Their actions come from their values. And they happen to value an open web and free software. So yes, it is actually useful. And then, how would you qualify apple by not supporting theora in safari? They are keeping their users from watching videos from wikipedia. You still end up with a big mess.

Their actions come from their values

Newsflash: everybody's do. That doesn't automatically excuse them from doing stupid things in the name of those values. This is why again and again I keep pointing to the fact that I am criticizing their actions and not their values. You keep assuming that the values that Mozilla espouses can lead to one and only one possible course of action and that that is automatically the right one. I am saying that this is not so, and I'm pointing to the fact that users are being harmed and no good is coming of it as a sign that it wasn't the right choice.

how would you qualify apple by not supporting theora in safari?

The difference is that with Safari you can install Theora on your system (http://www.xiph.org/quicktime/) and it works just fine in and everywhere else (and yes, it works on Wikipedia.) Apple simply doesn't ship Theora which is a much more benign way of "not supporting" something than disabling it altogether. Mozilla, on the other hand, has specifically chosen to prevent users from using anything other than Theora in conjunction with , and not because it's not possible to do it any other way.

Re: Google Chrome's H.264 support not true "free" software

#73

Post by blasdel »

notauser wrote: post #68
blasdel wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple (QT) and Microsoft (DirectShow) pay the license fees when they distribute their Operating Systems. Nobody gives a shit about distributing the x264 source code, and only the fosstards even have a hiccup about distributing binaries, especially from hosts outside the US. Ubuntu may not ship with the gstreamer plugin, but it does prompt you to download it the first time it's asked for by an application.

- The 'fosstards' built and shared a good deal of the ecosystem on which the Internet you are using runs. - A large chunk of the rest is directly or indirectly enabled, possible or cheaper thanks to them. - Every one I have met in person has been polite about their goals, and while they base them on fundamental principles I don't quite agree with, their reasoning as based on those principles is rock solid. As such I…

The 'fosstards' aren't generally writing the Free Software I use -- they're hanging out in debian-legal and harassing people over petty imagined issues and doing more than anyone else to promote strong intellectual property rights (especially Software Patents: you don't weaken something by anal-retentively respecting it).

The vast majority of people writing GPL software do not align with the FSF's ideology, the GPL2 is just the most practical for their needs. Note how noone outside their core commune has switched to the GPL3, and how noone actually deeds the copyright for their random projects to the FSF like they recommend in the license text?

The only hard-GNU software I (and most others here) really use are GCC, coreutils, bash, and readline. Incidentally I'm hoping to be able to ditch all the first three in the near future for quality reasons mostly borne of FSF-pigheadedness (though I would like to swap out readline when that's the only GPL lib in a program). If I switch back to a Mac I'll be able to use better alternatives for all of them quite soon.

Re: Google Chrome's H.264 support not true "free" software

#74

Post by Sanguinez »

GHFigs wrote: post #72
Sanguinez wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their actions come from their values. And they happen to value an open web and free software. So yes, it is actually useful. And then, how would you qualify apple by not supporting theora in safari? They are keeping their users from watching videos from wikipedia. You still end up with a big mess.

Their actions come from their values Newsflash: everybody's do. That doesn't automatically excuse them from doing stupid things in the name of those values. This is why again and again I keep pointing to the fact that I am criticizing their actions and not their values. You keep assuming that the values that Mozilla espouses can lead to one and only one possible course of action and that that is automatically the rig…

Then users shouldn't use patent encumbered formats. Simple as that. There already been enough mess by formats supported by browser X but not Y.

Re: Google Chrome's H.264 support not true "free" software

#75

Post by Sanguinez »

blasdel wrote: post #73
notauser wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- The 'fosstards' built and shared a good deal of the ecosystem on which the Internet you are using runs. - A large chunk of the rest is directly or indirectly enabled, possible or cheaper thanks to them. - Every one I have met in person has been polite about their goals, and while they base them on fundamental principles I don't quite agree with, their reasoning as based on those principles is rock solid. As such I…

The 'fosstards' aren't generally writing the Free Software I use -- they're hanging out in debian-legal and harassing people over petty imagined issues and doing more than anyone else to promote strong intellectual property rights (especially Software Patents: you don't weaken something by anal-retentively respecting it). The vast majority of people writing GPL software do not align with the FSF's ideology, the GPL2…

Any stats to back up your wild claims and non-sense assumptions?

Re: Google Chrome's H.264 support not true "free" software

#76

Post by [deleted] »

blasdel wrote: post #48
pavlov wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "ogm" file format is an old, unsupported, deprecated variant of the Ogg container. Do you mean "ogv"? Sorry, this may seem like nit-picking, but such a fundamental mistake makes it harder to take your strong claims about Mozilla's design and intentions at face value.

I intentionally used it to avoid a similar riposte if I had said 'ogg', an even older and shittier container. I didn't know they had implemented a new one, but from what I can tell they took special care to recapitulate all the mistakes of the last one.

[deleted]

Re: Google Chrome's H.264 support not true "free" software

#77

Post by yuvi »

pavlov wrote: post #38
blasdel wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla links directly with liboggplay and actively avoids abstracting it in any way. It can't handle any non-ogm container formats, and ogm was intentionally designed not to handle any other codecs. They're just assholes. If software patents are repealed in the US they'll mourn the loss of the mainstay excuse with which they force earnest activist wankery on their users. If patents were the real obstacle they'd dist…

The "ogm" file format is an old, unsupported, deprecated variant of the Ogg container. Do you mean "ogv"? Sorry, this may seem like nit-picking, but such a fundamental mistake makes it harder to take your strong claims about Mozilla's design and intentions at face value.

Technically, ogg, ogm, ogv, and oga all follow RFC 3533 and can legitimately be called the same file format, namely ogg. The only difference between all those extensions the codecs used; Xiph intentionally left the definition of how to map a given codec into ogg up to the codec.

Re: Google Chrome's H.264 support not true "free" software

#78

Post by GHFigs »

Sanguinez wrote: post #74
GHFigs wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their actions come from their values Newsflash: everybody's do. That doesn't automatically excuse them from doing stupid things in the name of those values. This is why again and again I keep pointing to the fact that I am criticizing their actions and not their values. You keep assuming that the values that Mozilla espouses can lead to one and only one possible course of action and that that is automatically the rig…

Then users shouldn't use patent encumbered formats. Simple as that. There already been enough mess by formats supported by browser X but not Y.

Then users shouldn't use patent encumbered formats.

Blaming the user is not a strategy the results in good software. I contend that it does much to hurt the cause it it supposed to promote. You're also blaming the user for something they can't control: the format of the content they're trying to view.

Moreover, it isn't simply a patent-encumbrance issue, as Mozilla's choice has been to equally block other patent-free formats. It's Theora or nothing. Read that again and then tell me it's all about freedom.

Simple as that.

It isn't, in fact. Most of the video content on the web today is in patent-encumbered formats, specifically h.264. You're saying that users should not want to continue to be able to view the content is already out there.

It is not the place of a web browser vendor to punish users for wanting to use the web normally. In fact, quite the opposite.

There already been enough mess by formats supported by browser X but not Y.

...and Mozilla is demonstrably perpetuating that mess by only supporting a format that nobody uses and nobody wants to use. Meanwhile all major operating systems currently support h.264 natively, all major video sites use h.264, and all other -supporting browsers support h.264. If Mozilla wants to help clear the mess, they're doing exactly the wrong thing.

Re: Google Chrome's H.264 support not true "free" software

#79

Post by Sanguinez »

GHFigs wrote: post #78
Sanguinez wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then users shouldn't use patent encumbered formats. Simple as that. There already been enough mess by formats supported by browser X but not Y.

Then users shouldn't use patent encumbered formats. Blaming the user is not a strategy the results in good software. I contend that it does much to hurt the cause it it supposed to promote. You're also blaming the user for something they can't control: the format of the content they're trying to view. Moreover, it isn't simply a patent-encumbrance issue, as Mozilla's choice has been to equally block other patent-free…

This is still about an open web. Using gstreamer would just be passing the burden onto others without solving much. Users would be able to watch h264 videos, but they wouldn't be aware of patent issues and wouldn't care since it works for them.

I agree that ironically they could still use flash to access youtube (even though they eem to take all the votes for theora in consideration), but there are also big websites using theora such as dailymotion or wikipedia. But there is a huge differene between a html tag and a plug-in.

Re: Google Chrome's H.264 support not true "free" software

#80

Post by GHFigs »

Sanguinez wrote: post #79
GHFigs wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then users shouldn't use patent encumbered formats. Blaming the user is not a strategy the results in good software. I contend that it does much to hurt the cause it it supposed to promote. You're also blaming the user for something they can't control: the format of the content they're trying to view. Moreover, it isn't simply a patent-encumbrance issue, as Mozilla's choice has been to equally block other patent-free…

This is still about an open web. Using gstreamer would just be passing the burden onto others without solving much. Users would be able to watch h264 videos, but they wouldn't be aware of patent issues and wouldn't care since it works for them. I agree that ironically they could still use flash to access youtube (even though they eem to take all the votes for theora in consideration), but there are also big websites…

...be passing the burden onto others without solving much.

The burden of what? Deciding what video content is acceptable? Like I said before, that should not be Mozilla's role, but it's the one they've taken on.

they wouldn't be aware of patent issues and wouldn't care

Restricting them to Theora doesn't change this, as sites will continue to deliver h.264 through Flash to user agents that don't support it natively. I contend that Mozilla's approach to "educating" users about these issues is a bad one that fails to educate.

there are also big websites using theora such as dailymotion or wikipedia

DailyMotion also uses h.264 for every other platform. Wikipedia's reasons for using Ogg are very specific to Wikipedia's aims. Neither of these constitute a good reason to artificially restrict users to only Theora.

But there is a huge differene between a html tag and a plug-in.

Yes...and? What's your point?

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