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Open Letter to Steve Jobs (and a reply)

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

#61
post #54
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true of all companies that contribute to open source.

How do you come to that conclusion?

I thought it was obvious. Perhaps I should rephrase it: All for-profit companies contribute to open-source because it benefits them.

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

#62
post #60

Could someone please explain to me how Flash isn't open? To my knowledge, everything about flash is open other than Adobe's IDE. The spec has been released, the sdk is OSS and anyone is free to compile to SWF... Am I mistaken here?

The player certainly very much isn't open, aside from the Tamarin runtime.

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

#63
post #36
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

To add to jsz0's correct observation, H.264 does not show up at all under the first section discussing proprietary vs. open standards. H.264 shows up once under the heading Second, there’s the "full web" but not really a primary point. The main H.264 is in the section Fourth, there’s battery life. Jobs wrote that the benefit of H.264 vs. flash was that there was hardware decryption support for it. The result of hardw…

People are making this jump because Job's is committing the fallacy of special pleading when he applies his rule of openness to Flash but not to H.264.

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

#64
post #56
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For what it's worth, there are hundreds of patents in the total MPEG-LA pool. Furthermore, it's not clear what Apple would stand to gain by enforcing its two patents that may or may not be relevant to Theora. Maybe I'm wrong, but media patent enforcement doesn't seem to be one of Apple's core businesses (HTC lawsuit notwithstanding). There are plenty of other companies, though, that likely have a vested interest in…

Apple stands to gain more than just licensing fees by threatening any non-H.264 codec. As Steve Jobs points out in his "Thoughts on Flash", Apple has millions of devices in the wild whose hardware is optimized exclusively for H.264. If any other video format gains dominance, the devices will not work nearly as well (cutting the battery life by half just to play an older codec, in his example).

No, his example referenced a little known fact about H.264, comparing hardware decodable H.264 versus non-hardware-decodable H.264. The iPhone isn't playing some other codec.

H.264 can be encoded, using the same tools, in a way that can, or cannot, be hardware decoded.

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

#65
post #5
post #3

"A patent pool is being assembled to go after Theora and other “open source” codecs now." That's kind of scary.

Is it real? I am no fan of Apple or Jobs, but it almost sounds too evil . Edit: in reply to a "tweet" of mine, he posted the headers: http://hugoroy.eu/jobs-os.php It's really hard to believe they'd be such arrogant jerks as to go after something open source like that.

This isn't "Apple" or "Jobs" going after anyone. Jobs is stating that members of MPEG-LA plan to do so. If Steve Jobs mentioning that other people plan to sue is an example of Jobs being "evil," then logically you must be evil too since you have also mentioned the potential lawsuit.

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

#66
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When I read Steve's response, I didn't see anything implying that Apple would be involved. Even if they have some patents, they don't have to enforce them.

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

#67
post #60

Could someone please explain to me how Flash isn't open? To my knowledge, everything about flash is open other than Adobe's IDE. The spec has been released, the sdk is OSS and anyone is free to compile to SWF... Am I mistaken here?

Consider the "definition" shared in the letter.

Compare that definition to WebKit, then to Flash.

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

#68
post #60

Could someone please explain to me how Flash isn't open? To my knowledge, everything about flash is open other than Adobe's IDE. The spec has been released, the sdk is OSS and anyone is free to compile to SWF... Am I mistaken here?

The player certainly very much isn't open, aside from the Tamarin runtime.

Can you qualify that statement? edit: You are correct, the player provided by Adobe is not open.

However, anyone is free to make their own player, one alternative player is Gnash: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnash

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

#69
post #61
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you come to that conclusion?

I thought it was obvious. Perhaps I should rephrase it: All for-profit companies contribute to open-source because it benefits them.

Yes, at least the companies should aim for that.

I asked because some companies see the embrace the benefit and do not grudge.

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

#70
post #61
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you come to that conclusion?

I thought it was obvious. Perhaps I should rephrase it: All for-profit companies contribute to open-source because it benefits them.

Yes, at least the companies should aim for that.

I asked because some companies embrace the benefit and do not grudge.

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