On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 18:32, Christopher Woods <chris...@infinitus.co.uk> wrote:
> Any idea why the MPEG-LA did this then? Seems to be quite an about-turn > given everyoen was bracing for enforced commercial licensing... A sudden outbreak of common sense? Given the fees that were being mooted, enough people to make a difference would switch wholesale to Theora (at the risk of hitherto unknown patent attacks), or if Google finalises the On2 deal and opens up VPwhatever, that. >From a bait-and-switch perspective, ending the free programme now would be shooting themselves in the foot. Better to wait until people *can't* switch. That said, five years is a long time in this game. I think they have (from a licensing perspective) gone too far the other way and pegged it at a point where alternatives to H.264 would start to gain traction again. To be honest, though, it's theoretical licensing fees: many of the people using H.264 are only going to do it while it doesn't cost them money. I wouldn't be surprised if some members of the LA were pushing for a perpetual license in this context, making the money back from hardware (which is a far safer revenue stream anyway). That would have been more sensible all-round, as it would make most of the objections to AVC disappear. Is 5 years long enough for people to give up pushing alternatives? Is it so long that people will be exploring better alternatives already? Will it make any difference at all to Mozilla? I honestly have no idea. What I do know is that it's a weight off *my* mind. I was actually starting to get quite worried about how much cash I'd have to find. M. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
