[opensuse] Microsoft ordered to pay Alcatel-Lucent $1.5 bln in patent case - MarketWatch
Be carefull with illegal MP3 codecs, you might be fined: "SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- A federal court jury in San Diego on Thursday returned a $1.52 billion verdict against Microsoft Corp. after finding it infringed on two digital audio patents owned by Alcatel-Lucent." http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/microsoft-ordered-pay-alcatel-lucent-15/story.aspx?guid=%7B1DD3996C%2D8037%2D4528%2D9203%2DA612C9AD2564%7D&siteid=yhoo&dist=yhoo Next time use ogg, MS. -- Richard Bos Without a home the journey is endless -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Friday 23 February 2007 15:10, Richard Bos wrote:
Next time use ogg, MS. Yessssssss.
... and its about time. M$ is on the way out.... -- Kind regards, M Harris <>< -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Friday 23 February 2007 15:10, Richard Bos wrote:
Next time use ogg, MS. Yessssssss.
... and its about time. M$ is on the way out.... As much as I dislike MS, I still want to see justice and fairness. When you are finished laughing, can anyone explain this? I have read
M Harris wrote: the link and others but I must be missing something. If MS paid Fraunhofer what's the beef? Alcatel-Lucent thinks the money should have been paid to them instead? To keep this on topic, I suppose this is why the mp3 stuff is broke in SuSE now? Novell is afraid the Alcatel-Lucent goons will come after them next? Damon Register -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Saturday 24 February 2007 12:51, Damon Register wrote:
As much as I dislike MS, I still want to see justice and fairness. When you are finished laughing, can anyone explain this? I have read the link and others but I must be missing something. If MS paid Fraunhofer what's the beef? Alcatel-Lucent thinks the money should have been paid to them instead?
I think it shows the wisdom of Novell's and other distros' decision to tread warily in this crappy software patent stuff. The only sensible thing is to go for free formats, and if anything good comes out of this debacle it will make companies put this higher up the priority list. Basically, Fraunhofer was taken to be the licensor, since it had the patent on the compression technology, so they were the ones everyone paid. But Lucent also claimed a patent on some part of mp3 (I don't know whether it was the compression or something else), and decided to sue Gateway and Dell for damages, in that they were providing equipment that allowed people to listen to mp3s. Microsoft stepped in, on the basis that it was their software that was actually playing the mp3s, and Alcatel took over the suit when they bought Lucent. Microsoft has now been told to pay $1.5bn to Alcatel-Lucent, which is indeed a bit unbalanced, since they only paid Fraunhofer $16m for a license. I actually sympathise with Microsoft here - they paid whoever it was they (and the world and his dog) thought they should pay here, and then someone else comes out of the woodwork to claim 100 times that. Who's to say there won't be more patent-holders appearing, each looking for some dosh? So Software Patents Are A Bad Thing, only free formats offer a pain-free way of delivering or listening to multimedia, US courts sometimes (always?) give peculiar judgements, and poor old Microsoft needs to spend more money on lawyers. I wonder how long it will be before big companies (they're the ones who actually make the juiciest targets) conclude that software patents are more bother than they're worth, and start lobbying against them? -- Pob hwyl / Best wishes Kevin Donnelly www.kyfieithu.co.uk - KDE yn Gymraeg www.klebran.org.uk - Gwirydd gramadeg rhydd i'r Gymraeg www.eurfa.org.uk - Geiriadur rhydd i'r Gymraeg www.rhedadur.org.uk - Rhedeg berfau Cymraeg -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Saturday 24 February 2007 07:28, Kevin Donnelly wrote:
I actually sympathise with Microsoft here - they paid whoever it was they (and the world and his dog) thought they should pay here, and then someone else comes out of the woodwork to claim 100 times that. Who's to say there won't be more patent-holders appearing, each looking for some dosh? Never feel sorry for M$... this is poetic justice.
... and, this is why software patents ARE EVIL! -- Kind regards, M Harris <>< -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Saturday 24 February 2007 21:44, M Harris wrote:
this is why software patents ARE EVIL!
Absolutely. If this keeps up, our whole society will grind to a halt. Meanwhile, people should have enough sense to switch to FREE, OPEN formats whenever one is available! Bryan -- *************************************** Powered by Kubuntu Linux 6.06 KDE 3.5.2 KMail 1.9.1 This is a Microsoft-free computer Bryan S. Tyson bryantyson@earthlink.net *************************************** -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Bryan S. Tyson wrote:
On Saturday 24 February 2007 21:44, M Harris wrote:
this is why software patents ARE EVIL!
Absolutely. If this keeps up, our whole society will grind to a halt.
Meanwhile, people should have enough sense to switch to FREE, OPEN formats whenever one is available!
One problem is that even open formats are not free of patent risk. You don't have to even know about a patent, to violate it. Also, some are overly broad, so as to make it difficult to avoid infringing, if you develop something similar. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Sunday 25 February 2007 10:37, James Knott wrote:
some are overly broad, so as to make it difficult to avoid infringing, if you develop something similar.
That is the whole problem. I noticed it once reading patent relating thermal printers. While it talks about connection between controller and the termal head, the wording was so broad that any printer that uses serial connection can be put in that context. That makes owner of the patent able to sue anybody in todays world because the USB is serial connection. When patent was granted the only serial connection was over RS232 (common serial port) and almost no one was using it as it was to slow for the purpose. It seems that in computers and electronics patents have to be granted in a different way: - for a few years only or - be revisited every year or two for validity of specifications - claimants has to be asked to be very specific what device is meant to be protected and what specs they protect, The last will prevent that someone protects 2 MHz 8 bit CPU including, by broad wording, any further development in the future for next 20 years. Forcing protection on existing technology that company can present, or giving certain short time frame to implement new technology, will bring patents back where they belong - to further development. For instance, if one wants to avoid patent for CPU mentioned above all that is necessary is to develop faster CPU or wider bus. -- Regards, Rajko. http://en.opensuse.org/Portal -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Rajko M. wrote:
On Sunday 25 February 2007 10:37, James Knott wrote:
some are overly broad, so as to make it difficult to avoid infringing, if you develop something similar.
That is the whole problem.
I noticed it once reading patent relating thermal printers. While it talks about connection between controller and the termal head, the wording was so broad that any printer that uses serial connection can be put in that context. That makes owner of the patent able to sue anybody in todays world because the USB is serial connection.
When patent was granted the only serial connection was over RS232 (common serial port) and almost no one was using it as it was to slow for the purpose. It seems that in computers and electronics patents have to be granted in a different way: - for a few years only or - be revisited every year or two for validity of specifications - claimants has to be asked to be very specific what device is meant to be protected and what specs they protect,
The last will prevent that someone protects 2 MHz 8 bit CPU including, by broad wording, any further development in the future for next 20 years.
Forcing protection on existing technology that company can present, or giving certain short time frame to implement new technology, will bring patents back where they belong - to further development. For instance, if one wants to avoid patent for CPU mentioned above all that is necessary is to develop faster CPU or wider bus.
The problem is that keeping software patents from becoming excessively broad is too difficult, and the system invites corruption. Better for the US to abolish them IMO. What you suggest would improve matters, though. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Friday 23 February 2007 4:10 pm, Richard Bos wrote:
returned a $1.52 billion verdict against Microsoft Corp. after finding it infringed on two digital audio patents owned by Alcatel-Lucent." http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/microsoft-ordered-pay-alcatel-lucent- 15/story.aspx?guid=%7B1DD3996C%2D8037%2D4528%2D9203%2DA612C9AD2564%7D&siteid =yhoo&dist=yhoo Next time use ogg, MS.
I think not only MS, but OUR WHOLE SOCIETY should wake up and use ogg. When will people decide enough is enough, we refuse to be held hostage by the whims of arrogant patent holders? Bryan -- **************************************** Powered by Mepis Linux 6.0 KDE 3.5.3 KMail 1.9.3 This is a Microsoft-free computer Bryan S. Tyson bryantyson@earthlink.net **************************************** -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Saturday 24 February 2007, Bryan S. Tyson wrote:
I think not only MS, but OUR WHOLE SOCIETY should wake up and use ogg. When will people decide enough is enough, we refuse to be held hostage by the whims of arrogant patent holders?
What makes you so sure ogg is patent free? Ogg is only a container format. The actual music or video encoded by a codec will be stored inside an Ogg container. Ogg containers may contain streams encoded with multiple codecs, for example, an audio video file may contain data encoded by both an AUDIO codec and a VIDEO codec. Being a Container format, Ogg can embed audio and video in various formats (such as MPEG-4, Dirac, MP3 and others). Therefore, the actual algorithms used by the codecs encapsulated in ogg files may be found to violate patents. Your average music listener can't look at an ogg file and tell with certainty what patents might be violated by the codecs used inside. It hasn't, up to now, been worth anyone's time to go after off ogg because there is no one to sue, but as soon as any major manufacturer makes devices that play ogg you can bet it will attract lawyers like flies to dead fish. Because ogg is merely an encapsulation mechanism, implementers still have to support a multitude of codecs in order to be able to decode what might be hidden inside. Including mp3 formats. This raises costs, and does nothing to avoid entanglement in patent suits. Therefore ogg is expensive to implement in silicon, which is probably why you don't see it. Furthermore, because it is just a container, and an extensible one at that, there is no way to guarantee portability of ogg files to among devices. This means manufacturers are forever in an arms race to keep ahead of consumer expectations. The file says ogg, the consumer expects the device to play it, but what's inside the ogg file wasn't even invented when the device was made, or was excluded due to licensing. You should get in the habit of being a little more precise in what you wish for, Such as Ogg/Vorbis or Ogg/Speex. -- _____________________________________ John Andersen
On Saturday 24 February 2007 16:07, John Andersen wrote:
It hasn't, up to now, been worth anyone's time to go after off ogg because there is no one to sue, but as soon as any major manufacturer makes devices that play ogg you can bet it will attract lawyers like flies to dead fish.
http://www.samsung.com/sg/products/audio/mp3player/yp_t9abxsp.asp?page=Speci... I think Creative does to. Nick -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Saturday 24 February 2007, Nick Zentena wrote:
On Saturday 24 February 2007 16:07, John Andersen wrote:
It hasn't, up to now, been worth anyone's time to go after off ogg because there is no one to sue, but as soon as any major manufacturer makes devices that play ogg you can bet it will attract lawyers like flies to dead fish.
http://www.samsung.com/sg/products/audio/mp3player/yp_t9abxsp.asp?page=Spec ifications
It already has mp3 support (as well as a bunch of others) so you already pay the mp3 tax. That also makes ogg a possibility for them (up to a specific level, what ever the hell that means). Since the encapsulated codecs are already licensed its good to go. -- _____________________________________ John Andersen
On Saturday 24 February 2007 21:49:29 Nick Zentena wrote:
On Saturday 24 February 2007 16:07, John Andersen wrote:
It hasn't, up to now, been worth anyone's time to go after off ogg because there is no one to sue, but as soon as any major manufacturer makes devices that play ogg you can bet it will attract lawyers like flies to dead fish.
http://www.samsung.com/sg/products/audio/mp3player/yp_t9abxsp.asp?page=Spec ifications
I think Creative does to.
and iAUDIO as well http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/shop/product_info.php?products_id=685 Mike -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Saturday 24 February 2007 16:07, John Andersen wrote:
ecause ogg is merely an encapsulation mechanism, implementers still have to support a multitude of codecs in order to be able to decode what might be hidden inside. Including mp3 formats.
You should get in the habit of being a little more precise in what you wish for, Such as Ogg/Vorbis or Ogg/Speex.
C'mon, what is meant is obvious. Who in the world would suggest Ogg/mp3 as a way to avoid patents??? Out of 100 people referring to "ogg," how many meant ogg as a container for mp3???? Ordinarily my answer would be zero. Today, I guess the answer is one, apparently: you. Oh well, I am confident the other 99 understood the point of the discussion perfectly. Bryan -- *************************************** Powered by Kubuntu Linux 6.06 KDE 3.5.2 KMail 1.9.1 This is a Microsoft-free computer Bryan S. Tyson bryantyson@earthlink.net *************************************** -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Sunday 25 February 2007, Bryan S. Tyson wrote:
On Saturday 24 February 2007 16:07, John Andersen wrote:
ecause ogg is merely an encapsulation mechanism, implementers still have to support a multitude of codecs in order to be able to decode what might be hidden inside. Including mp3 formats.
You should get in the habit of being a little more precise in what you wish for, Such as Ogg/Vorbis or Ogg/Speex.
C'mon, what is meant is obvious. Who in the world would suggest Ogg/mp3 as a way to avoid patents???
Out of 100 people referring to "ogg," how many meant ogg as a container for mp3???? Ordinarily my answer would be zero. Today, I guess the answer is one, apparently: you.
The point is that ogg is not a format. It is a container. And without knowing explicitly what is contained there is no way to know what patents may be infringed. Courts will not take such a fine view. They will merely rule that ogg violates the mp3 patents the first time the RIAA finds an mp3 inside of an ogg file. That will be enough to scare off adoption of ogg by any hardware manufacturers who are not already licensed for mp3. Don't believe me? Then explain why the RIAA gets a cut from every stack of blank CDroms you buy. -- _____________________________________ John Andersen -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Sunday 25 February 2007 18:50, John Andersen wrote:
Courts will not take such a fine view. They will merely rule that ogg violates the mp3 patents the first time the RIAA finds an mp3 inside of an ogg file. That will be enough to scare off adoption of ogg by any hardware manufacturers who are not already licensed for mp3.
Don't believe me? Then explain why the RIAA gets a cut from every stack of blank CDroms you buy.
I still maintain that in casual conversation or email, when 99% of people say "ogg," they are not really talking about ogg the container but ogg/vorbis, the free and open audio format. Have you noticed that the encoder in vorbis tools is called "oggenc," not "vorbisenc?" So what does the user say, "I made vorbises of the tracks on this CD?" I've never heard anyone say that. I have heard plenty of people say "I made oggs of the tracks on this CD." Just because ogg is capable of containing various other formats does not mean that manufacturers would not make a player that can play ogg/vorbis. Cowon, for example, seems to be thriving on its line of ogg-capable players: http://www.cowonglobal.com/product/product_X5_feature.php People should start buying iAudios and others which play ogg/vorbis and refuse to buy iPods and others which do not play ogg/vorbis. I don't see how RIAA getting a cut of blank CD-ROMs has any effect on this point. Bryan -- *************************************** Powered by Kubuntu Linux 6.06 KDE 3.5.2 KMail 1.9.1 This is a Microsoft-free computer Bryan S. Tyson bryantyson@earthlink.net *************************************** -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Am Montag, 26. Februar 2007 schrieb Bryan S. Tyson:
People should start [...]
I don't think that "People should ..." is within the scope of this list. Put your preaching on slashdot. you might even get an article there.
-- *************************************** Powered by Kubuntu Linux 6.06
kubuntu is also not withinhe scope of this list. bye, MH -- gpg key fingerprint: 5F64 4C92 9B77 DE37 D184 C5F9 B013 44E7 27BD 763C -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Monday 2007-02-26 at 01:43 -0500, Bryan S. Tyson wrote:
I still maintain that in casual conversation or email, when 99% of people say "ogg," they are not really talking about ogg the container but ogg/vorbis, the free and open audio format.
We do so because we are not aware that ogg is not the audio format used.
Have you noticed that the encoder in vorbis tools is called "oggenc," not "vorbisenc?" So what does the user say, "I made vorbises of the tracks on this CD?" I've never heard anyone say that. I have heard plenty of people say "I made oggs of the tracks on this CD."
Same as above. And: cer@nimrodel:~> whatis oggenc oggenc (1) - encode audio into the Ogg Vorbis format - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFF4wQStTMYHG2NR9URAs5VAJ4phSdZQZjxjNUt2Xcb6xF5jej52QCfRQa/ oNRQYzOE3nNm/rb1QR5zLtU= =T57l -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Bryan S. Tyson wrote:
I think not only MS, but OUR WHOLE SOCIETY should wake up and use ogg. When will people decide enough is enough, we refuse to be held hostage by the whims of arrogant patent holders?
TO THE BARRICADES, COMRADES! YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT YOUR NDAs! Hm. I don't think it's quite that bad. It is hurting the innovation in the US software industry though, IMO. OGG should be more widely used in the way PNG is. Shame MNG never took off, though, otherwise GIFs would really be completely obsolete. Mind you, ISTM that PNG was sufficient to make the patent holder give up trying to enforce their patent. As for whether the OGG formats are patent-encumbered: as I said before, by definition they are not. They just may not be backward compatible. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Russell Jones wrote:
As for whether the OGG formats are patent-encumbered: as I said before, by definition they are not. They just may not be backward compatible.
They are not *known* to be patent-encumbered. It doesn't mean someone couldn't pop up with a "submarine patent" that happens to cover them. It's unlikely but it does happen. Right now it wouldn't be worthwhile, though, because no one with deep pockets is supporting Ogg. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
David Brodbeck wrote:
Russell Jones wrote:
As for whether the OGG formats are patent-encumbered: as I said before, by definition they are not. They just may not be backward compatible.
They are not *known* to be patent-encumbered. It doesn't mean someone couldn't pop up with a "submarine patent" that happens to cover them. It's unlikely but it does happen. Right now it wouldn't be worthwhile, though, because no one with deep pockets is supporting Ogg.
You misunderstand. If Vorbis v1.3 (say) infringes a (submarine or otherwise) patent, the next version, e.g. v2.0, will be changed such that it does not. You just won't be able to play v1.3 files on a v2.0 player. Depending on what the infringement is, it may be possible to build a converter without loss of quality. That converter may itself infringe patents, however. In practical terms, that would be less of a problem than mp3-like format patents. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Russell Jones wrote:
You misunderstand. If Vorbis v1.3 (say) infringes a (submarine or otherwise) patent, the next version, e.g. v2.0, will be changed such that it does not. You just won't be able to play v1.3 files on a v2.0 player.
That seems like a serious disincentive to designing hardware around the format, though. People are going to be unhappy if they spend $300 a new Yoyodyne Oggmaster music player and it doesn't play their old Ogg files. Or if the music player they bought a year ago suddenly can't play new music. I'd hate to be the tech support person who had to explain that one. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Wednesday 2007-03-07 at 11:45 -0800, David Brodbeck wrote:
Russell Jones wrote:
You misunderstand. If Vorbis v1.3 (say) infringes a (submarine or otherwise) patent, the next version, e.g. v2.0, will be changed such that it does not. You just won't be able to play v1.3 files on a v2.0 player.
That seems like a serious disincentive to designing hardware around the format, though. People are going to be unhappy if they spend $300 a new Yoyodyne Oggmaster music player and it doesn't play their old Ogg files. Or if the music player they bought a year ago suddenly can't play new music. I'd hate to be the tech support person who had to explain that one.
You are right, unfortunately. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFF7zYJtTMYHG2NR9URAuxnAKCOLrw7i+C6fuIRxIlrWaYuDL2NYACdFKKc aktfGQMp7wZvaJfswYLCEXc= =WeEm -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
David Brodbeck wrote:
Russell Jones wrote:
You misunderstand. If Vorbis v1.3 (say) infringes a (submarine or otherwise) patent, the next version, e.g. v2.0, will be changed such that it does not. You just won't be able to play v1.3 files on a v2.0 player.
That seems like a serious disincentive to designing hardware around the format, though. People are going to be unhappy if they spend $300 a new Yoyodyne Oggmaster music player and it doesn't play their old Ogg files. Or if the music player they bought a year ago suddenly can't play new music. I'd hate to be the tech support person who had to explain that one.
Quite correct. And a converter could not be provided without a license from the patent holder. It would be highly damaging, but not the end of Ogg/Vorbis per se. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
participants (14)
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Bryan S. Tyson -
Carlos E. R. -
Damon Register -
David Brodbeck -
James Knott -
John Andersen -
Kevin Donnelly -
M Harris -
Mathias Homann -
michael norman -
Nick Zentena -
Rajko M. -
Richard Bos -
Russell Jones