

HTML5, H.264 and Free Software: it's the wrong game - jwr
http://jan.rychter.com/enblog/2010/1/25/html5-h264-and-free-software-its-the-wrong-game.html

======
ZeroGravitas
The blog claims that you can't develop a video codec without tripping over
patents but then links, approvingly, to an article written by the lawyer who
okayed using Theora in Mozilla, talking about why he thinks there isn't any
patent problem with Theora.

(At least the original author points out this patent situation is a terrible
situation, I've seen this same point made repeatedly with responses that range
from fatalistic acceptance through to a bizarre sense of triumph over
_freetards_.)

~~~
jwr
If you read that article carefully ("What’s the Problem with Theora?"), you'll
notice that while significant research has been made, no one can actually be
sure there are no submarine patents. The author doesn't say he "think there
isn't any patent problem with Theora", he very carefully says that he hasn't
found any.

And that is precisely my point — since you can never be entirely sure, using
Theora (or VP6, or any other video codec for that matter) won't solve much in
the long term.

BTW, as a related note it should be mentioned that at least Theora developers
chose the right license for this kind of code — BSD. This avoids the huge
landmine that x264 has set up for itself: the anti-patent clause in the
LGPL/GPL (section 7 of the GPL).

~~~
bad_user
> _And that is precisely my point — since you can never be entirely sure,
> using Theora (or VP6, or any other video codec for that matter) won't solve
> much in the long term._

That's just silly.

It's easier to defend against a submarine patent of which you knew nothing
about, than to defend against MPEG-LA in case you just breached their license.
Not to mention that nothing guarantees that you won't get sued with a
submarine patent even when you have a legally licensed H.264

Plus ... we simply don't have too many patent threats that go to trial. The
best case scenario would actually be for Theora to become a widely popular
standard, and then for Mozilla to get sued for it ... the public needs such
trials, and the supreme court of justice also needs such trials ... how else
would could they realize that software patents are so dumb? The reality is
that such threats are usually settled out of court.

Not to mention that when a company has the resources and the trial goes public
gathering lots of supporters, the patent troll tends to get screwed (see SCO
vs Novell).

~~~
ZeroGravitas
As a general reply, since you three all used the phrase _submarine patent_ ,
I'm fairly certain that term gets thrown around in a misleading manner.

A submarine patent isn't just someone coming along and saying _I have a patent
on what you're doing so stop it and/or give me money_. The technical term for
that is just "patents", that's what they're for.

A _submarine patent_ is a particular type of patent hi-jinx which is no longer
possible in the US (though some may still be waiting to surface, from the time
it was possible to create them):

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_patent>

------
bitdiddle
Eben Moglen [1] predicts major patent reform is coming. I thought this video a
great perspective on historical patent law in the US and the absurdity of
software patents. It's lengthy but well worth the viewing.

[1] <http://www.isoc-ny.org/?p=1009>

