Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Kevin Kofler]

Jaroslav Reznik wrote:
> But that's the only way how we can legally point people to the "solution".
> We can't show the PackageKit window saying - now enable the repo we
> shouldn't talk about :D and say install gstreamer-plugins-ugly. In that
> case we can just ship it in our own repos :) On the other hand - we can
> show you the way, we do not agree with (as it's proprietary non free
> implementation), you have to pay - but that's the penalty for not using
> Google :)

We tried that (see Codeina / Codec Buddy). Almost everyone (including me!) 
hated it, and it was quickly replaced by the current solution, where it will 
offer you gstreamer-plugins-ugly if the repository containing it is 
configured and nothing ("no codec found in the configured repositories") if 
it isn't.

I think it's better to offer nothing in the UI and have the user use a 
search engine than to send them to the proprietary option. If they really do 
want the proprietary option, they'll also find it in their search engine. 
But chances are they don't.

Kevin Kofler

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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Avi Alkalay]

I gave up a long time ago on using Linux as my primary desktop: I found my
self spending too much time helping the computer to work correctly than
having the computer helping me to work better.

I think the Fedora Project is about advanced Open Source mostly (but not
only) for server side, task automation, excellent sysadmin practices and
soberb software deployment.

So in my opinion if a user insists on using Linux on the desktop he would
also know about alternative repos with all H.264s, MP3s and DVDCSSs he will
need. At the end of the day, Fedora to not ship with H.264, MP3 etc is not
a big problem.

Avi

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 06:00, Peter Robinson  wrote:

>
> On Mar 21, 2012 12:47 AM, "Kevin Kofler"  wrote:
> >
> > Avi אבי Alkalay אלקלעי  wrote:
> > > What are the legal tools that Ubuntu uses so it can ship H.264 ?
> >
> > It's based on the Isle of Man, not in the USA.
>
> Which doesn't provide that much protection as a couple of online poker
> companies recently discovered
>
> Peter
>
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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Peter Robinson]

On Mar 21, 2012 2:30 AM, "Fedora Video"  wrote:
>
> On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 10:11 PM, Rahul Sundaram 
wrote:
>>
>> Note that Debian does include a decoder by default for both MP3 and
>> H.264 but they can only do so because they are a non-profit and the
>> worst case scenario is a injunction until they remove the infringing
>> parts so realistically noone is going to go after them because one
>> cannot extract money from Debian.
>
>
> This is not true according to the debian social contract.
http://www.debian.org/social_contract
>
> There is no mention of copyright on the page. It is not a page about
copyright.
>
> Your argument is refuted most strongly by
>
> License Must Not Be Specific to Debian
>
> No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
>
> No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
>
> The document is quite clear that Debian will not distribute software
which only they can distribute or which can only be distributed
non-commercially.
>
> Debian distributes H.264 because it is free at least in the majority of
the world which does not have a terrorist government.   Put down your
religion and look again.
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 8:46 PM, Kevin Kofler 
wrote:
>>
>> Avi אבי Alkalay אלקלעי  wrote:
>> > What are the legal tools that Ubuntu uses so it can ship H.264 ?
>>
>> It's based on the Isle of Man, not in the USA.
>
>
> Ubuntu's parent company is headquartered in the UK just like RedHat is
headquartered in the US.
>
> If the US's repressive laws are holding Fedora back, why not simply open
a Fedora organization in the Isle of Man just like Ubuntu has done.
>
> In any case. This argument is moot. Fedora will distribute H.264 because
it will be part of Firefox.

It won't actually be part of Firefox at all as they are providing the
ability to talk to an OS provided set of codecs including H.264 so it's
essentially a pass through. The linux means of doing this will likely be
gstreamer.

Peter
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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Jaroslav Reznik]

- Original Message -
> Jaroslav Reznik wrote:
> > The only thing we can do here is to make it easier for people to
> > get these not nice codecs if they demand the support. Maybe in the
> > same way as with Fluendo MP3 long time ago? If you want it, take
> > the risks on you and pay the licence fees...
> 
> As far as I know, Fluendo actually does sell a H.264 decoder for
> GStreamer
> (which is the framework Firefox is going to use), but unlike the MP3
> one:
> * its copyright license is proprietary (the Fluendo MP3 decoder is
> BSD-
> licensed and only the patent license restricts your freedom) and
> * it costs money.
> 
> Those issues make it not an attractive option for most people
> compared to
> gstreamer-plugins-ugly. :-)

But that's the only way how we can legally point people to the "solution".
We can't show the PackageKit window saying - now enable the repo we
shouldn't talk about :D and say install gstreamer-plugins-ugly. In that case
we can just ship it in our own repos :) On the other hand - we can show you 
the way, we do not agree with (as it's proprietary non free implementation), 
you have to pay - but that's the penalty for not using Google :)

R.

> Kevin Kofler
> 
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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Peter Robinson]

On Mar 21, 2012 12:47 AM, "Kevin Kofler"  wrote:
>
> Avi אבי Alkalay אלקלעי  wrote:
> > What are the legal tools that Ubuntu uses so it can ship H.264 ?
>
> It's based on the Isle of Man, not in the USA.

Which doesn't provide that much protection as a couple of online poker
companies recently discovered

Peter

>Kevin Kofler
>
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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Kevin Kofler]

Jaroslav Reznik wrote:
> The only thing we can do here is to make it easier for people to
> get these not nice codecs if they demand the support. Maybe in the
> same way as with Fluendo MP3 long time ago? If you want it, take
> the risks on you and pay the licence fees...

As far as I know, Fluendo actually does sell a H.264 decoder for GStreamer 
(which is the framework Firefox is going to use), but unlike the MP3 one:
* its copyright license is proprietary (the Fluendo MP3 decoder is BSD-
licensed and only the patent license restricts your freedom) and
* it costs money.

Those issues make it not an attractive option for most people compared to 
gstreamer-plugins-ugly. :-)

Kevin Kofler

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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Adam Williamson]

On Wed, 2012-03-21 at 09:55 +0100, Matej Cepl wrote:
> On 21.3.2012 03:41, Adam Williamson wrote:
> > Firefox will take advantage of a system h264 codec where one is
> > available. In the Fedora system, one will not be available.
> 
> Fedora as shipped from get.fedoraproject.org won't contain H.264 codec. 
> Which doesn't mean that my computer won't be able to play H.264 movies 
> as well as it does playing MP3s now.

Sure. Your system is not the Fedora system. It is the Fedora+RPMFusion
system (or whatever). :)
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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Matej Cepl]

On 21.3.2012 03:41, Adam Williamson wrote:

Firefox will take advantage of a system h264 codec where one is
available. In the Fedora system, one will not be available.


Fedora as shipped from get.fedoraproject.org won't contain H.264 codec. 
Which doesn't mean that my computer won't be able to play H.264 movies 
as well as it does playing MP3s now.


Matěj

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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Matej Cepl]

On 20.3.2012 23:27, Kevin Kofler wrote:

Even YouTube has adopted WebM.


What the original author ignored to include was link to
http://brendaneich.com/2012/03/video-mobile-and-the-open-web/ which 
explains the position of MoFo. What he completely missed is bug 
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=422540 around which we 
argued for years that MoFo should leave whole codecs business altogether 
and let platform systems (GStreamer, QuickTime, DirectShow) deal with it 
(as many WebKit-based browsers do now).


If he read the bug and understood what it means, he would know that it 
has absolutely nothing to do with inclusion of H.264 in the Fedora 
proper. My system is perfectly capable of viewing H.264 movies now.


Best,

Matěj

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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Jaroslav Reznik]

- Original Message -
> On Tue, 2012-03-20 at 22:29 -0400, Fedora Video wrote:
> 
> > In any case. This argument is moot. Fedora will distribute H.264
> > because it will be part of Firefox.
> 
> No, it won't. You persist in misunderstanding this, though it has
> been
> explained to you. Firefox will take advantage of a system h264 codec
> where one is available. In the Fedora system, one will not be
> available.
> Firefox will not contain its own h264 codec.

Even if Mozilla decides to ship theirs own bundled h264 decoding 
library, it will be against Fedora policies and it would have to
be unbundled.

The only thing we can do here is to make it easier for people to
get these not nice codecs if they demand the support. Maybe in the
same way as with Fluendo MP3 long time ago? If you want it, take
the risks on you and pay the licence fees... 

But it brings us back to the "do we want to support proprietary
patented codecs and actually make them stronger by paying them"?

In the embedded world it's really more difficult - that's why
FF mobile is going to adopt h264 - hw decoders as CPUs are not
capable to decode the video on the fly. On desktops, we are able 
to decode WebM without hw support (even it's nice to have).

R.

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> Fedora QA Community Monkey
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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Avi Alkalay]

Meanwhile, my Fedora post-installation instructions are quite popular on the 
Internet:

http://avi.alkalay.net/2007/06/fedora-post-installation-configurations.html

It is link #3 on a "fedora h.264" Google search and I use to keep it updated.



On 20/03/2012, at 23:11, Rahul Sundaram  wrote:

> On 03/21/2012 06:56 AM, Adam Williamson wrote:
>> On Wed, 2012-03-21 at 01:46 +0100, Kevin Kofler wrote:
>>> Avi אבי Alkalay אלקלעי  wrote:
 What are the legal tools that Ubuntu uses so it can ship H.264 ?
>>> 
>>> It's based on the Isle of Man, not in the USA.
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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[drago01]

On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 2:58 AM, Simo Sorce  wrote:
> [...]
> In the US instead patents have their root in a specific constitutional
> provision that says that this kind of monopoly can only be granted if it
> promotes innovation, this means there is no specific ban on software
> patents but given they arguably do not promote innovation they should
> naturally not be allowed, now you just need to wait for the US Congress
> to realize the Constitution tells them they cannot allow patents that do
> not promote innovation, good luck with that :)

Unfortunately that does not matter ... what matters is who is sending
the most bribes..^W donations. The software patent supporters send
more of them so they win.
Unless the supreme court does its job and tell them to stop (which it
had many chances to do and refused).
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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Rahul Sundaram]

On 03/21/2012 07:59 AM, Fedora Video wrote:

> In any case. This argument is moot. Fedora will distribute H.264 because it
> will be part of Firefox.

Actually no.  You don't understand the situation.  Firefox does not
include H.264 at all.  Firefox will play H.264 if the underlying
platform includes the codecs which is not the case for Fedora by default
although assuming they switch over to using Gstreamer instead of
bundling codecs, any user will be install the codecs they want later.

Rahul


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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Rahul Sundaram]

On 03/21/2012 07:59 AM, Fedora Video wrote:

> In any case. This argument is moot. Fedora will distribute H.264 because it
> will be part of Firefox.

Actually no.  You don't understand the situation.  Firefox does not
include H.264 at all.  Firefox will play H.264 if the underlying
platform includes the codecs which is not the case for Fedora by default
although assuming they switch over to using Gstreamer instead of
bundling codecs, any user will be install the codecs they want later.

Rahul


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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Adam Williamson]

On Tue, 2012-03-20 at 22:29 -0400, Fedora Video wrote:

> In any case. This argument is moot. Fedora will distribute H.264
> because it will be part of Firefox.

No, it won't. You persist in misunderstanding this, though it has been
explained to you. Firefox will take advantage of a system h264 codec
where one is available. In the Fedora system, one will not be available.
Firefox will not contain its own h264 codec.
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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Rahul Sundaram]

On 03/21/2012 07:59 AM, Fedora Video wrote:

> 
> The document is quite clear that Debian will not distribute software which
> only they can distribute or which can only be distributed
> non-commercially.

That may be the policy but the difference is that Debian is free to
interpret decoding as non-infringing because they don't have share the
same risks.

Rahul
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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[David Nalley]

On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 10:29 PM, Fedora Video  wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 10:11 PM, Rahul Sundaram  wrote:
>>
>> Note that Debian does include a decoder by default for both MP3 and
>> H.264 but they can only do so because they are a non-profit and the
>> worst case scenario is a injunction until they remove the infringing
>> parts so realistically noone is going to go after them because one
>> cannot extract money from Debian.
>
>
> This is not true according to the debian social contract.
> http://www.debian.org/social_contract
>
> There is no mention of copyright on the page. It is not a page about
> copyright.
>
> Your argument is refuted most strongly by
>
> License Must Not Be Specific to Debian
>
> No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
>
> No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
>
> The document is quite clear that Debian will not distribute software which
> only they can distribute or which can only be distributed non-commercially.
>
> Debian distributes H.264 because it is free at least in the majority of the
> world which does not have a terrorist government.   Put down your religion
> and look again.
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 8:46 PM, Kevin Kofler 
> wrote:
>>
>> Avi אבי Alkalay אלקלעי  wrote:
>> > What are the legal tools that Ubuntu uses so it can ship H.264 ?
>>
>> It's based on the Isle of Man, not in the USA.
>
>
> Ubuntu's parent company is headquartered in the UK just like RedHat is
> headquartered in the US.
>
> If the US's repressive laws are holding Fedora back, why not simply open a
> Fedora organization in the Isle of Man just like Ubuntu has done.
>
> In any case. This argument is moot. Fedora will distribute H.264 because it
> will be part of Firefox.
>


Fedora will not ship h.264 support for the foreseeable future.

Yes software patents are bad. No one here disagrees.

Red Hat is not going to assume the risk of shipping h.264 support,
just like they haven't assumed the risk of shipping MP3 support. And
regardless of how effective the arguments, and how evil software
patents are, that fact isn't going to change.

So as fun as this thread is, lets save everyone some time and
frustration and consider this thread closed.


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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Fedora Video]

On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 10:11 PM, Rahul Sundaram  wrote:

> Note that Debian does include a decoder by default for both MP3 and
> H.264 but they can only do so because they are a non-profit and the
> worst case scenario is a injunction until they remove the infringing
> parts so realistically noone is going to go after them because one
> cannot extract money from Debian.


This is not true according to the debian social contract.
http://www.debian.org/social_contract

There is no mention of copyright on the page. It is not a page about
copyright.

Your argument is refuted most strongly by

*License Must Not Be Specific to Debian*

*No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups*

*No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor*

The document is quite clear that Debian will not distribute software which
only they can distribute or which can only be distributed
non-commercially.

Debian distributes H.264 because it is free at least in the majority of the
world which does not have a terrorist government.   Put down your religion
and look again.


On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 8:46 PM, Kevin Kofler wrote:

> Avi אבי Alkalay אלקלעי  wrote:
> > What are the legal tools that Ubuntu uses so it can ship H.264 ?
>
> It's based on the Isle of Man, not in the USA.


Ubuntu's parent company is headquartered in the UK just like RedHat is
headquartered in the US.

If the US's repressive laws are holding Fedora back, why not simply open a
Fedora organization in the Isle of Man just like Ubuntu has done.

In any case. This argument is moot. Fedora will distribute H.264 because it
will be part of Firefox.
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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Rahul Sundaram]

On 03/21/2012 06:56 AM, Adam Williamson wrote:
> On Wed, 2012-03-21 at 01:46 +0100, Kevin Kofler wrote:
>> Avi אבי Alkalay אלקלעי  wrote:
>>> What are the legal tools that Ubuntu uses so it can ship H.264 ?
>>
>> It's based on the Isle of Man, not in the USA.
> 
> Regardless, as far as I know, Ubuntu does not ship h.264 encoding or
> decoding support in any of its standard, official releases. It has only
> done so in custom OEM builds, with specific licensing agreements in
> place - the systems provided with h264 support were licensed. See
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/05/canonical_h264_video/ , for
> e.g., from when this 'ubuntu ships h264' meme first started going
> around. It really doesn't. If you google 'ubuntu h264', what you get are
> lots of instructions for installing packages from third-party repos.

Note that Debian does include a decoder by default for both MP3 and
H.264 but they can only do so because they are a non-profit and the
worst case scenario is a injunction until they remove the infringing
parts so realistically noone is going to go after them because one
cannot extract money from Debian.

Rahul



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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Chris Murphy]

On Mar 20, 2012, at 7:58 PM, Simo Sorce wrote:
> 
> In the US instead patents have their root in a specific constitutional
> provision that says that this kind of monopoly can only be granted if it
> promotes innovation, this means there is no specific ban on software
> patents but given they arguably do not promote innovation they should
> naturally not be allowed, now you just need to wait for the US Congress
> to realize the Constitution tells them they cannot allow patents that do
> not promote innovation, good luck with that :)

Nor the court, it seems, as they persist with narrow rulings in this area.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/03/supreme-court-saves-medical-profession-from-diagnostic-patents.ars
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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Adam Williamson]

On Wed, 2012-03-21 at 01:46 +0100, Kevin Kofler wrote:
> Avi אבי Alkalay אלקלעי  wrote:
> > What are the legal tools that Ubuntu uses so it can ship H.264 ?
> 
> It's based on the Isle of Man, not in the USA.

Regardless, as far as I know, Ubuntu does not ship h.264 encoding or
decoding support in any of its standard, official releases. It has only
done so in custom OEM builds, with specific licensing agreements in
place - the systems provided with h264 support were licensed. See
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/05/canonical_h264_video/ , for
e.g., from when this 'ubuntu ships h264' meme first started going
around. It really doesn't. If you google 'ubuntu h264', what you get are
lots of instructions for installing packages from third-party repos.
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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Simo Sorce]

On Tue, 2012-03-20 at 16:36 -0700, Adam Williamson wrote:

[lots elided]

> I was asked to reconsider my "invention" under another light: I was
> using captors to the external world. My prediction had an impact on a
> hardware product. In fact, every software patent you can think of can
> be
> reconsidered as an hardware patent. In the extreme case, isn't moving
> electron something physical?
> 
Oh come on, this is such a ridiculous argument. Of course moving
electron is something physical, unfortunately for the author that part
is *not novel*, it's what computers do, and it is not an inventive step
you can claim as new, which is one of the fundamental criteria to award
a patent ... in theory because POs* all over the globe do not do their
job in this regard.
In fact those that still want to argue on this line become even more
ridiculous and claim their software move electrons in a special way,
different from another program ... of course for some reason they do not
patent patterns of electrons moving, but they patent, in effect, ideas
(not specific solutions, but the whole field) and mathematical formulas.

But the problem is even deeper. Software Patents very seldom promote any
kind of innovation, on the contrary they are a weapon to keep small
firms from growing into dangerous competitors in established markets.

In the EU patents just exist, they are not basing their existence on a
constitutional mandate, but the EPC** explicitly exclude software as
such.

In the US instead patents have their root in a specific constitutional
provision that says that this kind of monopoly can only be granted if it
promotes innovation, this means there is no specific ban on software
patents but given they arguably do not promote innovation they should
naturally not be allowed, now you just need to wait for the US Congress
to realize the Constitution tells them they cannot allow patents that do
not promote innovation, good luck with that :)

Anyway, software patents are filed in the EU, and are very often
accepted by the EPO. They not sanctioned by any treaty, also thanks to a
hard battle fought by activists and the FFII a few years ago that
resulted in the first time a grass roots semi-unstructured lobbying
group was successful in overthrowing a European Directive in Parliament.

Software Patents are not good in any way, they are bad in many ways,
including the fact that even those that do not like/believe/want them
are forced to file patents once they reach a certain size to have some
defensive weapons. And this compounds the problem, because too often
these patents are later gathered by patent trolls when companies file
for bankruptcy and are forced to sell all assets they can spare.


Simo.

* Patent Offices
** European Patent Convention

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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Luya Tshimbalanga]

On 20/03/12 02:23 PM, Fedora Video wrote:


Why is Mozilla doing this?  It is clear enough: Non-support of H.264 
is making them irrelevant. They've gone from the #1 browser to the #4 
directly as a result of not adopting H.264.   H.264 is the only video 
that is good enough for the web and the alternatives are just as 
patented which is why Google did not make good on their commitments to 
deploy them. Even Youtube only offers WebM on a small number of 
unpopular videos: The bandwidth demands of a full WebM deployment 
would put them out of business and would break their site on apple 
devices which don't work if WebM is offered.


WebM is actually superiour to H.264, some manufacturers already include 
it on their chipsets. The real issue has a lot to do with politics 
rather than technologies. As long governements allow corporations to 
decide their own way, the biggest losers are the users because of 
vendors lock-ins.


You could say the same thing with WMV, AAC yet they are not wildly adopted.

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W: http://www.thefinalzone.net

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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Marcos Mello]

Fedora Video  gmail.com> writes:
> As everyone probably knows, Mozilla has chosen to adopt H.264. They will be
doing this by finally utilizing OS codecs instead of embedding their own. They
have been quite clear that Linux would be supported too, so obviously this means
H.264 in Fedora. With Firefox's adoption there will be no web browser supported
on Fedora which doesn't support H.264 (Firefox, Chrome, and Konqueror), and not
a moment too soon since flash support on Linux is going away.
>
> Why is Mozilla doing this?  It is clear enough: Non-support of H.264 is making
them irrelevant. They've gone from the #1 browser to the #4 directly as a result
of not adopting H.264.   H.264 is the only video that is good enough for the web
and the alternatives are just as patented which is why Google did not make good
on their commitments to deploy them. Even Youtube only offers WebM on a small
number of unpopular videos: The bandwidth demands of a full WebM deployment
would put them out of business and would break their site on apple devices which
don't work if WebM is offered.
>
> Likewise, we see Fedora's market share dwindle as it is supplanted by Ubuntu
and Debian both, not coincidentally, ship H.264 while Fedora has not.  There can
be no question of freedom here since no one doubts that Debian places freedom as
the highest priority. It is fedora's continued lack of H.264 which is actually
the violation of freedom. Who wants a desktop with zero video support?   Ffmpeg,
VLC, Mplayer, gstreamer, Blender and almost all free software video programs are
based on H.264 and Mpeg. Go look on pirate bay: No one distributes in anything
but mpeg formats.
>
> H.264 is now free for the web and has been free for a long time. It is only
foolish religion which has kept H.264 out of Fedora.
>
> Mozilla and Fedora will not be alone in making this move. Today Wikipedia
announced they would be abandoning Theora and switching to H.264 (they never
adopted WebM).
>
> It is time for Fedora to stop promoting low quality, proprietary, and
unlicensed video like WebM and Theora and adopt the industry standard x264.  Our
political preferences are worthless if Fedora is irrelevant.  It is time to
regain relevance!

You can have "H.264 in Fedora" right now: enable RPM Fusion and install the
FFmpeg libraries. libavcodec plays H.264 just fine (and I think even VA API is
supported for HW decoding).

I suppose Mozilla will use GStreamer on Linux. RPM Fusion has gstreamer-ffmpeg,
which is what you will be looking for.

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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Kevin Kofler]

Avi אבי Alkalay אלקלעי  wrote:
> What are the legal tools that Ubuntu uses so it can ship H.264 ?

It's based on the Isle of Man, not in the USA.

Kevin Kofler

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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Avi אבי Alkalay אלקלעי]

I actually support this idea.

What are the legal tools that Ubuntu uses so it can ship H.264 ?

Em terça-feira, 20 de março de 2012, Fedora Video
escreveu:
>
> As everyone probably knows, Mozilla has chosen to adopt H.264. They will
be doing this by finally utilizing OS codecs instead of embedding their
own. They have been quite clear that Linux would be supported too, so
obviously this means H.264 in Fedora. With Firefox's adoption there will be
no web browser supported on Fedora which doesn't support H.264 (Firefox,
Chrome, and Konqueror), and not a moment too soon since flash support on
Linux is going away.
>
> Why is Mozilla doing this?  It is clear enough: Non-support of H.264 is
making them irrelevant. They've gone from the #1 browser to the #4 directly
as a result of not adopting H.264.   H.264 is the only video that is good
enough for the web and the alternatives are just as patented which is why
Google did not make good on their commitments to deploy them. Even Youtube
only offers WebM on a small number of unpopular videos: The bandwidth
demands of a full WebM deployment would put them out of business and would
break their site on apple devices which don't work if WebM is offered.
>
> Likewise, we see Fedora's market share dwindle as it is supplanted by
Ubuntu and Debian both, not coincidentally, ship H.264 while Fedora has
not.  There can be no question of freedom here since no one doubts that
Debian places freedom as the highest priority. It is fedora's continued
lack of H.264 which is actually the violation of freedom. Who wants a
desktop with zero video support?   Ffmpeg, VLC, Mplayer, gstreamer, Blender
and almost all free software video programs are based on H.264 and Mpeg. Go
look on pirate bay: No one distributes in anything but mpeg formats.
>
> H.264 is now free for the web and has been free for a long time. It is
only foolish religion which has kept H.264 out of Fedora.
>
> Mozilla and Fedora will not be alone in making this move. Today Wikipedia
announced they would be abandoning Theora and switching to H.264 (they
never adopted WebM).
>
> It is time for Fedora to stop promoting low quality, proprietary, and
unlicensed video like WebM and Theora and adopt the industry standard
x264.  Our political preferences are worthless if Fedora is irrelevant.  It
is time to regain relevance!
>
>

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digital media • security • mobility • business intelligence
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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Adam Williamson]

On Tue, 2012-03-20 at 22:48 +, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 11:27:28PM +0100, Kevin Kofler wrote:
> > Patent-encumbered codecs are evil and it is time to embrace 
> > Free codecs.
> 
> Actually, government-granted monopolies are the problem.  The codecs
> and software run just fine, over here in a free(-er) country.

Did you see http://ploum.net/post/working-with-patents ?

One thing I found interesting there was this:

"Not being a patent expert, I nevertheless knew that software patent
were not allowed in Europe. I wondered how I could possibly patent
something that was nothing more than a customized Bayes algorithm. It
looked trivial and purely software. Also, as a Free Software geek, I was
against software patents. Not sure why but I trusted those who were
against it.

I was asked to reconsider my "invention" under another light: I was
using captors to the external world. My prediction had an impact on a
hardware product. In fact, every software patent you can think of can be
reconsidered as an hardware patent. In the extreme case, isn't moving
electron something physical?

Also, everything actually running as hardware can become software. Think
about modelization. Even a plane or a train can exist only as a software
model. It doesn't make sense to make a distinction between software and
hardware patent.

Some patent attorney are specialized into re-writing a software patent
into something that would be accepted by the European patent office. In
the end, it is only a difference in the way you describe things, or pure
hypocrisy.

I was and I'm still convinced. There is no non-arbitrary difference
between hardware, software or even pharmaceutical patents."

I rather suspect that, as described above, it is in practice entirely
possible to patent software in Europe, and the reason there are somewhat
fewer such patents and lawsuits than in the U.S. are really just that
it's somewhat _harder_ to file patents in the EU and anyone worth suing
is certainly doing business in the U.S., so you may as well just do your
suing in East Texas. But I don't think you're really as safe sitting in
the U.K. as you may think...
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Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | identi.ca: adamwfedora
http://www.happyassassin.net

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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 11:27:28PM +0100, Kevin Kofler wrote:
> Patent-encumbered codecs are evil and it is time to embrace 
> Free codecs.

Actually, government-granted monopolies are the problem.  The codecs
and software run just fine, over here in a free(-er) country.

Rich.

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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Kevin Kofler]

Fedora Video wrote:
> It is time for Fedora to stop promoting low quality, proprietary, and
> unlicensed video like WebM and Theora and adopt the industry standard
> x264.  Our political preferences are worthless if Fedora is irrelevant. 
> It is time to regain relevance!

Fedora will never ship patent-encumbered codecs. H.264 support will be added 
when all the patents expire, i.e. in one or two decades. Fedora 17 will NOT 
support H.264. Patent-encumbered codecs are evil and it is time to embrace 
Free codecs. Everyone who cares about the web supports Free codecs. Even 
YouTube has adopted WebM.

Kevin Kofler

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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Simo Sorce]

On Tue, 2012-03-20 at 17:23 -0400, Fedora Video wrote:
> 
> As everyone probably knows, Mozilla has chosen to adopt H.264. They
> will be doing this by finally utilizing OS codecs instead of embedding
> their own. They have been quite clear that Linux would be supported
> too, so obviously this means H.264 in Fedora. With Firefox's adoption
> there will be no web browser supported on Fedora which doesn't support
> H.264 (Firefox, Chrome, and Konqueror), and not a moment too soon
> since flash support on Linux is going away.
> 
> Why is Mozilla doing this?  It is clear enough: Non-support of H.264
> is making them irrelevant. They've gone from the #1 browser to the #4
> directly as a result of not adopting H.264.   H.264 is the only video
> that is good enough for the web and the alternatives are just as
> patented which is why Google did not make good on their commitments to
> deploy them. Even Youtube only offers WebM on a small number of
> unpopular videos: The bandwidth demands of a full WebM deployment
> would put them out of business and would break their site on apple
> devices which don't work if WebM is offered.
> 
> Likewise, we see Fedora's market share dwindle as it is supplanted by
> Ubuntu and Debian both, not coincidentally, ship H.264 while Fedora
> has not.  There can be no question of freedom here since no one doubts
> that Debian places freedom as the highest priority. It is fedora's
> continued lack of H.264 which is actually the violation of freedom.
> Who wants a desktop with zero video support?   Ffmpeg, VLC, Mplayer,
> gstreamer, Blender and almost all free software video programs are
> based on H.264 and Mpeg. Go look on pirate bay: No one distributes in
> anything but mpeg formats.
> 
> H.264 is now free for the web and has been free for a long time. It is
> only foolish religion which has kept H.264 out of Fedora.
> 
> Mozilla and Fedora will not be alone in making this move. Today
> Wikipedia announced they would be abandoning Theora and switching to
> H.264 (they never adopted WebM).
> 
> It is time for Fedora to stop promoting low quality, proprietary, and
> unlicensed video like WebM and Theora and adopt the industry standard
> x264.  Our political preferences are worthless if Fedora is
> irrelevant.  It is time to regain relevance!
> 
Nice trolling, really, but too blatant.

Try again, you may have more luck next time.

Simo.

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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[drago01]

On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 10:23 PM, Fedora Video  wrote:
>
> As everyone probably knows, Mozilla has chosen to adopt H.264. They will be
> doing this by finally utilizing OS codecs instead of embedding their own.
> They have been quite clear that Linux would be supported too, so obviously
> this means H.264 in Fedora. With Firefox's adoption there will be no web
> browser supported on Fedora which doesn't support H.264 (Firefox, Chrome,
> and Konqueror), and not a moment too soon since flash support on Linux is
> going away.
>
> Why is Mozilla doing this?  It is clear enough: Non-support of H.264 is
> making them irrelevant. They've gone from the #1 browser to the #4 directly
> as a result of not adopting H.264.   H.264 is the only video that is good
> enough for the web and the alternatives are just as patented which is why
> Google did not make good on their commitments to deploy them. Even Youtube
> only offers WebM on a small number of unpopular videos: The bandwidth
> demands of a full WebM deployment would put them out of business and would
> break their site on apple devices which don't work if WebM is offered.
>
> Likewise, we see Fedora's market share dwindle as it is supplanted by Ubuntu
> and Debian both, not coincidentally, ship H.264 while Fedora has not.  There
> can be no question of freedom here since no one doubts that Debian places
> freedom as the highest priority. It is fedora's continued lack of H.264
> which is actually the violation of freedom. Who wants a desktop with zero
> video support?   Ffmpeg, VLC, Mplayer, gstreamer, Blender and almost all
> free software video programs are based on H.264 and Mpeg. Go look on pirate
> bay: No one distributes in anything but mpeg formats.
>
> H.264 is now free for the web and has been free for a long time. It is only
> foolish religion which has kept H.264 out of Fedora.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law
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Re: H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Bill Nottingham]

Fedora Video (fedoravi...@gmail.com) said: 
> As everyone probably knows, Mozilla has chosen to adopt H.264. They will be
> doing this by finally utilizing OS codecs instead of embedding their own.
> They have been quite clear that Linux would be supported too, so obviously
> this means H.264 in Fedora. With Firefox's adoption there will be no web
> browser supported on Fedora which doesn't support H.264 (Firefox, Chrome,
> and Konqueror), and not a moment too soon since flash support on Linux is
> going away.

Hi Troll. Don't Troll.

Bill
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H.264 in Fedora 17!

[Fedora Video]

As everyone probably knows, Mozilla has chosen to adopt H.264. They will be
doing this by finally utilizing OS codecs instead of embedding their own.
They have been quite clear that Linux would be supported too, so obviously
this means H.264 in Fedora. With Firefox's adoption there will be no web
browser supported on Fedora which doesn't support H.264 (Firefox, Chrome,
and Konqueror), and not a moment too soon since flash support on Linux is
going away.

Why is Mozilla doing this?  It is clear enough: Non-support of H.264 is
making them irrelevant. They've gone from the #1 browser to the #4 directly
as a result of not adopting H.264.   H.264 is the only video that is good
enough for the web and the alternatives are just as patented which is why
Google did not make good on their commitments to deploy them. Even Youtube
only offers WebM on a small number of unpopular videos: The bandwidth
demands of a full WebM deployment would put them out of business and would
break their site on apple devices which don't work if WebM is offered.

Likewise, we see Fedora's market share dwindle as it is supplanted by
Ubuntu and Debian both, not coincidentally, ship H.264 while Fedora has
not.  There can be no question of freedom here since no one doubts that
Debian places freedom as the highest priority. It is fedora's continued
lack of H.264 which is actually the violation of freedom. Who wants a
desktop with zero video support?   Ffmpeg, VLC, Mplayer, gstreamer, Blender
and almost all free software video programs are based on H.264 and Mpeg. Go
look on pirate bay: No one distributes in anything but mpeg formats.

H.264 is now free for the web and has been free for a long time. It is only
foolish religion which has kept H.264 out of Fedora.

Mozilla and Fedora will not be alone in making this move. Today Wikipedia
announced they would be abandoning Theora and switching to H.264 (they
never adopted WebM).

It is time for Fedora to stop promoting low quality, proprietary, and
unlicensed video like WebM and Theora and adopt the industry standard
x264.  Our political preferences are worthless if Fedora is irrelevant.  It
is time to regain relevance!
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