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Software patents and encumbered formatsSoftware patents and encumbered formatsPosted Mar 14, 2008 14:41 UTC (Fri) by epa (subscriber, #39769)Parent article: Nokia on its relationship with the open source community The best thing Nokia could do for the free software community is to stop their lobbying for software patents in Europe, and stop working against free formats like Ogg. That said, there is no reason not to work with Nokia on particular projects, just as there is no reason not to work with Microsoft or any other company in specific areas.
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Software patents and encumbered formats Posted Mar 14, 2008 21:43 UTC (Fri) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] As I understand it, Nokia, and others, are worried that Ogg might not really be free. Yes, as far as we know there are no patents to be infringed, but Microsoft recently got burned for a lot of money over MP3 patents, even though it had paid up in full to the MP3 patent consortium. This is because Alcatel figured out that they had two applicable patents that weren't part of the pool, years afterward.The fear is that someone is sitting out there waiting for a big player to get behind Ogg, and then to whip out some ancient, unnoticed patent and demand hundreds of millions. It's difficult to prove that no such patent exists. I don't know if there is any way to address these fears. I think that the Ogg folks can assure people that nothing on the big MP3 patent list is infringed by Ogg, because it was carefully designed to be different. But the worry is that some other patent is out there lurking, perhaps a submarine patent that had already been filed when Ogg was designed. I can't be certain if this is Nokia's real issue. If it is, perhaps there is some way to address it.
Software patents and encumbered formats Posted Mar 14, 2008 22:07 UTC (Fri) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] Obviously, one way to address the problem is to get rid of software patents, or at least not actively try to make the situation worse as Nokia has done. Yes, it is hard to be sure there is no lurking patent that covers Ogg. The same is true for MP3 and any other format. The only consolation you have with MP3 is the thought that if somebody had a patent they probably would have asserted it by now. But then that's surely what Microsoft thought.
Re: Nokia and Ogg Posted Mar 15, 2008 6:00 UTC (Sat) by ldo (subscriber, #40946) [Link]
So a closed-source vendor got burned. Yes, Open Source is vulnerable, too, but so is all software, as your example indicates. What can the Ogg folks, or other open-source folks, do about it? Nothing. The problem is with software patents in general. Get rid of those, and the problem goes away. Why should software be the only product in the world that benefits from two kinds of legal protection, both copyright and patent?
Re: Nokia and Ogg Posted Mar 16, 2008 4:40 UTC (Sun) by omez (subscriber, #6904) [Link] "copyright and patent" and contract law.
Software patents and encumbered formats Posted Mar 14, 2008 22:20 UTC (Fri) by DonDiego (subscriber, #24141) [Link] Ogg is a container format, not a video or audio codec. It can contain payload data encoded in a multitude of video and audio formats, which may or may not be covered by software patents. When you call Ogg a "free format", you are confusing this distinction and your argument becomes invalid.
Software patents and encumbered formats Posted Mar 15, 2008 0:23 UTC (Sat) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] Oh... I was going to say Ogg Vorbis, but I thought that Vorbis referred to a particular program implementing the encoding and decoding, and not to the spec of the audio file itself. What is the technically correct way to refer to the most popular Ogg audio format?
Software patents and encumbered formats Posted Mar 15, 2008 7:39 UTC (Sat) by DonDiego (subscriber, #24141) [Link] Vorbis, not Ogg Vorbis, since Vorbis can be stored in containers other than Ogg and the name of the audio codec is just plain Vorbis.
Supposedly unencumbered formats Posted Mar 15, 2008 8:01 UTC (Sat) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link] > What is the technically correct way to refer to the most popular Ogg audio format? Ogg Vorbis.
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