71–80 of 102 posts
"Androids". Ugh. At least they didn't just say "Droids" to mean all Android phones, but c'mon people. That's almost up there with "MAC" as far as being a flag indicating that the author isn't super clueful about the subject matter. On topic: software patents are usually freaking terrible, but (as others have pointed out) this article misrepresents the whole situation, presumably for clicks. Not saying that the patent…
As I type on my MacBook Pro, I also wonder at what point we as a community are going to start voting with our wallets against Apple and the extent to which they are abusing the broken US patent system. Of course it's only rational to expect that they will use any means at their disposal to get a competitive advantage, but that doesn't mean that we must reserve moral judgment. For me, Apple has already moved into "pre…
Because doing so would be shooting ourselves in the foot. All of the major players are equally guilty, if not more so, of 'abusing' the patent system. Google and Samsung have tried to control the whole industry through assertion of FRAND patents. Also, you do realize that you are calling for a total monopoly on the entire industry to placed into the hands of Google? I can't think of anything more destructive. Note: I…
Google doesn't seem to do any rent-seeking (as MS) nor does it try to lock down its platform to prevent any competition whatsoever (as Apple). FRAND is a shitty situation, but I think it's fair to claim even with that, Google is a much less threat to freedom than Apple or MS.
Just don't count on them to provide privacy as well.
I'm hoping for Mozilla to become a major player in phones; they seem fairly dedicated to both freedom and privacy.
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I say the same thing about software and hardware patents, though. What incentive will any company have to innovate if they're constantly getting copied? IMO too many people let their emotions dictate their thoughts about business -- Company X is big enough, so it doesn't deserve patents. Company Y sues everyone in the sun for using their technology; what a horrible company! For every high-profile case like these, tho…
Fine, let's use your example of the small business. Suppose that this company invents a revolutionary technology, such as a cure for cancer or a teleporter. That company is perfectly within its rights to just sit on the technology for 20 years . Even if it does decide to produce the technology, there is no way that it could keep up with demand, so it ends up shipping very small numbers of a very expensive and exclusi…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
1) So Apple add Vorbis in the iPhone 6 and iPod fifth generation. "Why does this work on his iPod and not mine?" 2) For the iPhone 8 a new super low power, low cost chip with better integration of audio output becomes available but doesn't support Vorbis. Nevermind we will just use the old expensive high power chip instead. Every feature you add is a limitation on the future changes you can make. 3) Not always. Just…
1) So? Instead of breaking your head on "how and where do I get a player which supports the codec I need", you'll worry about "which of these from the same manufacturer supports the codec I need". I surely prefer the second case to the first. 2) Why doesn't it support Vorbis? Let them make it low power low cost and add support for all modern codecs. It's doable. Apple sabotages it not because of any technical reasons…
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1) So? Instead of breaking your head on "how and where do I get a player which supports the codec I need", you'll worry about "which of these from the same manufacturer supports the codec I need". I surely prefer the second case to the first. 2) Why doesn't it support Vorbis? Let them make it low power low cost and add support for all modern codecs. It's doable. Apple sabotages it not because of any technical reasons…
AAC/AVC/MPEG4 are open. Your other points are arguing that it isn't that hard to do which I don't dispute but it isn't free and doesn't benefit them.
Whether that benefits them not to do it - you are correct. My point is, it benefits them to sabotage the industry and to hold back innovation. It's because they view control as their main benefit, not the innovation. And that's why they are a problem for the open Web (it defines the medium that diminishes control of the likes of Apple). That was in my original point, so we don't argue here.
As I type on my MacBook Pro, I also wonder at what point we as a community are going to start voting with our wallets against Apple and the extent to which they are abusing the broken US patent system. Of course it's only rational to expect that they will use any means at their disposal to get a competitive advantage, but that doesn't mean that we must reserve moral judgment. For me, Apple has already moved into "pre…
And where would you go if you were to boycott Apple over the actions you deem to be "abusing the broken US patent system". I think Google/Motorola and Samsung have behaved far worse when they attempted to obtain injuctions and excessive licensing fees over patents that they had committed to license on FRAND terms. Microsoft has a horrible history of anticompetive behavior. Maybe Blackberry phone and linux based compu…
This is horrible for users and businesses and is evil in nature.
As for Samsung, they are fighting back against Apple for the most part, and do so however they can.
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Because doing so would be shooting ourselves in the foot. All of the major players are equally guilty, if not more so, of 'abusing' the patent system. Google and Samsung have tried to control the whole industry through assertion of FRAND patents. Also, you do realize that you are calling for a total monopoly on the entire industry to placed into the hands of Google? I can't think of anything more destructive. Note: I…
Google and Samsung are just fighting back against Apple.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
AAC/AVC/MPEG4 are open. Your other points are arguing that it isn't that hard to do which I don't dispute but it isn't free and doesn't benefit them.
They are open as in "specs are available". They aren't open as in freedom to use them. Let's not start the semantics arguments, you know what was meant above. Whether that benefits them not to do it - you are correct. My point is, it benefits them to sabotage the industry and to hold back innovation. It's because they view control as their main benefit, not the innovation. And that's why they are a problem for the op…
1) How much effort it would be to introduce and support Vorbis over the long term. You seem to believe it is negligible in cost while I believe it is quite achievable if they wanted to do it but VERY far from free to support additional codecs.
2) Terminology. I don't like appropriation of words and think that terminology does matter. I was clear in an early post that I understood that the AAC/AVC/MPEG4 codecs are not free (or Free). I will continue to argue against claims (even implicit) that Open Standards are not open.
3) Innovation. Although I haven't responded to the point I don't see Vorbis as a significant innovation beyond AAC so I don't see Apple as holding back innovation by not supporting it. I don't see much innovation held back by the lack of Free codecs but perhaps you do.
4) "it benefits them to sabotage the industry and to hold back innovation" This is a really strange one to me. As (3) I'm not sure about the innovation. Also the idea that they have a duty to at their own expense (1) take actions that benefit other people seems odd to me. If they were using their own proprietary codec that would be different but I just don't see the duty that they are breaching.
5) My view is that there are advantages to the limited set of codec required to support virtually all devices that may even outweigh the disadvantages of them not being Free. This is probably our core disagreement. Until there is at least a factor of two improvement in coding efficiency it is unlikely to be worth making a leap in codecs. Vorbis, theora, VP8 all came too late (at least with hardware implementations) to win this generation and it is best that an open non-proprietary winner takes all. The presence of the Free codecs (and to an even greater degree VC-1 which at the time was pitched as royalty free) helped ensure reasonable licensing terms for AAC/AVC etc. (unlike MPEG4 part2/H.263) so for almost all use cases the cost of AAC/AVC/MPEG4 is negligible in business scenarios. (Shipping a free Linux distribution or other free player/encoder software is the only case that I can see being troubled but they mostly get around it by not including the codecs while making it easy for the user to obtain them elsewhere.)
As I type on my MacBook Pro, I also wonder at what point we as a community are going to start voting with our wallets against Apple and the extent to which they are abusing the broken US patent system. Of course it's only rational to expect that they will use any means at their disposal to get a competitive advantage, but that doesn't mean that we must reserve moral judgment. For me, Apple has already moved into "pre…
Because doing so would be shooting ourselves in the foot. All of the major players are equally guilty, if not more so, of 'abusing' the patent system. Google and Samsung have tried to control the whole industry through assertion of FRAND patents. Also, you do realize that you are calling for a total monopoly on the entire industry to placed into the hands of Google? I can't think of anything more destructive. Note: I…
Some of the players are more equal than others.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are open as in "specs are available". They aren't open as in freedom to use them. Let's not start the semantics arguments, you know what was meant above. Whether that benefits them not to do it - you are correct. My point is, it benefits them to sabotage the industry and to hold back innovation. It's because they view control as their main benefit, not the innovation. And that's why they are a problem for the op…
We have gone quite far off course but I thought I would summarise our polite disagreements which I doubt we will resolve: 1) How much effort it would be to introduce and support Vorbis over the long term. You seem to believe it is negligible in cost while I believe it is quite achievable if they wanted to do it but VERY far from free to support additional codecs. 2) Terminology. I don't like appropriation of words an…
2) I didn't invent the usage of "open" as in "liberated". That's used in open Web, open technologies and etc. Usually some try to complain that free software is different from open source software and so on. While it's formally valid, most often you can deduce what's implied from the context. Open codecs imply liberated codecs. Open standard (in many contexts) includes being not encumbered by patents (surely, even closed codec can be implemented as open source, it doesn't make it free because of that). And that's not the case with proprietary codecs - they are patent encumbered. That's why they are not open standards. When something is discussed as open vs closed as in not having a public specification, it's usually pretty clear.
3) Vorbis is clearly innovative over MP3. We were talking about digital players, and most of them use MP3, not AAC.
Opus is clearly innovative over any above, including AAC.
4) I already explained, it's not about expenses. It's about control. It's not just about "taking actions that benefit other people". It's about taking the opposite - actions which damage others (i.e. HTML5 codecs mess). Apple can't escape being blamed for it.
5) Even if there is some benefit in limiting the number of codecs, it's not what drives Apple not to use open ones, especially when they are technically better.
So we agree that Apple doesn't see a benefit in using open codecs, but we disagree on their motivation or what exactly they see as a benefit. You view them equating benefit with reducing expenses. I think they consider control as the primary benefit.