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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)

#111

Post by eru »

GHFigs wrote: post #97
eru wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, at least the companies should aim for that. I asked because some companies embrace the benefit and do not grudge.

What grudge? How are you measuring grudge-ness? How do I know with confidence whether a company is grudging or not? And furthermore, why would I care?

What do I know. One of the ancestor comments introduced the concept: "They aren't philanthropists, they are just (grudgingly) abiding by the license of the software they are building on."

As an attempt to answer: They can just satisfy the letter of the GPL by a code dump--which I would count as grudgingly, or they can embrace open development.

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

#112

Post by vetinari »

wmf wrote: post #90
pohl wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Actually, it is based on a draft h.263, not the final h.263.

One of the older flash specification did document it. The svq3 specification was removed from swf specs around time it was made available under more liberal license (Sorenson probably didn't agree with wider specs availability).

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

#113

Post by ZeroGravitas »

dhimes wrote: post #92
cpr wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Perhaps, but that policy would be forward-looking. Current there's no charge for web delivered content if you don't charge for access.

It pays to be forward looking when your supplier reserves the rights to re-negotiate your terms.

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

#114

Post by ZeroGravitas »

astrange wrote: post #96
vetinari wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

iPhone supports High profile just fine.

iPhones don't even support Main profile (though some suggest that the 3GS actually has enough power to do so, it's only software limited by Apple to keep the line homogenous).

Search for "Baseline Profile" on this page for the full details:

http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html

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

#115

Post by ZeroGravitas »

blasdel wrote: post #101
jcl wrote: post #33

All video codecs are covered by patents. All the popular ones, maybe. But MPEG-1 is over twenty years old, so unless there is a submarine patent out there, all the patents on it have already expired. Likewise, most aspects of MPEG-2 should be freed up within a decade. Even H.264 will eventually be unencumbered, given enough time.

On2 had a pile of active patents covering VP3, which they granted irrevocable royalty-free licenses to when they abandoned it to become Theora. Nobody's ever done codec development without either filing a ton of patents or at least publishing rigorous documentation to establish prior art (Dirac). Some of those patents may no longer be in force, but they still exist.

The On2 patents on VP3 only covered some optimization techniques and are not required to implement VP3 or Theora.

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

#116

Post by pistoriusp »

andr wrote: post #26

While I agree with the spirit of the message to Steve, the attack on Apple not sharing back open source software modifications is out of place. Darwin is open source. WebKit is open source and actively developed by Apple, giving competitors the ability to quickly catch up with one of the iPhone's biggest advantages. Apple is also the chief contributor to LLVM.

Grand Central Dispatch also comes to mind.

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

#117

Post by eru »

chops wrote: post #109
scott_s wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Everyone (businesses and individuals alike) who contributes to open-source does so because it benefits them.

Or because they think it benefits them. Might be a tautology, though.

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

#119

Post by tlb »

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.

Right, 2% is unlikely to change anyone's business model.

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

#120

Post by astrange »

vetinari wrote: post #105
astrange wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPhone supports High profile just fine.

IPhone does not support high profile by any stretch of imagination. Why don't you go and check Apple documentation? There's a technote for that. Or just try playing high@ video on iphone.

http://120fps.org/l_high3.mp4

I copied this High@3.0 file out of my iTunes library and it successfully syncs to my 3GS.

I can't get it to play over Wifi, while I can get a Main@3.0 file to play, but I think this has something to do with not enforcing some bitrate limit rather than the profile.

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