Lead OGG Dev Responds to Jobs

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Gregory Maxwell, lead dev of the OGG container and Theora and Vorbis, has responded to Steve Jobs' patent infringement threat.
"Since the developers of Theora have received no such contact, I can only conclude that no such effort is being undertaken and that the quoted statement is either a forgery, the result of a misunderstanding, or that the statement may be indicative of a dishonest and anti-competitive collusion by Apple and other H.264 patent holders to interfere which the development, promotion, and utilization of unencumbered media standards."
Click to expand...
 
I haven't been keeping up with the web wars on audio codecs but, this article was very interesting. Gregory Maxwell's comments on the minefields of 'open standard' coding was very informative. I would love to hear a debate between him and Steve Jobs.
 
Just, wow.

Apple are really turning into Appholes lately.

It was bad enough to see them apply for a patent to cripple your iPod/iPad/iPhone if you don't "interact" with their new iAds, but now to go after something like this?

All this from the man who used to preach against doing this very sort of thing, ah, but there's no money to be made that way.....
 
Ya know, I'm not a big fan of off and the associated codecs but he has it spot on. Doing open dev work in the codec space has got to be madening since most of the current implementations share a close history.
 
Wow. That is a model reply- no bitching, directly addresses what was said, and clearly states his claim. I like it. More tech people should follow his example (cough cough Adobe...)
 
i'm waiting for someon to remake the apple "1984" add with steve jobs as the crazy screaming dictator LOL
 
I agree with him that MPEG-LA (patent extortion cartel) are a bunch of sneaky bastards and the whole patent system is a complete mess that stifles innovation.

But I don't see anything that shields Ogg-Theora. The Patent system is so screwed, it seems extremely likely that once there is someone to sue(someone with money), there will be lawsuits.

If you remember just recently, Microsoft convinced HTC to cough up cash for using Android, with some unknown patent threat.

I am sure you could have a daily report on some ridiculous patent lawsuit. It is only a matter of time until Ogg faces one.
 
I already hate teh patent system, but if OGG loses this, I'm going to be severely pissed.
 
While it is well known that patents have been issued for the blindingly obvious and things already patented numerous times, it would be fairly difficult to break theora via patents.

[Actually, it would be quite easy. You could take a patent for a car muffler, and insist that theora violated it all the way to the jury and see how long ogg could pay the bills.]

From what I've seen of theora, it looks like a rehash of mpeg-1 (easily over 17 years old). They change how the bits are laid out, a few constants here and there, but it seems to make almost all the same choices as mpeg-1 (trying to find differences in mpeg-1 and mpeg-2 is also difficult. The audio (mp3) is obvious, but the video isn't).

From the looks of it, a bunch of guys at Apple, etc, want to get the mpeg-LA group to get their own patents invalidated. Considering just how derivative each spec has been since the old jpeg spec, I'd hope that most of these patents could be blown away (think yet another way to handle little-endian/big-endian byte ordering).
 
Here is a nice article on Patent issues and H.261/MPEG 1.

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2008/7/18/232618/312

If Theora is essentially MPEG 1, it should be free.

But with how broken our patent system is, and how much money is on the line, and how many lawers MPEG-LA will muster, I am not hopeful.

I keep hoping that Google Opens VP8 and backs it with their money/lawyers. It is also supposed to do a much better job than Theora.
 
No one cares. The OGG project has been crying for years about "open" codecs and trying to strongarm their way into the industry as a competitor to MPEG. At this point they are the laughingstock of the A/V enthusiast community because their codec sucks and everyone knows they are whiny little kids.

It would be deliciously ironic if it turns out their "open" codec was ripped off from protected technology.
 
Remember this was in response to the question: "Why aren't you supporting Theora". Jobs tends to say stuff without getting filtered, his response just means he is aware of some things going on, not that he is instigating it. Probably more than he should have said.

Microsoft also answers this question with the uncertainty around other codecs with a much more political and filtered answer:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/05/03/follow-up-on-html5-video-in-ie9.aspx

It is interesting that MPEG-LA has a patent trolling subsidiary(MobileMedia):
http://techdirt.com/articles/20100430/0232599255.shtml

"Even more unusual is that one of the companies targeted in MobileMedia's initial batch of suits is Apple"
Click to expand...

The whole patent system just makes me want to barf...
 
apple is really trying to be a dick to everyone now, or it seems like they are shooting at anything that moves.
 
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