

Open Letter to Steve Jobs (and a reply) - ZeroGravitas
http://blogs.fsfe.org/hugo/2010/04/open-letter-to-steve-jobs/

======
alec
"A patent pool is being assembled to go after Theora and other “open source”
codecs now."

That's kind of scary.

~~~
davidw
Is it real? I am no fan of Apple or Jobs, but it almost sounds _too evil_.

Edit: in reply to a "tweet" of mine, he posted the headers:

<http://hugoroy.eu/jobs-os.php>

It's really hard to believe they'd be such arrogant jerks as to go after
something open source like that.

~~~
chc
This isn't "Apple" or "Jobs" going after anyone. Jobs is stating that members
of MPEG-LA plan to do so. If Steve Jobs mentioning that _other people_ plan to
sue is an example of Jobs being "evil," then logically you must be evil too
since you have also mentioned the potential lawsuit.

------
pyre
[http://www.osnews.com/story/23058/Theora_More_of_a_Patent_Th...](http://www.osnews.com/story/23058/Theora_More_of_a_Patent_Threat_than_H264_Wait_What_)

    
    
      For 15 years, Xiph.Org has carefully "played by the
      rules," fully within the bounds, intent, and letter of
      intellectual property and patent law. For the past ten
      years we've informed the entire world, including MPEG LA,
      of our specifications and algorithms in detail. We've
      requested in open letters that any group believing we
      are infringing to inform us so that we make take
      immediate corrective action.
    
      I predict that MPEG LA may counter that they know
      groups have been pressured into licensing patents in order
      to use Theora. This has been a recent back-room assertion.
      You might want to ask point blank if MPEG LA itself or any
      of its constituent members has engaged in this practice,
      thus manufacturing the evidence that "vindicates" their
      patent allegations. I beg you - tell me immediately if you
      get a straight answer (or good video of any squirming)!
    
      I'm sure you can tell I'm a bit peeved; this has been going
      on for over a decade. It's amazing they've never been
      called out on it.

------
andr
While I agree with the spirit of the message to Steve, the attack on Apple not
sharing back open source software modifications is out of place. Darwin is
open source. WebKit is open source and actively developed by Apple, giving
competitors the ability to quickly catch up with one of the iPhone's biggest
advantages. Apple is also the chief contributor to LLVM.

~~~
tsuraan
Webkit is open-source because the people who wrote it (KDE devs) put it under
the LGPL. Apple was playing catch-up, and used the best code base they could
to get started. They aren't philanthropists, they are just (grudgingly)
abiding by the license of the software they are building on.

~~~
scott_s
That's true of all companies that contribute to open source.

~~~
eru
How do you come to that conclusion?

~~~
scott_s
I thought it was obvious. Perhaps I should rephrase it: All for-profit
companies contribute to open-source because it benefits them.

~~~
eru
Yes, at least the companies should aim for that.

I asked because some companies embrace the benefit and do not grudge.

~~~
GHFigs
What grudge? How are you measuring grudge-ness? How do I know with confidence
whether a company is grudging or not? And furthermore, why would I care?

~~~
eru
What do I know. One of the ancestor comments introduced the concept: "They
aren't philanthropists, they are just (grudgingly) abiding by the license of
the software they are building on."

As an attempt to answer: They can just satisfy the letter of the GPL by a code
dump--which I would count as grudgingly, or they can embrace open development.

------
jcl
_All video codecs are covered by patents._

All the popular ones, maybe. But MPEG-1 is over twenty years old, so unless
there is a submarine patent out there, all the patents on it have already
expired. Likewise, most aspects of MPEG-2 should be freed up within a decade.
Even H.264 will eventually be unencumbered, given enough time.

~~~
blasdel
On2 had a pile of active patents covering VP3, which they granted irrevocable
royalty-free licenses to when they abandoned it to become Theora.

Nobody's ever done codec development without either filing a ton of patents or
at least publishing rigorous documentation to establish prior art (Dirac).
Some of those patents may no longer be in force, but they still exist.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
The On2 patents on VP3 only covered some optimization techniques and are not
required to implement VP3 or Theora.

------
jamesbressi
Steve has been quite busy with his email lately. I don't remember him ever
doing this much correspondence via email.

Very interesting.

~~~
commieneko
He's been doing this for years. I know several people that have gotten terse,
3 or 4 word responses to him. It's only recently that the press and the
bloggers have noticed this.

~~~
zweben
He's been doing short emails for years, and the occasional open letter, but it
seems that he's doing it a lot more as of late.

Presumably in response to all the recent Apple controversy.

~~~
jonknee
Either that or more people are posting/linking them.

~~~
mbrubeck
Yeah, 5-10 years ago no one except the niche community of Mac users and
developers was following Apple this closely. It's almost hard to remember how
small Apple's influence had gotten by the time of Steve's return - before the
iMac, iPod, iPhone, or iPad. How many people even remember products like
"Performa" or "eMate"?

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wrs
I really wish people would stop redefining the word "open" to mean whatever
makes them feel good. (Vain hope.) Patents are totally orthogonal to
copyrights and standards. You can put the source under whatever terms you
want, and get whatever international standards body you want to bless the
protocol, and that has nothing whatever to do with the patent troll who will
show up the next day and start charging license fees.

------
jsz0
_you like Openness so much that when you use “Open Source” Software to build
your Mac operating system_

Only some parts of it. The bulk of OSX is closed source.

 _May I remind you that H.264 is not an open standard?_

Jobs said H.264 is an _industry standard_ not an open standard

~~~
boredguy8
But the whole point in this debate is that Flash is also, for better or worse,
an industry standard.

~~~
pohl
Is there a specification?

I think "de facto standard" is a more appropriate phrase for Flash.

~~~
vetinari
Yes, there is (<http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/>).

It is even available gratis (H.264 specification is not).

~~~
pohl
Interesting, but I don't see how one could create a complete implementation
without a spec for the Sorensen Spark codec.

~~~
wmf
Sorenson Spark == H.263 (not a typo), which is documented. The problem with
Flash is VP6, although FFMPEG reverse engineered it.

~~~
vetinari
Actually, it is based on a draft h.263, not the final h.263.

One of the older flash specification did document it. The svq3 specification
was removed from swf specs around time it was made available under more
liberal license (Sorenson probably didn't agree with wider specs
availability).

------
btilly
Hopefully Bilski renders these patent issues moot. I really, really hope that.

And if it does, I expect multi-media to improve quite a bit in the next 2
years.

~~~
Quarrelsome
If you don't know what "Bilski" is (like me). I founds us a link:

<http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Bilski_overview>

------
bingobongo
"A lot of commercial software comes with H.264 encoders and decoders, and some
computers arrive with this software preinstalled. This leads a lot of people
to believe that they can legally view and create H.264 videos for whatever
purpose they like. Unfortunately for them, it ain’t so. Maybe the best example
comes from the Final Cut Pro license:"

[http://bemasc.net/wordpress/2010/02/02/no-you-cant-do-
that-w...](http://bemasc.net/wordpress/2010/02/02/no-you-cant-do-that-
with-h264/)

------
ErrantX
I think that, ultimately, Apple have as much ability to define what an Open
Standard means as the FSF within the context of what they are saying.

As it happens I think I agree with where Jobs is coming from... or rather I
think this letter nit picks at a specific phrase (Open Standard) that SJ's was
just using in a different way to how the FSF would.

Ultimately what Jobs meant by Open Standard was reasonably apparent (for the
reasons laid out in this letter!) so nit picking over it seems a meta point.

------
tlb
h.264 is far, far more open than Flash. What matters is that the spec is
public and that you can choose from many implementations. There are no usable
competing implementations of Flash, but dozens for h.264 including excellent
open-source ones.

The h.264 terms aren't onerous. If you ship less than 100,000 devices you pay
nothing. At large scale, it's $0.10 / unit. When selling hardware, that's a
pretty light tax.

As Jobs points out, Theora is not immune to patents. On2's many patents are
irrevocably licensed for free, but there are thousands more patents that may
apply held by trolls. It sucks to ship devices with unknown patent
liabilities. It almost destroyed RIM, for example.

~~~
dhimes
Here's a summary of the license terms:

[http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Documents/AVC_TermsS...](http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Documents/AVC_TermsSummary.pdf)

Let's say you make videos and sell access to them on your web site on a title-
by-title basis :) Videos <= 12 min, no charge. Videos > 12 min, USD $0.02 per
title or 2% of access price, whichever is less.

~~~
cpr
Oh, maybe that's the basis of the general YouTube 10-minute limit...

~~~
dhimes
Perhaps, but that policy would be forward-looking. Current there's no charge
for web delivered content if you don't charge for access.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
It pays to be forward looking when your supplier reserves the rights to re-
negotiate your terms.

------
randomposter
[http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/theora/2010-April/003766.htm...](http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/theora/2010-April/003766.html)

also

[http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/theora/2010-April/003769.htm...](http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/theora/2010-April/003769.html)

------
KevinBongart
I don't get it.

In his open letter, Jobs explains why he chose HTML5 and H.264 instead of
Flash, and the author here doesn't not answer about Flash but H.264.

Even though Theora looks more open than H.264 _for video_ , I think
HTML5/H.264 still stands more open than Flash _for the entire web_.

So, yes, Theora sounds cool, but that's not Jobs point. The point is, get rid
of Flash.

------
PontusVull
The writer seems to think that an open standard must be free of cost but is
that actually true? Or is it just what many would like to be true?

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Most standards, up until the turn of the century, were required by governments
to have RAND licensing terms in order to prevent abuse of market power. That's
Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory, so you could charge fees but couldn't mess
with competitors.

Governments are now pushing for Open Standards which must be RAND-Z or RAND-
RF. Z stands for Zero cost, RF for Royalty Free. These Open Standards make
much more sense for software or services delivered at low or no cost via the
web, or as Free or Open Source software.

------
kgrad
Could someone please explain to me how Flash isn't open? To my knowledge,
everything about flash is open other than Adobe's IDE. The spec has been
released, the sdk is OSS and anyone is free to compile to SWF... Am I mistaken
here?

~~~
pmjordan
The player certainly very much isn't open, aside from the Tamarin runtime.

~~~
kgrad
Can you qualify that statement? edit: You are correct, the player provided by
Adobe is not open.

However, anyone is free to make their own player, one alternative player is
Gnash: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnash>

~~~
pmjordan
I can. "License: Proprietary freeware EULA" on
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Player>

And the argument that anyone is free to re-implement is just as valid for
anything. The fact of the matter is that thousands of man-years have gone into
building Flash Player, and replicating them is far from a straightforward
task. The spec is huge, and there are millions of .swf files to which an
alternative implementation needs to be compatible. It's a bit like suggesting
someone re-implement Windows if they don't like Microsoft's version of it.
It's open, right? Anyone can look up the ABI for user space executables,
kernel drivers, etc., so how hard could it be? ReactOS (or Wine) hard, as it
turns out.

Note also that for the supposedly open components, Adobe controls them so
tightly, they are only "look but don't touch" open. Openness is only useful
insofar as you can actually do something with the information or code. They
maintain this control precisely because they have an iron grip on the player.
There is no point for a third party to extend the Flash spec or compiler,
because they can't realistically build an implementation that actually runs
code obeying the forked spec. It's as ridiculous as creating a driver to run
on a hypothetical version of Windows. Yes, you can do it, but it's also
completely pointless.

~~~
kgrad
Thanks for the link, you are certainly correct that adobes player is
proprietary, but I provided you with a link to an alternate player... Just
because something is hard to reproduce doesn't make it closed. Do you consider
java closed because Sun/Oracle makes the best applet viewer?

I am not trying to say Adobe is guilt free or anything, but it looks to me
like they are making it as open as they can, unless I am missing something.

~~~
pmjordan
No, I consider Java to be open because it is licensed under the GPL, an Open
Source/Free Software license.

 _but it looks to me like they are making it as open as they can_

With all due respect, you're either trolling or extremely ignorant for someone
reading HN. In case of the latter, please educate yourself and read up on the
difference between proprietary and open source software. Also take note that
"freeware" does _not_ fall under the definition of "open" software.

FWIW I will flag any further trollish comments.

~~~
kgrad
I am sorry if you are offended by my ignorance. I am not currently arguing
that the flash player provided by adobe is open. I conceded a while ago that
the flash player provided by adobe is proprietary. However, an alternate flash
player exists and you can program SWF without ever touching an Adobe product.
There is a spec and open tools for doing so. I was simply under the impression
that Flash was open minus Adobes implementation and am trying to see why
everyone is saying it is not.

edit: I don't understand why me disagreeing with you automatically makes me a
troll. People are quick to jump on people who don't agree with their
viewpoints.

------
madmaze
Props to Steve to actually answer to this open letter, but i think he could
have put a little more effort into it, sounds like he has no confidence in
open source. I wish apple would be a little more involved in open source.

~~~
illumin8
I think Steve has plenty of confidence in open source. He's just a realist and
understands that current software patent law doesn't really allow for
completely open video codecs. Even if you create an open implementation of
them, you're going to be subject to patent lawsuits, and as we know, most open
source projects don't have the funding to withstand the legal battles.

------
quizbiz
Why doesn't he at least say something about Apple's closed ecosystem?

------
morphir
may I add that software patents are non-existent here in Europe. So a codec
made here in Europe should not have to worry about infringing anything..

------
papachito
I asked on the Theora mailing list their thoughts on SJ's answer and this is
what I got from one of the dev:

> (...) A patent pool is being assembled to go after Theora and other “open
> source” codecs now. >

I think that's great news... If the "industry" finally compiles a list of
patents that they think theora voilates we can:

1\. find prior art. 2\. work around the possible valid patents.

Afterwards all the submarine patents are gone, and we can prove it...

~~~
CamperBob
_Afterwards all the submarine patents are gone, and we can prove it..._

Well, no, only the submarine patents from MPEG-LA signatories are gone.

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gizmomagico
Oh, who cares about H264 compared to 3.3.1..

~~~
CamperBob
Exactly. This whole video-codec business is a nice bit of deflection on Jobs's
part.

