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Opus codec available now in Asterisk

blogs.digium.com

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Re: Opus codec available now in Asterisk

#14

Post by lzaf »

qazwsxedchac wrote: post #9
zdw wrote: post #2

Does anyone have more detail on the licensing issues with Opus that caused the binary module/daily "phone home to Digium" license check?

FTFA: "...we have to distribute Opus as a free binary... can’t distribute it as source. And, once a day, it has to anonymously report back to Digium" Binary blob only, and phones home? Even if it is an attempt to put an upper bound on (unlikely) royalty payments to a third party, this really smells bad.

As mentioned here: http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-dev/2016-Septembe...

'In order to lessen the risk of future legal action, the codec reports anonymous stats to Digium once per day that contain the maximum number of simultaneous opus channels in the past 24 hours. Again, totally anonymous. We don't even record ip address, just a uuid and count.'

Surely not ideal but the data sent 'home' are minimal and as anonymous as possible. What really smells bad in this and similar cases is the madness surrounding the whole software patent legislation. For those who still like to prevent the module from reporting any data more details can be found here: http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-dev/2016-Septembe...

Re: Opus codec available now in Asterisk

#15

Post by briankwest »

Or you could just use FreeSWITCH, We've had OPUS for a long time, full WebRTC stack, and full Video MCU / Transcoding features. http://www.freeswitch.org

I understand Digiums concerns, but I feel they aren't warranted. There are open source equivelent patches out there to accomplish OPUS in Asterisk without the phone home element.

/b

Re: Opus codec available now in Asterisk

#16

Post by indolering »

mynameislegion wrote: post #4
microcolonel wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they are concerned that there may still be some unexplored patents which apply to Opus. If they don't track the numbers, then they may need to pay the absolute maximum license fee to a (future, unknown) patent holder because they can't bound the number of licensees. That is, of course, assuming there are still IP issues. I'm not sure what made them concerned about that, if anything tangible. Notably, the Opus…

I wonder if they got shook down by a patent troll?

I doubt it, Digium is scared of patents but the SFLC seriously considered going to court to get the known patent declarations declared invalid. If someone had gone after Digium, I'm sure the SFLC would love to hear about it.

Re: Opus codec available now in Asterisk

#17

Post by derf_ »

mynameislegion wrote: post #5
mynameislegion wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if they got shook down by a patent troll?

If so, Oracle did too: > Transcoding the Opus codec requires a special license as it is subject to a royalty agreement. https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E61547_01/doc/esbc_ecz730_mainten...

We asked some folks at Oracle about this, and my understanding is that this fee is imposed by the vendor providing the Opus implementation for their DSPs. Oracle is just passing on this cost. A specific implementation may, of course, include technology which has additional licensing or fee structures on top of the basic royalty-free license used with the reference implementation.
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