>>>>> "Philip" == Philip S Tellis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Philip> On Mon, 11 Feb 2002, Mithun Bhattacharya wrote:
>> I was just referring to the .asf and .wma files which is when
>> most people usually turn to Mplayer for ;). Mpeg 4 is probably
>> the only
Philip> file formats cannot be patented. it is the
Philip> encoding/decoding algorithms that can be. a company that
Philip> develops a file format may choose not to disclose its
Philip> structure, but they cannot restrict others from using it
Philip> by patenting it. they can stop you from using a
Philip> particular algorithm to generate it (LZW compression for
Philip> GIFs), but if you figure out another (generate a random
Philip> number that just happens to be a valid gzipped file, which
Philip> when ungzipped gives c source that when compiled and run,
Philip> magically generates GIFs).
I think Mithun was referring more to the contents of .asf and .wma
files than the formats or encoding algorithms :)
Philip> -- COBOL is for morons. -- E.W. Dijkstra
E W Dijkstra is a Moron -- R. Mathur
--
Raju Mathur [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://kandalaya.org/
It is the mind that moves
_______________________________________________
linux-india-help mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-india-help
