Frank Murphy wrote: > On 07/08/09 06:53, gilpel@xxxxxxxxxx wrote: >> (1) Many thanks to Frank Murphy for a few helpful lines on the matter. >> This said, I hope we can go on with determining if windows media codecs aren't, just as doc and xls formats, anything but a marketing scam. > Windows media codecs, and indeed "patented" software in general, are a way for various companies to make money. > You will notice as soon as a patent comes near it's end, > oh, suddenly this new codec appears, which will be flavour of the month. This is just a method, keep the wallets full from a patent pov. I think the same but, you know, video codecs seem a more complicated matter than document formatting code. If you can get <B>bold</B> as easily as this, you're not far from understanding that, since Microsoft is producing Word, doc tags could be as simple. So, I thought it would be interesting to have somebody explain the matter from a technical POV, an Alan Cox of video streaming, if you wish :) This patent way of doing things sometimes has some funny consequences. In a document on using Linux on its site, Radio-Canada, the state television and ally of Microsoft, has to suggest to use MPlayer: Le plugiciel vidéo recommandé par Radio-Canada.ca est MPlayer. (The video plugin recommanded by Radio-Canada.ca is MPlayer) http://www.radio-canada.ca/apropos/aide/pdf/Linuxconsolevideo.pdf They even suggest to remove all other plugins! Of course, they can't explain to taxpayers that they'll have to pay Microsoft to watch state television :) Some people here seem to suggest that my goal for starting this thread is to pressure Red Hat into providing proprietary codecs. It's not and it's never been. As I already said, Red Hat as a publicly traded company, is free to run their business as they wish. Beside, Ubuntu and Debian, which are not in the same situation, act the same. Legally, matters are often complex and facing Microsoft's legal department must not be a happy perspective. It would just be nice if, instead of letting threads go on endlessly, it was clearly told that Totem is very unlikely -- despite Radio-Canada pretending so -- to play WMV unless you buy Fluendo and that MPlayer offers a free alternative that Red Hat doesn't endorse. --snip-- > If it was just about the content, they would make sure to use a really free and open method, has not HTML5 video already no longer the shine in the eye, due to objections from Apple. My memory of HTML5 is rather vague. Let's see: "HTML 5 was initially said to become a game-changer in Web application development, making obsolete such plug-in-based rich Internet application (RIA) technologies as Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, and Sun JavaFX.[1] Such applications would be made obsolete by specifying a standard video codec for all browsers to use. However, in July 2009, the editor of the burgeoning draft specification dropped the recommendation of the free software Theora and Vorbis codecs, after opposition from Apple and Nokia. This means HTML 5 does not currently specify a common video codec for Web development." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_5 And Nokia has bought Trolltech. What a wonderful world we live in! :) I wonder if most KDE developers stayed when Nokia took control of QT. Surely, if Apple and Nokia hadn't opposed, Microsoft would. Wasn't the internet supposed to be a level playing field? Thanks for your interesting contribution. After all, it seems that not evrybody want to keep certain subjects under the rug. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
