LWN: Comments on "The Second GPLv3 Conference"

Is this the Free Software Foundation we're talking about?

sepreece — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 15:10:39 +0000

And, of course, one of those essential freedoms is presumably that someone other than the FSF could convert the video to other formats and make them available to people who don't have easy access to the free format. I think that's at least a little bit of the FSF's point, even if it's maybe not their favorite bit.

Yes, but!

xoddam — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 07:51:51 +0000

True. The developer of the codec on which Theora is (was originally?)
based owns patents on the techniques. But they have licenced them to all
users, for any purpose.

From the top of http://www.theora.org/svn.html :

"On2 represents and warrants that it shall not assert any rights relating
to infringement of On2's registered patents, nor initiate any litigation
asserting such rights, against any person who, or entity which utilizes
the On2 VP3 Codec Software, including any use, distribution, and sale of
said Software; which make changes, modifications, and improvements in
said Software; and to use, distribute, and sell said changes as well as
applications for other fields of use."

Is this the Free Software Foundation we're talking about?

TwoTimeGrime — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 07:22:18 +0000

> I think most of the formats you mention are patent-encumbered

They are all patent-encumbered, including Theora.

The Second GPLv3 Conference

drag — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 12:34:55 +0000

well I am sorry if I can off a bit harse... I didn't realy mean to sound quite like I did on that reply.

I am using Debian and every media player I tried can view this video flawlessly. Totem, Xine, VLC, Mplayer. All track, pause, rewind, play, fast forward with no issues.

Now if I can do that on my little Linux install and you can't do that with Microsoft media player in Windows... I think that your problem is that your using MS media player classic instead of it being FSF's problem with choosing to encode in Theora.

People that I've seen that use Windows tend to have better luck with VLC. http://www.videolan.org/ VLC is generally to have better codec support then MS Media Player, as well as itself being Free software. (just because your stuck using a closed source OS doesn't mean you can benifit from open source yourself)

As well as DirectShow filters (if you insist on avoiding VLC), you also have FFdshow filters, as well as plugin support for Realplayer.

And for Linux you don't need a GUI to watch a video...

mplayer -vo aa gplv3-draft1-release.ogg

Works over SSH even. ;-)

The evil of codec patents

eru — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 08:52:01 +0000

> No liberty has to be sacrificed to encode into a different format.

I think most of the formats you mention are patent-encumbered, and a strict interpretation would conclude that some liberty is being given up to use them. But IANAL, I have not researched the details of the patent licences, and for all I know you're right.

In fact, i think all of them are encumbered, even MPEG-1. For some reason patenting video and audio codecs has been the norm for longer than with other software. Possibly because they often originate in the traditional telecom and broadcasting worlds. The best one can hope is the patents expire some day. The basic MPEG-1 spec is from 1993 (see http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/standards/mpeg-1/mpeg-1.htm) so it just might be free in about 9 years time.

Or then not. Figuring this out is hellishly difficult: One would have to hunt down all essential patents related to the standard and find when they expire in various part of the world. It is also likely that common encoding technologies in use have patents applied for after the spec was published, because the MPEG-1 spec just tells you the syntax and meaning of the data, not what algorithms you use to generate it with.

This locking out free and open-source implementations of standards is one of the best examples of why software patents truly are evil.

Is this the Free Software Foundation we're talking about?

xoddam — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 07:17:54 +0000

> No liberty has to be sacrificed to encode into a different format.

I think most of the formats you mention are patent-encumbered, and a
strict interpretation would conclude that some liberty is being given up
to use them. But IANAL, I have not researched the details of the patent
licences, and for all I know you're right.

Still, there is the question of what is being encouraged and endorsed.
No freedom would have been sacrificed to publish their essays in
Microsoft Office formats supported by free programs, nor to read .doc
attachments, but the FSF has never accepted correspondence in Word
format, because to do so acknowledges the dominance and endorses the use
of proprietary software.

If, by offering a Theora video, the FSF has boosted the user base of the
format and increased public awareness of Free Software innovation, it has
advanced the cause of freedom.

> I feel that the FSF is biting off its nose to spite its face by
> not making an effort to be more accessable to new comers and
> other interested parties that might not be using an entirely
> free environment.

Stallman has always been so accused of being inflexible. So far, it is
working.

Is this the Free Software Foundation we're talking about?

TwoTimeGrime — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 06:50:51 +0000

[sorry, I hit publish when I meant to preview]

> The FSF chooses not to sacrifice essential liberty for a little
> temporary convenience. Not even the convenience of Windows users

It's not just convenience. Putting the video into a more accessable format means that you don't lock out users that may not be able to play the video in its current form. Theora doesn't come installed on the most widely used desktop OS's. Users who may not be in a position to install software on their computers, such as those who use computers only at work, could still watch the video on their systems if it were available in a format they could play.

Making it available in MPEG-1 (a lowest common denominator) means that the video could easily be converted into a VideoCD. It could then be playable by those that do not have access to a computer or would prefer to watch it on their television via a DVD player.

No liberty has to be sacrificed to encode into a different format. Although there might be patents covering the creating of encoding software to formats such as WMV or even of the formats themselves, many of the tools are available at no charge to make the conversion. Some are even licensed under the GPL. For example, Windows Media Encoder is a free download from Microsoft's site. Tools such as TMPEGEnc can convert the video to MPEG-1 which could be put on a VideoCD for easier viewing on a DVD player. There are also open source solutions. One could use the GPL licensed VirtualDub along with the GPL licensed XviD MPEG-4 codec to encode the video to MPEG-4.

It's great that coriordan made a transcript available. It was excellent and suited my needs. But I feel that the FSF is biting off its nose to spite its face by not making an effort to be more accessable to new comers and other interested parties that might not be using an entirely free environment. I think they can easily include those people without compromising any principles.

[note that I'm not advocating abondoning Theora but instead making videos available in more than one format when they are released.]

Is this the Free Software Foundation we're talking about?

TwoTimeGrime — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 06:07:28 +0000

> The FSF chooses not to sacrifice essential liberty for a little
> temporary convenience. Not even the convenience of Windows users

No liberty has to be sacrificed to encode into a different format.

Is this the Free Software Foundation we're talking about?

xoddam — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 23:16:20 +0000

> Making the video available in a variety of formats to accommodate
> the needs of the user should be more important than using an
> obscure format because it's ideologically correct.

The FSF chooses not to sacrifice essential liberty for a little
temporary convenience. Not even the convenience of Windows users :-)

The Second GPLv3 Conference

TwoTimeGrime — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 21:03:32 +0000

> Try using something remotely modern...

I do. I use WindowsXP as my desktop OS with open source Media Player Classic as my media player.

> Theora is Free software and frankly its not that hard to deal with if
> your using a decent Linux distro.

None of my linux boxes use GUIs. I'm not going to buy another machine and install a desktop Linux distro just to watch one video.

> And since we are dealing with FSF group and RMS asking them to distribute
> a video in mpeg-1 format when there are perfectly good free alternatives
> like Theora... You might as well tell them that you want it DRM encoded
> in WMV9 format.

WMV9 would be fine, as would WMV8, WMV6, QuickTime, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, or any number of other formats. I just want to view the video in my desktop OS of choice without having to deal with buggy Theora decoder implementations that are preventing me from viewing the video in its entirety. Making the video available in a variety of formats to accomodate the needs of the user should be a more important than using an obscure format because it's ideologically correct.

> No patent infringments, no licensing issues.

There are also no patent infringments or licensing issues with encoding and distributing in alternate formats such as WMV or QuickTime.

The Second GPLv3 Conference

drag — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 04:12:33 +0000

Try using something remotely modern...

Theora is Free software and frankly its not that hard to deal with if your using a decent Linux distro. No patent infringments, no licensing issues. It's completely and 100% Free software codec. Just like speex or vorbis.

Them making video or audio usign Free Software using mpeg format is technically illegal in the US. Asking US citizens to decode mpeg formats in Linux is technically illegal.

And since we are dealing with FSF group and RMS asking them to distribute a video in mpeg-1 format when there are perfectly good free alternatives like Theora... You might as well tell them that you want it DRM encoded in WMV9 format.

here's a transcript, and info on my software setup

TwoTimeGrime — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 22:47:18 +0000

Wow, thanks for doing that. That will work quite well!

here's a transcript, and info on my software setup

coriordan — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 19:48:47 +0000

You could read the transcript I made.

The video works fine for me. I use the Totem player with the xine backend. I think I tried it with the gstreamer backend but that didn't work. I'm using Debian stable, so my packages are not exactly bleeding edge :-).

The Second GPLv3 Conference

TwoTimeGrime — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 18:44:05 +0000

By the way, if someone was able to convert the video to MPEG I would appreciate it if I were able to get a copy.

The Second GPLv3 Conference

TwoTimeGrime — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 17:33:47 +0000

If they make another video I hope it's made available in a common format like MPEG-1 rather than an obscure format such as Theora. I downloaded the Theora codecs to watch the video but I guess the decoders have bugs. My player would often crash if I paused and then attempted to restart the playback. Trying to skip ahead would often, but not always, crash the player as well. I really wanted to watch the video but sitting for 2 1/2 hours without a break just isn't something I was able to do.

I finally gave up trying to watch it.