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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)

#81

Post by kgrad »

jorgecastillo wrote: post #76
kgrad wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Adobe Uses DMCA On Protocol It Promised To Open http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/22/1254246 How do Gnash developers work with the Adobe/Macromedia EULA? http://www.gnashdev.org/?q=node/25#eula Read this two links and come back to discuss about flash openness.

edit: apparently adobe did open the RTMP spec? http://www.adobe.com/devnet/rtmp/

How does Gnash being built without Adobe tools do anything but further proving that you don't have to use adobe products to use/work with flash?

I am not claiming with authority that Flash is open, I am just trying to see how it is closed. So far it looks open to me.

I'm not even a Flash developer, so please forgive me if I am not understanding properly.

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

#82

Post by cpr »

dhimes wrote: post #59
tlb wrote: post #40

h.264 is far, far more open than Flash. What matters is that the spec is public and that you can choose from many implementations. There are no usable competing implementations of Flash, but dozens for h.264 including excellent open-source ones. The h.264 terms aren't onerous. If you ship less than 100,000 devices you pay nothing. At large scale, it's $0.10 / unit. When selling hardware, that's a pretty light tax. As…

Here's a summary of the license terms: http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Documents/AVC_TermsS... Let's say you make videos and sell access to them on your web site on a title-by-title basis :) Videos 12 min, USD $0.02 per title or 2% of access price, whichever is less.

Oh, maybe that's the basis of the general YouTube 10-minute limit...

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

#83

Post by kgrad »

jorgecastillo wrote: post #79
kgrad wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which part of the definition does flash violate? Also, Apple doesn't give much credit to KDE with WebKit, they certainly like to imply that they are very open with it without mentioning its origins...

Do you work for Adobe? This is your first day commenting and you seem to defend flash as if your life depended on it.

I don't work for adobe, nor do I even code in flash. I am just ignorant on the subject and wish to be enlightened.

edit: it's also not my first day commenting, I just forgot my old account and had to make a new one a little while ago.

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

#84

Post by kgrad »

pmjordan wrote: post #78
kgrad wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the link, you are certainly correct that adobes player is proprietary, but I provided you with a link to an alternate player... Just because something is hard to reproduce doesn't make it closed. Do you consider java closed because Sun/Oracle makes the best applet viewer? I am not trying to say Adobe is guilt free or anything, but it looks to me like they are making it as open as they can, unless I am miss…

No, I consider Java to be open because it is licensed under the GPL, an Open Source/Free Software license. but it looks to me like they are making it as open as they can With all due respect, you're either trolling or extremely ignorant for someone reading HN. In case of the latter, please educate yourself and read up on the difference between proprietary and open source software. Also take note that "freeware" does…

I am sorry if you are offended by my ignorance. I am not currently arguing that the flash player provided by adobe is open. I conceded a while ago that the flash player provided by adobe is proprietary. However, an alternate flash player exists and you can program SWF without ever touching an Adobe product. There is a spec and open tools for doing so. I was simply under the impression that Flash was open minus Adobes implementation and am trying to see why everyone is saying it is not.

edit: I don't understand why me disagreeing with you automatically makes me a troll. People are quick to jump on people who don't agree with their viewpoints.

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

#85

Post by pyre »

http://www.osnews.com/story/23058/Theora_More_of_a_Patent_Th...

  For 15 years, Xiph.Org has carefully "played by the
  rules," fully within the bounds, intent, and letter of
  intellectual property and patent law. For the past ten
  years we've informed the entire world, including MPEG LA,
  of our specifications and algorithms in detail. We've
  requested in open letters that any group believing we
  are infringing to inform us so that we make take
  immediate corrective action.

  I predict that MPEG LA may counter that they know
  groups have been pressured into licensing patents in order
  to use Theora. This has been a recent back-room assertion.
  You might want to ask point blank if MPEG LA itself or any
  of its constituent members has engaged in this practice,
  thus manufacturing the evidence that "vindicates" their
  patent allegations. I beg you - tell me immediately if you
  get a straight answer (or good video of any squirming)!

  I'm sure you can tell I'm a bit peeved; this has been going
  on for over a decade. It's amazing they've never been
  called out on it.

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

#86

Post by jcl »

Terretta wrote: post #64
jcl wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I was pretty sure he was referring to VP6-encoded Flash video, not some version of H.264 that is harder to decode. Could you provide more information on non-hardware-decodable versions?

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

#88

Post by vetinari »

jcl wrote: post #86
Terretta wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I was pretty sure he was referring to VP6-encoded Flash video, not some version of H.264 that is harder to decode. Could you provide more information on non-hardware-decodable versions?

He probably means H.264 profiles.

iPhone (and Android phones) can decode only certain profiles (Baseline), and up to certain levels (depending on resolution). Even hardware assisted decoding with PC graphics cards can accelerate only up to certain level (usually high@4.1, but some nvidias can decode high@5).

The rest is more complex than hardware assisted decoders are able to decode and pure software codec has to be used.

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

#89

Post by jorgecastillo »

kgrad wrote: post #81
jorgecastillo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adobe Uses DMCA On Protocol It Promised To Open http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/22/1254246 How do Gnash developers work with the Adobe/Macromedia EULA? http://www.gnashdev.org/?q=node/25#eula Read this two links and come back to discuss about flash openness.

edit: apparently adobe did open the RTMP spec? http://www.adobe.com/devnet/rtmp/ How does Gnash being built without Adobe tools do anything but further proving that you don't have to use adobe products to use/work with flash? I am not claiming with authority that Flash is open, I am just trying to see how it is closed. So far it looks open to me. I'm not even a Flash developer, so please forgive me if I am not unders…

Did you really read the links? I can't do your homework for you.

"I'm not even a Flash developer, so please forgive me if I am not understanding properly."

Me neither I am just an average guy that likes computers. I am not even a developer of anything. But it is very clear to me that flash is not open and Adobe does not intent for it to be other than for PR. So far I haven't seen evidence to the contrary.

If Adobe would open source (GPLv2/BSD/Apache, etc) flash and would give the future development and implementation to an independent party (W3C?) made of various corporations, organizations and individuals that have stakes at flash I'd be all for flash.

P.S. I think a BSD/MIT/Apache license would be better.

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

#90

Post by wmf »

pohl wrote: post #30
vetinari wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there is ( http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/ ). It is even available gratis (H.264 specification is not).

Interesting, but I don't see how one could create a complete implementation without a spec for the Sorensen Spark codec.

Sorenson Spark == H.263 (not a typo), which is documented. The problem with Flash is VP6, although FFMPEG reverse engineered it.
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