Re: Why Linux has problems with proprietary multimedia... (was: Interesting article)
On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 5:53 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen roz...@geekspace.com wrote: Apple and Microsoft have paid up royalties on these things ... ... which has me wondering: how does Ubuntu get away with shipping all of the stuff necessary to do DVD-authoring!? While I've never touched Ubuntu's DVD authoring stuff, I can add some additional speculations, in addition to maddog's very cogent points: At a lower level, a DVD is just a filesystem. They don't have to be restricted using anyone's special crypto, nor do they have to use any particular codec. In order for them to play in a consumer appliance which implements DVD Video and *only* DVD Video, the files have to have particular names and use particular codecs, but they still don't need special crypto. Many consumer appliance these days implement additional codecs, meaning the files just have to particular names if you don't care about broad compatibility. Your DVD will not meet DVD Video studio requirements, but presumably you're not interested in that, you just want the damn thing to play. It's *playing* the discs from the big studios that requires all the encumbered crypto and codecs. Legal technicalities may also enter into play. Sometimes the originator is technically in a non-US jurisdiction where they can publish something without paying fees. Sometimes it's legal to distribute but not to use. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Why Linux has problems with proprietary multimedia... (was: Interesting article)
Jon 'maddog' Hall mad...@li.org writes: Not one Linux distro I've seen does a convincing job with consumer media, an absolutely basic requirement, and something we ought to be able to get right. Well, please ask the DVD people not to used royalty bearing patents in their codecs, and encryption practices that would have the DMCA down on the headquarters of Fedora, OpenSUSE and others. movie or sound file H.264? Mpeg3/4/2? Have your friends send you Ogg Vorbis stuff. Plays fine. Apple and Microsoft have paid up royalties on these things (or at least Microsoft thought it had paid up royalties on mp3 until Alcatel/Lucent raised their hand a couple of years ago), so they can ship as many royalty-bearing codecs as they want. ... which has me wondering: how does Ubuntu get away with shipping all of the stuff necessary to do DVD-authoring!? I looked into making DVDs with one of my Debian machines at one point, and quickly accumulated a long list of things that had been intentionally left out of Debian due to clear-and-present patent dangers, and that I decided against pursuing *not* out of fear for the *technical* issues involved (pshaw!) but out of fear that I end up setting myself up for some patent-troll to `pursue a cross-licensing relationship with' me (did I get that euphamism right?) in the future. -- Don't be afraid to ask (λf.((λx.xx) (λr.f(rr. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Why Linux has problems with proprietary multimedia... (was: Interesting article)
... which has me wondering: how does Ubuntu get away with shipping all of the stuff necessary to do DVD-authoring!? Ahhh, what does it meant to do DVD-authoring? Moving encoded bits on a DVD? No problem! Taking video bits from my video camera (encoded into Mpeg) and putting it onto my DVD? No problem! Making a DVD of Ogg Theora? No problem! Encoding? Depends on the patents involved, the licensing around the patents, and so forth. The results of the encoding? The H.264 patent group has recently released yet another wave of grace over mpeg-4 streams free to end users would not have to have royalties paid on the *streams*. Of course what free to end users is creates another whole bag of worms. I looked into making DVDs with one of my Debian machines at one point, and quickly accumulated a long list of things that had been intentionally left out of Debian due to clear-and-present patent dangers, and that I decided against pursuing *not* out of fear for the *technical* issues involved (pshaw!) but out of fear that I end up setting myself up for some patent-troll to `pursue a cross-licensing relationship with' me (did I get that euphamism right?) in the future. You have to watch those relationships with Trolls.they create really ugly offspring. Now I think I am going to have a beer.I need a beer md ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
