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Open Letter to Steve Jobs (and a reply)

blogs.fsfe.org

11–20 of 120 posts

Re: Open Letter to Steve Jobs (and a reply)

#11

Steve has been quite busy with his email lately. I don't remember him ever doing this much correspondence via email. Very interesting.

I had the same thought. I think its because he wants to get "Sent from my iPad" on the internet on as many web pages and into as many minds as possible. Its a marketing ploy.

Re: Open Letter to Steve Jobs (and a reply)

#12
I think that, ultimately, Apple have as much ability to define what an Open Standard means as the FSF within the context of what they are saying.

As it happens I think I agree with where Jobs is coming from... or rather I think this letter nit picks at a specific phrase (Open Standard) that SJ's was just using in a different way to how the FSF would.

Ultimately what Jobs meant by Open Standard was reasonably apparent (for the reasons laid out in this letter!) so nit picking over it seems a meta point.

Re: Open Letter to Steve Jobs (and a reply)

#13
post #6
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

That's one interpretation. Another is that some other entity is gathering patents to use against Theora.

Seems reasonable to assume it's the big player in video patents, MPEG LA. Apple has contributed patents to their pool.

Re: Open Letter to Steve Jobs (and a reply)

#14
post #2

you like Openness so much that when you use “Open Source” Software to build your Mac operating system Only some parts of it. The bulk of OSX is closed source. May I remind you that H.264 is not an open standard? Jobs said H.264 is an industry standard not an open standard

But the whole point in this debate is that Flash is also, for better or worse, an industry standard.

Is there a specification?

I think "de facto standard" is a more appropriate phrase for Flash.

Re: Open Letter to Steve Jobs (and a reply)

#16

Steve has been quite busy with his email lately. I don't remember him ever doing this much correspondence via email. Very interesting.

He's been doing this for years. I know several people that have gotten terse, 3 or 4 word responses to him. It's only recently that the press and the bloggers have noticed this.

Re: Open Letter to Steve Jobs (and a reply)

#17
post #6
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

That's one interpretation. Another is that some other entity is gathering patents to use against Theora.

If this is legit, Apple almost certainly owns some of the patents involved, even if they're not the instigator.

Re: Open Letter to Steve Jobs (and a reply)

#20
"A lot of commercial software comes with H.264 encoders and decoders, and some computers arrive with this software preinstalled. This leads a lot of people to believe that they can legally view and create H.264 videos for whatever purpose they like. Unfortunately for them, it ain’t so. Maybe the best example comes from the Final Cut Pro license:"

http://bemasc.net/wordpress/2010/02/02/no-you-cant-do-that-w...

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