在 2007-01-27六的 21:28 -0600，M Harris写道：

On Saturday 27 January 2007 20:20, Zhang Weiwu wrote:

...

As I recently discovered it is not very easy to enable mp3 on most media players of OpenSuSE (except RealPlayer). I am getting upset for this As we sometimes say in America, "You're preaching to the choir".

... we are getting upset for this also... :-))

<sign>

But my friend, it isn't going to change any time soon.

I believe you already know how important this issue is, this issue itself can lead a lot of user goes to Ubuntu and a lot other distributions, leaving OpenSuSE as Novell's little expensive toy. I myself once found it difficult to support SuSE users will not like to recommend other 'ordinary people' use SuSE. And a lot of non-technie Linux users are supported by other friendly Linux users like me. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

在 2007-01-28日的 10:54 +0100，Anders Johansson写道：

On Sunday 28 January 2007 08:42, Zhang Weiwu wrote:

...

在 2007-01-27六的 21:28 -0600，M Harris写道：

...

On Saturday 27 January 2007 20:20, Zhang Weiwu wrote:

...

As I recently discovered it is not very easy to enable mp3 on most media players of OpenSuSE (except RealPlayer). I am getting upset for this

As we sometimes say in America, "You're preaching to the choir".

... we are getting upset for this also... :-))

<sign>

But my friend, it isn't going to change any time soon.

I believe you already know how important this issue is, this issue itself can lead a lot of user goes to Ubuntu and a lot other distributions,

If people are willing to break the law with Ubuntu, they can do so in SUSE as well. All the packages you need are available at packman.links2linux.org. But the law being what it is, it's just not legal to distribute, not for SUSE, not for Ubuntu, not for anyone.

* Rhymbox is not able to play mp3, as far as I know no package in packman can help that * BMP which rely on gstreamer cannot play mp3. I still don't know any package on packman can help (please correct me, help greatly appreiated because I started searching several days agao) * Totem cannot play mp3 which also rely on gstreamer, non of packman's package can help * XMMS cannot play mp3 and non of packman's package can help. * Banshee is not able to play mp3 and the only package can help is helix, which is not found on packman, nor on official repository. There are all solutions to the problems listed above, all of them require commandline skill (several solutions that do not require commandline skill, like installing gstream-mad and gstream-ugly, tested not working for me). The only package I know that plays mp3 thanks to packman is MPlayer.

The only thing legal to distribute are licensed players, and for that, there is RealPlayer/Helix

how do we interprate the fact Helix is removed from non-oss section? (it was there.) As far as I know it's perfectly legal to distribute this package. Current situation: Helix is not existing in official repository, not in SuSE Guru, not in Packman. (This page shows I am not the only person confused on why Helix is removed. http://www.suseforums.net/index.php?showtopic=28227 But glad to know at least it's not removed from SuSE Enterprise Linux Desktop, in which Helix-banshee is installed by default) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Sunday 2007-01-28 at 18:23 +0800, Zhang Weiwu wrote:

* XMMS cannot play mp3 and non of packman's package can help.

Use beep-media-player from packman, instead: Description : Beep Media Player (BMP) is a GTK2 port of the popular X Multimedia System (XMMS) and more.

The only package I know that plays mp3 thanks to packman is MPlayer.

Amarok from suse plays them fine with the non-suse xine engine . - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFFvIDJtTMYHG2NR9URApW7AKCGdpsconkKNIX/SH4gUW8X4DBcuQCfQYZy Pjex8A2MeMnnx/yQFeVAF0c= =rmFE -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Zhang Weiwu wrote:

The only package I know that plays mp3 thanks to packman is MPlayer.

I've been playing in Amarok. Maybe not elegant, but functional. -- (o:]>*HUGGLES*<[:o) Billie Walsh The three best words in the English Language: "I LOVE YOU" Pass them on! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday 28 January 2007, Zhang Weiwu wrote:

* XMMS cannot play mp3 and non of packman's package can help.

Not True. -- _____________________________________ John Andersen

Peter Nikolic wrote:

What on Earth is all the noise and upset about a rather poor audio codec and file format .. if you dont like MP3 then dont use MP3 .

Ogg is far better so is flac both open both free both far far better ..

Pete

Flame proof gear in place (including nomex undies) so flame away all ye mp3'ies ...

It doesn't matter which is better. It's a matter of availability. The vast majority of the content is not available in anything but MP3, or one of the other proprietary formats like Realplayer. Are you volunteering to convert all the content to OGG? Your sure a swell egg for doing that for the community. -- (o:]>*HUGGLES*<[:o) Billie Walsh The three best words in the English Language: "I LOVE YOU" Pass them on! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Sunday 2007-01-28 at 20:23 -0000, Peter Nikolic wrote:

To:

Please, change that address to the new one.

If i had the time to do something like that then i would without second thought , I have as a matter of course re-recorded all of my audio in ogg and flacc formats depending on what they are .

As for converting content in general there is more that enough processing power out there in the wild to carry out mas conversions in spare cycles on PC's left running ( Linux systems of course)...

Conversion from a lossy format like mp3 to another lossy format like ogg is an absolutely no-no. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFFvQvbtTMYHG2NR9URAkkuAJ0ZwYPKFovLH6L7apG6CROzoGuJAQCdE7tj pKSHbhfUCyR//wxTRApcE2Y= =d1at -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday 28 January 2007 21:06, Mathias Homann wrote:

Am Sonntag, 28. Januar 2007 schrieb Carlos E. R.:

...

Conversion from a lossy format like mp3 to another lossy format like ogg is an absolutely no-no.

conversion from a format that my in-car cd player can play (mp3) to a format that it can not play (ogg) is the biggest no-no anyways, not considering loss of quality at all.

bye, MH

-- gpg key fingerprint: 5F64 4C92 9B77 DE37 D184 C5F9 B013 44E7 27BD 763C

I could say something about the car MP3 player but wont most decent players can play ogg files . and as for lossey formats well simple answer re-encode the file from the ground up if you got a decent machine it dont take many seconds to encode the average sound file .. Cheers Pete . -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Monday 29 January 2007 06:08, Mathias Homann wrote:

Am Montag, 29. Januar 2007 schrieb Peter Nikolic:

...

On Sunday 28 January 2007 21:06, Mathias Homann wrote:

...

Am Sonntag, 28. Januar 2007 schrieb Carlos E. R.:

...

Conversion from a lossy format like mp3 to another lossy format like ogg is an absolutely no-no.

conversion from a format that my in-car cd player can play (mp3) to a format that it can not play (ogg) is the biggest no-no anyways, not considering loss of quality at all.

I could say something about the car MP3 player but wont most decent players can play ogg files .

then a sony car radio with cd/mp3 bought one year ago is not decent?

... sorry, dude, but i have yet to see ANY car stereo that plays ogg in a shop around here...

bye, MH

-- gpg key fingerprint: 5F64 4C92 9B77 DE37 D184 C5F9 B013 44E7 27BD 763C

Well it's Sony so no it anit decent it's drmed trash IMHO and BTW i aint not your DUDE boyo! Pete . -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Bryan S. Tyson wrote:

valuing their freedom enough to REJECT content in mp3 (and how about REJECTING DRM as well).

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 ***************************************

Which do you care more about, content or your freedom? People need to start

SO, we should all immediately trash all our MPEG's and stop getting anything in MPEG format? Then what? -- (o:]>*HUGGLES*<[:o) Billie Walsh The three best words in the English Language: "I LOVE YOU" Pass them on! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Monday 29 January 2007 06:37, Carlos E. R. wrote:

Meanwhile, we have no choice but use mp3. That's life.

The existence of ogg means that we do have a choice. I never said anything about forcing anyone to release content in ogg. What I said was, if the content is mp3 only, reject it. Do not use, and especially do not pay for, mp3 files. Insisting on open formats means less content to choose from. Apparently you (and sadly, most of the public) would rather be enslaved to the whims of patent holders than give up some entertainment choices and be free. 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 Monday 29 January 2007 11:25, Bryan S. Tyson wrote:

The existence of ogg means that we do have a choice. I never said anything about forcing anyone to release content in ogg. What I said was, if the content is mp3 only, reject it. Do not use, and especially do not pay for, mp3 files. Insisting on open formats means less content to choose from. Apparently you (and sadly, most of the public) would rather be enslaved to the whims of patent holders than give up some entertainment choices and be free.

SOME MATERIAL IS ONLY AVAILABLE IN MP3! In my case, fully 90% of the programs I collect are in .mp3 format. It's silly to suggest I cut myself off from 90% of the material available. If .mp3 hadn't been the first compression method to become widely used, there might be a chance to switch to .ogg, but because it was the first one widely adopted an awful lot of people use it. They already have an investment of time (and bandwidth) in their present format, and they don't care about the proprietary/open software issue. Even if we do care about the issue, and I do, I'm not going to stop using .mp3 anytime soon because whether I ask for it or not, the other collectors aren't going to stop using .mp3. Mp3 is a format that will need to be supported for a long time. Of course patents expire sooner than copyrights. -- Bob Smits bob@rsmits.ca In most countries selling harmful things like drugs is punishable. Then how come people can sell Microsoft software and go unpunished? --Hasse Skrifvars -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sat, Jan 27, 2007 at 06:53:38PM -0900, John Andersen wrote:

On Saturday 27 January 2007, Zhang Weiwu wrote:

...

Study shows not every "ordinary users" actually use google to search for a solution when they got a problem. So if people have to search for how to enable mp3, we already know many people has given up. And also study shows even in opensource world, only 1/7 people go ask questions on forum or mailing list. So if a google search doesn't leads to a workable solution, 6/7 people perhaps give up, only 1/7 will post something like me. Well perhaps only a very few percent will have a true hacker's spirit and hack down a solution when questions on forum/lists doesn't get a solution.

I would like NOVELL to publish an exact and complete and CONSOLIDATED change log of every package they intentionally cripple in their quest to appease the lawyers, and the methods used to cripple these packages.

Further, since the patent holders of mp3 state on their web page that you DO NOT NEED A LICENSE for home use I would like Novell to make available repositories that are FREE but never included in their boxed sets which overcome and reverse all crippling.

Reference: http://www.mp3licensing.com/help/index.html

QUOTE: " However, no license is needed for private, non-commercial activities (e.g., home-entertainment, receiving broadcasts and creating a personal music library), not generating revenue or other consideration of any kind or for entities with associated annual gross revenue less than US$ 100 000.00.

First ... Try reading and understanding the whole page. The heading of your quoted part is: "4) Do I need a license to stream mp3, mp3PRO or mp3surround encoded content over the Internet?" So it is just about _content_ not about _software_. The page does clarify MP3 decoding software only in point (1): 1) Do you license mp3, mp3PRO and mp3surround software to end users? No. We license mp3/mp3PRO software and patents to developers and manufacturers of software applications and hardware devices. So there is need for a license for _all_ mp3 software under conditions not specified on this page. CIao, Marcus -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

在 2007-01-28日的 10:35 +0100，Marcus Meissner写道：

Ciao, Marcus (not a lawyer, not qualified to give legal advice, not speaking for Novell, only for himself)

1. is it possible to negociate for a special license for SuSE? Did we tried that? If there is a per unit royalty how did realplayer get their license when number of user is not clear? Would a public petition work? 2. is it possible to move helix-banshee to default OpenSuSE installation? Which as far as I can guess have no legal concern 3. is it possible us the community work up and provide some package in packman to solve this problem, as we did on MPlayer? (maybe provide a package serve as gstreamer plug-in) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Jan 28, 07 11:42:21 +0100, Marcus Meissner wrote:

On Sun, Jan 28, 2007 at 06:35:31PM +0800, Zhang Weiwu wrote:

...

??? 2007-01-28?????? 10:35 +0100???Marcus Meissner?????????

...

Ciao, Marcus (not a lawyer, not qualified to give legal advice, not speaking for Novell, only for himself)

1. is it possible to negociate for a special license for SuSE? Did we tried that? If there is a per unit royalty how did realplayer get their license when number of user is not clear? Would a public petition work?

Tried in many ways, never succeeded. We haven't lost hope and still probe for more possibilities. It is obviously a flat fee for RealPlayer. How they did it, I don't know. They probably pay big money.

...

2. is it possible to move helix-banshee to default OpenSuSE installation? Which as far as I can guess have no legal concern

I can try to bring this up, and you could too in a openSUSE status meeting.

I'd like to see helix-banshee advertised stronger. Can't we simply add non-oss repo to the default installation sources? Btw. We should per default offer more repos anyway ... cheers, Jw. -- o \ Juergen Weigert paint it green! __/ _=======.=======_ <V> | jw@suse.de wide open suse_/ _---|____________\/ \ | 0911 74053-508 (tm)__/ (____/ /\ (/) | __________________________/ _/ \_ vim:set sw=2 wm=8 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

在 2007-01-28日的 07:11 -0800，Charles R. Buchanan写道：

On Sun, 28 Jan 2007 10:35:11 +0100, Marcus Meissner took time to say the following:

(^_^)In the end ... such things need to be clarified and cross checked by (^_^)lawyers, and ours did check it, rest assured of that. (^_^) (^_^)Ciao, Marcus (not a lawyer, not qualified to give legal advice, not speaking (^_^)for Novell, only for himself)

With all due respect, it sure sounded like you were speaking for Novell! ;-)

Well, I guess it's nothing wrong speaking FOR novell. I guess it's much much better then SuSE people don't come out and say a thing. The only fault being covering fault, not realizing and solving it. Think Microsoft when their KB article describe their bug as "how IE works". -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Marcus Meissner wrote:

On Mon, Jan 29, 2007 at 09:04:15PM +0800, Zhang Weiwu wrote:

...

在 2007-01-28日的 07:11 -0800，Charles R. Buchanan写道：

...

On Sun, 28 Jan 2007 10:35:11 +0100, Marcus Meissner took time to say the following:

(^_^)In the end ... such things need to be clarified and cross checked by (^_^)lawyers, and ours did check it, rest assured of that. (^_^) (^_^)Ciao, Marcus (not a lawyer, not qualified to give legal advice, not speaking (^_^)for Novell, only for himself)

With all due respect, it sure sounded like you were speaking for Novell! ;-)

Well, I guess it's nothing wrong speaking FOR novell. I guess it's much much better then SuSE people don't come out and say a thing. The only fault being covering fault, not realizing and solving it. Think Microsoft when their KB article describe their bug as "how IE works".

I am not allowed to give official position on most of the topics.

Especially I am not a lawyer, so I am not allowed to give any kind of legal advice or even interpretation...

I just wanted to clarify that the above is what I understand with my little developers mind ;)

Ciao, Marcus

Marcus, I for one, and those I am in personal contact with much appreciate your participation on this list. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday 28 January 2007, Marcus Meissner wrote:

On Sat, Jan 27, 2007 at 06:53:38PM -0900, John Andersen wrote:

...

On Saturday 27 January 2007, Zhang Weiwu wrote:

...

Study shows not every "ordinary users" actually use google to search for a solution when they got a problem. So if people have to search for how to enable mp3, we already know many people has given up. And also study shows even in opensource world, only 1/7 people go ask questions on forum or mailing list. So if a google search doesn't leads to a workable solution, 6/7 people perhaps give up, only 1/7 will post something like me. Well perhaps only a very few percent will have a true hacker's spirit and hack down a solution when questions on forum/lists doesn't get a solution.

I would like NOVELL to publish an exact and complete and CONSOLIDATED change log of every package they intentionally cripple in their quest to appease the lawyers, and the methods used to cripple these packages.

Further, since the patent holders of mp3 state on their web page that you DO NOT NEED A LICENSE for home use I would like Novell to make available repositories that are FREE but never included in their boxed sets which overcome and reverse all crippling.

Reference: http://www.mp3licensing.com/help/index.html

QUOTE: " However, no license is needed for private, non-commercial activities (e.g., home-entertainment, receiving broadcasts and creating a personal music library), not generating revenue or other consideration of any kind or for entities with associated annual gross revenue less than US$ 100 000.00.

First ... Try reading and understanding the whole page.

The heading of your quoted part is: "4) Do I need a license to stream mp3, mp3PRO or mp3surround encoded content over the Internet?"

So it is just about _content_ not about _software_.

The page does clarify MP3 decoding software only in point (1): 1) Do you license mp3, mp3PRO and mp3surround software to end users? No. We license mp3/mp3PRO software and patents to developers and manufacturers of software applications and hardware devices.

The products specifically listed are their DEMONSTRATION products not something that is actually sold to end users. This point is solely about their software, which is not for sale to the public. It says nothing about other software. The price for a license for independently developed soft is 2% of the revenue related to that mp3 software, which if that software were free amounts to 2% of zero. There are dozens of free software mp3 encoders/decoders in existance and none of them have ever been contacted by these people about a license. Ever. Only organizations SELLING software that includes mp3 support (Such as Real) have to pay. Do you SERIOUSLY suggest that Real in paying 2% on every copy of realplayer GIVEN AWAY? -- _____________________________________ John Andersen -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday 28 January 2007, Charles philip Chan wrote:

hers is nowhere on http://www.mp3licensing.com/ that states that free software is excluded. Here are the rates:

       http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/software.html

Charles

The license is 2% of revenue derived. (Only after you earn some minimum amount). That amounts to free for a product that is not sold. The point is that even license holders such as Real can not give away billions of copies of realplayer and still pay any fixed amount per copy and remain in business. They are not paying on anything they give away, as 2% of revenue = zero when there is no revenue. -- _____________________________________ John Andersen

(As this is digressing, I'm sending it to the OT list - hope it makes it there...) On Sunday 28 January 2007 12:55, Charles philip Chan wrote:

Thers is nowhere on http://www.mp3licensing.com/ that states that free software is excluded. Here are the rates:

http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/software.html

Very interesting, Charles. I wonder then how is it MP3 is a standard. Aren't standards open by default? Here is (PDF) the reference document for the standard: http://le-hacker.org/hacks/mpeg-drafts/11172-3.pdf and yet here is the list of (bogus) patents held by Thompson for the mpeg2/layer3 playback: http://www.mp3licensing.com/patents/ It would seem that - since several organizations were involved in funding MPEG2 layer 2 and 3, that they should all be entitled to use the resulting technology however and whenever they want. -- kai www.perfectreign.com || www.4thedadz.com www.filesite.org || www.donutmonster.com closing the doors that surround me so no one will ever penetrate complete my retreat just to wait for the day that never comes so i will laugh alone -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Monday 29 January 2007 10:07, Charles philip Chan wrote:

On 29 Jan 2007, kai@perfectreign.com wrote:

...

I wonder then how is it MP3 is a standard. Aren't standards open by default?

The technical details are out in the open. MP3 is an ISO standard, however the iso have no requirements that the standard must be patent free or that the patent holder can't "extort" royalties. MP3 is a typical bait and switch scam:

(1) Allow people to use it for free.

(2) Charge royalties when it is entrenched.

This page is an interesting read:

http://www.mp3-tech.org/patents.html

Ahh, thank you: "a lot of people are working on the development of each MPEG standard. But they are all working for companies paying them. It is because this kind of algorithmic research needs a high level of knowledge and a lot of time (in most of the cases it is a full-time job). So the work done by those people is property of their respective employers." It makes sense, then, that Frauenhofer and/or Thomson would want to recoup their costs. I had ASSumed that a standard was open and free, otherwise it wouldn't be a "standard" such as A4 paper or ISO 100 film. -- kai www.perfectreign.com || www.4thedadz.com www.filesite.org || www.donutmonster.com closing the doors that surround me so no one will ever penetrate complete my retreat just to wait for the day that never comes so i will laugh alone -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday 28 January 2007 04:53, John Andersen wrote:

Further, since the patent holders of mp3 state on their web page that you DO NOT NEED A LICENSE for home use I would like Novell to make available repositories that are FREE but never included in their boxed sets which overcome and reverse all crippling.

But such a repository would be illegal, since it qualifies as distribution. Packman is a repository made by home users for home users. With the current legal situation, I suspect it's as close as you will get -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sun, Jan 28, 2007 11:06:31 AM +0100, jdd (jdd@dodin.org) wrote:

the rising of more and more web sites like myspace or youtube that spreads all over the world music and videos, on a completely illegal maner, it's right, makes it very difficult now to ask for mp3 privacy.

No. Why do you say so? How music and video (="content") are spread and licensed has _nothing_ to do with how the *software* to play them is distributed and licensed. In both ways. If all MP3 and MP4 codecs, algorithms, implementations, became GPL tomorrow it would still be illegal to upload some Beatles album on a public server for everybody to download. Regardless of the encoding format. If all Beatles albums became public domain tomorrow and were put in MP3 format on a public server for everybody to download, it would still be illegal for OpenSuse or any other Free SW distribution made with the same criteria to be shipped and distributed with a fylly working MP3 decoder.

Not than this can change the Novells position, but if the above web sites are not sued and closed very soon (and I don't see this likely to happen), the mp3 contenders will have a very difficult position.

No again. This is like saying that, if an artist doesn't want to paid for his or her music, this puts the makers of DVD players in a very difficult position. These are two completely separate issues. Ciao, Marco -- The right way to make everybody love Free Standards and Free Software: http://digifreedom.net/node/73 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Am Sonntag, 28. Januar 2007 schrieb jdd:

I don't speak of content but of file format. how do you think the uploaded files are made of?

So, the fact that loads of pirated ebooks on the web are in pdf format makes adobe acrobat illegal? (not to mention that ANY text editor would be illegal, because the rest of those piraed ebooks is plaintext...) 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

On Sun, Jan 28, 2007 14:10:42 PM +0100, jdd (jdd@dodin.org) wrote:

it's just the other way round. I don't look at the content (I own it) but at the file format.

spreading pdf is perfectly legal, spreading mp3's (and probably divx) is not

but the fact is it's done, massively, by big companies. Is nobody sue them, the fordidness become pretty weak :-)

No, it's done by people through the service of those companies. This is the difference. If somebody steals a car and drives it through an highway to rob a bank, do the bank or the police go after the highway company or the car maker? See here, for example: http://picker.typepad.com/legal_infrastructure_of_b/2006/10/youtube_and_cop.... if you post on youtube something which is illegal for any reason, youtube only has to take it offline. The actual suit, when it happens, is always against who _did_ the "wrong thing". Marco -- The right way to make everybody love Free Standards and Free Software: http://digifreedom.net/node/73 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sun, Jan 28, 2007 13:15:49 PM +0100, jdd (jdd@dodin.org) wrote:

M. Fioretti wrote:

...

No. Why do you say so? How music and video (="content") are spread and licensed has _nothing_ to do with how the *software* to play them is distributed and licensed. In both ways.

because what is played on these sites are mp3's and made by users. I wonder if most of these users have a licence to _build_ mp3's

Exactly. If somebody creates some artistic "content" (for lack of a better word) he or she: * has all the rights to decide how it can be (re) distributed but this * doesn't mean at all that that creator can decide without limits with which technological means this should happen Example: you make your _own_ movie and want everybody in your town to see it for free, all together at the same time. Nobody questions your right to do so or the legality of your choice. But this doesn't enable you to pry open the doors of the closest movie theaters, load your movie in the projector and yell "everybody come in, it's free". Like it or not, this is the current situation with codecs. Check question "How is the MPEG-4 Visual Patent Portfolio License organized?" at http://www.mpegla.com/m4v/m4v-faq.cfm What it says in plain english is that if you put some MPEG4 DIY movie of your own holidays on your own web page together with Google ads, you *have* to pass some of that revenue as royalties to the consortium.

I don't speak of content but of file format. how do you think the uploaded files are made of?

Your original message made me think that you give for granted: "I can distribute my own original content as I please" equal to: "I can do it with whatever software technology as I please". This is not the case. Ciao, Marco -- The right way to make everybody love Free Standards and Free Software: http://digifreedom.net/node/73 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sun, Jan 28, 2007 07:11:31 AM -0800, Charles R. Buchanan (charles@daphatbell.com) wrote:

Using that analogy, then why doesn't the "consortium" that adopts TCP/IP protocols charge for every use of the internet?

because *that "consortium"* decided NOT to do so, and release everything with a different license. Simple.

every cd I buy, I rip it to my hard drive. I think that is my right to do that.

I haven't seen anybody on this list stating that such an activity should be illegal (while it _is_ illegal in maaany countries, starting from many of the important Western ones, which doesn't explicitly allow format shifting: but is this Suse's fault?)

Guess I will be playing them with something other than SuSe. <sigh>

You have realized that it is absolutely NOT Suse's fault if you and lots of others have this problem, haven't you? Ciao, Marco -- The right way to make everybody love Free Standards and Free Software: http://digifreedom.net/node/73 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sun, Jan 28, 2007 08:14:06 AM -0800, Charles R. Buchanan (charles@daphatbell.com) wrote:

I still stand by my thoughts and the analogy is still the same. ... You can "hide" behind the "different license" stand.

Hide my foot. That is _not_ a stand of mine, is the concrete status of things today. Whether you or I approve it or not is another thing: but today every author *has* the legal right, within some limits established by law, to license its license creative works or software in wildly different ways. Discussing of how things _ought_ to be is something else: first it's necessary to get right how they stand today, and the confusion in this thread (not necessarily from you) shows there's still a lot to walk in that direction. Hope this helps. Have a nice evening, Marco -- The right way to make everybody love Free Standards and Free Software: http://digifreedom.net/node/73 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sun, Jan 28, 2007 10:35:51 AM -0800, charles@daphatbell.com (charles@daphatbell.com) wrote:

I'm not questioning the rights of creators to get paid for what they do, my big problem is the way this has come about

Same here.

I might just have to try that other format someone mentioned earlier.

*If* by this you mean ripping all the CDs you purchased to OGG format instead of MP3, remember that this doesn't solve anything legally. If you did that and the police or the recording industry found out, of course you or your Linux distributor would not be sued for using a codec against its license. But _you_ would still be sued for copyright infringement (of the music, not the codec). Unless, of course, you live in a country where format shifting is already legal. HTH, Marco -- Marco Fioretti mfioretti, at the server mclink.it Fedora Core 3 for low memory http://www.rule-project.org/ May your campfire always burn bright -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday 28 January 2007, charles@daphatbell.com wrote:

I'm not questioning the rights of creators to get paid for what they do, my big problem is the way this has come about and the fact that I don't see them going after M$ or any of the bigger corporations. Maybe because M$ and those companies have deeper pockets

Maybe its because M$ has a license. Look, its not that expensive. If you GIVE away your mp3 software you earn no revenue from it, and you can claim that 2% of zero is still zero. Even if you charge for it, companies like M$ can make the claim that mp3 represents .003% of the purchase price of Windows (i.e. just the Media Player portion) and pay a 2% of the miniscule revenues attributable to Media Player. This is what the EU persecution of M$ over the inclusion of Media Player was all about. The issue was NOT that an OS including a media player was somehow anti-competitive (it includes a calculator too - nobody bitches about that in spite of how many patents HP might hold on calculators), but rather that Microsoft was saying it earned no revenue from Media Player, and therefore the Patent holders were lobbying the EU to force its removal so that other non free providers could sell a media player. Yet everybody, especially in Europe was cheering on the EU for its BOLD stand, when it had absolutely nothing to do with competition. It was all fueled by bribes from wanna-be competitors and patent holders. -- _____________________________________ John Andersen -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sun, 2007-01-28 at 13:49 +0100, M. Fioretti wrote:

On Sun, Jan 28, 2007 13:15:49 PM +0100, jdd (jdd@dodin.org) wrote:

Check question "How is the MPEG-4 Visual Patent Portfolio License organized?" at http://www.mpegla.com/m4v/m4v-faq.cfm

What it says in plain english is that if you put some MPEG4 DIY movie of your own holidays on your own web page together with Google ads, you *have* to pass some of that revenue as royalties to the consortium.

This arguement of royalty will not be settled here...or perhaps anywhere. On one hand, they have a right to revenue from their product, and in this case, I guess you can use it free if YOU don't receive anything by their product (file format). So in a sense, we are much better off than in the old days...when EVERYONE had to buy the celuloid strip from KODAK...? Tom -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday 28 January 2007, jdd wrote:

may be Google will be stronger than Novell :-)) (Google is now the owner of myspace and youtube)

Who's to say google is not paying a licensing fee? -- _____________________________________ John Andersen

* John Andersen [01-28-07 16:57]: [...]

Its legal if Novell pays license fees of 2% of all revenue attributable from sales of such distribrution, which is to say zip, nada, zilch.

And you know this legality issue HOW? -- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 http://wahoo.no-ip.org @ http://counter.li.org HOG # US1244711 Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 OpenSUSE Linux http://en.opensuse.org/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

在 2007-01-29一的 00:47 -0500，Bryan S. Tyson写道：

On Sunday 28 January 2007 04:55, Anders Johansson wrote:

...

...

Further, since the patent holders of mp3 state on their web page that you DO NOT NEED A LICENSE for home use I would like Novell to make available repositories that are FREE but never included in their boxed sets which overcome and reverse all crippling.

But such a repository would be illegal, since it qualifies as distribution.

Packman is a repository made by home users for home users. With the current legal situation, I suspect it's as close as you will get

STOP USING MP3! USE OGG!

Support this!!! => to the extent not frighten people away from using Linux because it chose to support ogg in place of mp3 Every single sound file I produced is in ogg format! But we are talking about reading other people's file ... -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 29 Jan 2007, admin@eregion.de wrote:

especially because (as opposed to some posts in this discussion) there are NO car stereos with ogg support. not even a 1500$ becker car stereo/navigation/coffeemaker/whatever device can play ogg.

http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/StaticPlayers#Car_Audio Charles -- /* vsprintf.c -- Lars Wirzenius & Linus Torvalds. */ * * Wirzenius wrote this portably, Torvalds fucked it up :-) */ linux-2.2.16/lib/vsprintf.c

Am Dienstag, 30. Januar 2007 schrieb Joe Morris (NTM):

Charles philip Chan wrote:

...

On 29 Jan 2007, admin@eregion.de wrote:

...

especially because (as opposed to some posts in this discussion) there are NO car stereos with ogg support. not even a 1500$ becker car stereo/navigation/coffeemaker/whatever device can play ogg.

http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/StaticPlayers#Car_Audio

Great link Charles!

not really. most links in that list are either dead, or point to some cheap-ass crap with not even a product description on its "homepage", and when you hit the "dealer list" link on that "home page" you get an ebay search. sorry, but i'm not going to toss my 150€ in car stereo for some plastic crap that sells on ebay for as low as 20$ for some philosophical reasons, especially not if it also means that i'd have to convert 40 gigs of mp3 files to ogg. 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

On Sunday 28 January 2007 21:47, Bryan S. Tyson wrote:

...

Packman is a repository made by home users for home users. With the current legal situation, I suspect it's as close as you will get

STOP USING MP3! USE OGG!

It's not as simple as just switching from one format to another. I already have 65-70 GB of old time radio files, for example. Most of these have only been made available in .mp3 format. I play them on my palm, in my car, and on my computers. I'd love it if there were a way to convert already not-so-great audio files from .mp3 to .ogg without incurring further degradation, but I don't know how to do that. Even if I converted them, then I could not play them in my car radio, a Sony which only supported cd and .mp3 formats, nor on my Palm which I use out of the car. Why would I do that? I'd certainly prefer to have been able to purchase a car radio in this town that plays .ogg, but I couldn't find one when I bought my car five years ago. -- Bob Smits bob@rsmits.ca In most countries selling harmful things like drugs is punishable. Then how come people can sell Microsoft software and go unpunished? --Hasse Skrifvars -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Carlos E. R. wrote:

AFAIK, itsn't possible. Not even in theory.

sure, but for lissening in a car, the difference may not be noticable. however, first bring to front the ogg compatible HW, there is some, not always more xpensive and some flash updatable HW could be fixed, try convince the maker jdd -- http://www.dodin.net Votez pour nous, merci - vote for us, thanks :-) http://musique.sfrjeunestalents.fr/artiste/Magic-Alliance/ http://photo.sfrjeunestalents.fr/artiste/jddphoto/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Jan 30, 07 00:12:48 -0900, John Andersen wrote:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the loss involved in mp3 format was suffered in the encoding. Playback is 100% faithful to the encoded file (not the original), and nothing more is lost in playback.

Yes, decoding (i.e. mp3 to wav) comes at no additional loss. (Unless the decoder sucks.)

Now for encoding the wav into ogg, sox might not be the best choice because the maximum bitrate it can muster is 128, but there are other encoders, and perhaps 128 is enough or "not so great" audio files that Robert mentions.

Re-encoding into ogg has additional loss. Not only due to a limited bitrate, but due to several other factors too. (You may try oggenc from package vorbis-tools, if sox sucks.) One could minimize the reencoding loss by throwing extra bitrate at it. If the file was 90kbps mp3 and you reencode it as 160kbps ogg it may sound as almost as good as the original mp3. But it is now much bigger in size.

The question then becomes one of how much fidelity will you lose in the encoding to ogg. If some Ogg encoders offer a near perfect encoding setting,

The most perfect setting can not help with a .wav that was previusly an .mp3 -- best is to encode ogg directly from the original CD. Then you should end up with an ogg file that is even slightly smaller than your mp3 -- where both bring sufficient quality to your ears. And yes, we need a much easier mp3-solution for SUSE Linux, than we have now. Crippleware is not the way to go. Crippleware may satisfy some lawyers, but always annoys our users. cheers, Jw. -- o \ Juergen Weigert paint it green! __/ _=======.=======_ <V> | jw@suse.de wide open suse_/ _---|____________\/ \ | 0911 74053-508 (tm)__/ (____/ /\ (/) | __________________________/ _/ \_ vim:set sw=2 wm=8 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tuesday 30 January 2007, Carlos E. R. wrote:

Interestingly, ogg might use mp3 as the audio codec. >;-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogg#Ogg_codecs

So then those who preach ogg from the hill tops are still not necessarily any more free of patents until they prove that speex and vorbis are not violating someone's patent? -- _____________________________________ John Andersen

On Wednesday 31 January 2007 05:07, Kai Ponte wrote:

On Tuesday 30 January 2007 20:46, John Andersen wrote:

...

On Tuesday 30 January 2007, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

Interestingly, ogg might use mp3 as the audio codec. >;-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogg#Ogg_codecs

So then those who preach ogg from the hill tops are still not necessarily any more free of patents until they prove that speex and vorbis are not violating someone's patent?

Um, Vorbis is under the BSD license. Is there anyone (other than greedy lawyers) really challenging the validity of Ogg/Vorbis? -- kai

Free Compean and Ramos http://www.perfectreign.com/?q=node/46

Yes those that secretley want MP3 to remain dominant but are too affraid to admit it so just keep finding excuses not to use Ogg/Vorbis or flac . Pete . -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Wednesday 31 January 2007, Carlos E. R. wrote:

Nowhere did I claim, nor even hint, that «that speex and vorbis are not violating someone's patent». That's your saying.

That's exactly my point. I've read patent claims against those two formats on the web in the past, as well as the patent claims for the encoding algorithms used to encode flac. So it seems to me its unsafe to assume, merely because the current rush to ogg is in vouge, that any real escape from this patent nonsense is possible. As soon as the mp3 owners realizes that any significant portion of their business has left the station they will find ways to make claims against those other formats as they already do against aac. All they need do is find something vaguely similar to their algorithms in speex. -- _____________________________________ John Andersen -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

In a sense you're right, in that some risks exist because the patent system is broken. OTOH, such claims have yet to be made (that I've heard of) against flac, theora, vorbis, speex, etc. Do you have any references? The other thing is that these formats are unpatented by definition, so newer versions would be patent-free (though I'm not confident that lossless converters would be available in all cases). This cannot be said of formats controlled by a wilful (ab)user of patents. Russell John Andersen wrote:

On Wednesday 31 January 2007, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

Nowhere did I claim, nor even hint, that «that speex and vorbis are not violating someone's patent». That's your saying.

That's exactly my point. I've read patent claims against those two formats on the web in the past, as well as the patent claims for the encoding algorithms used to encode flac.

So it seems to me its unsafe to assume, merely because the current rush to ogg is in vouge, that any real escape from this patent nonsense is possible.

As soon as the mp3 owners realizes that any significant portion of their business has left the station they will find ways to make claims against those other formats as they already do against aac. All they need do is find something vaguely similar to their algorithms in speex.

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 John Andersen wrote:

On Tuesday 30 January 2007, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

Interestingly, ogg might use mp3 as the audio codec. >;-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogg#Ogg_codecs

So then those who preach ogg from the hill tops are still not necessarily any more free of patents until they prove that speex and vorbis are not violating someone's patent?

for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) { std::cout << i << std::endl; } I'm sure this violates a software patent as well. umm... hang on for a minute... /me checks... /me files a patent for the for loop and gets rich !!! No, seriously, Vorbis, FLAC and Theora probably violate patents. The problem are the software patents in the first place. Many of them are so vague that they apply to lots of pieces of software that have been written by people who never saw those patents and started from scratch. That's exactly why software patents are a ridiculous (but extremely dangerous) idea in the first place. Still, with MP3, the question isn't even open. It's pretty clear, and it's damn restrictive. cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ _\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFFwYJYr3NMWliFcXcRAiaEAJ9Pt7hqqikdMGD2snN8qqyG8LTTzQCgruCL UcC4wR8TPf6CSq4518cEVqQ= =2TeL -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Thursday 2007-02-01 at 00:23 -0600, M Harris wrote:

Depends on our definition of "obvious". If I start from scratch and write an algorithm capable of decoding an mp3 file I have done *nothing* different that writing an algorithm (text editor) that can decode a series of symbols (text) for displaying on a screen. One is called obvious and the other is called patentable... hogwash. The mp3 standard should not have a patent, nor should there be any licensing issues with *any* software based mp3 player.

Arguably the idea of using psychoacoustic models for compression of audio files is novel and not obvious. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFFwcrytTMYHG2NR9URAtoxAJ9mf1XxbhTl8hH88hmnmXVMW6JS9ACglAgQ FVYzdL9N/Ln/TAtuKnK6CdA= =9+Pm -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Wednesday 31 January 2007 22:23, M Harris wrote:

On Thursday 01 February 2007 00:02, Pascal Bleser wrote:

...

The problem are the software patents in the first place. Many of them are so vague that they apply to lots of pieces of software that have been written by people who never saw those patents and started from scratch.

Which is *why* many of us are pontificating, "SOFTWARE PATENTS ARE EVIL".

Depends on our definition of "obvious". If I start from scratch and write an algorithm capable of decoding an mp3 file I have done *nothing* different that writing an algorithm (text editor) that can decode a series of symbols (text) for displaying on a screen. One is called obvious and the other is called patentable... hogwash. The mp3 standard should not have a patent, nor should there be any licensing issues with *any* software based mp3 player.

Software patents must die... end of story. (We have to change this folks)

I just wrote another letter to my congressman and my two senators. I was thinking on the way into work - I knew a guy who had a patent on a tool used for fixing IBM Selectric I typewriters. He invented it in the '60s and IBM licenced it from him for the better part of a decade. It didn't make him rich, but he got credit for inventing it and was able to show the device when requested. Now - somebody please show me the MP3 algorithm. I'd like to hold it up and take a look at it.... ...I'm waiting. In any case - for the future of SUSE/Novell (and Red Hat, Mandrake, Yellow Dog, Ubuntu and the others), I hope this issue eventually gets resolved. -- kai Free Compean and Ramos http://www.perfectreign.com/?q=node/46 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Juergen Weigert wrote:

On Feb 01, 07 07:02:00 +0100, Pascal Bleser wrote:

...

...

...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogg#Ogg_codecs So then those who preach ogg from the hill tops are still not necessarily any more free of patents until they prove that speex and vorbis are not violating someone's patent?

It is actually the other way round: Those who claim to have patents on speex or vorbis must prove that their claims are valid. Unless that is proven a patent isn't worth anything.

Yes and no. In theory, that's obviously true. But in practice, when patent trolls want to cash in, it doesn't really matter. Software patents are a ludicrous idea in the first place but the worst part is that the patent offices (both in the USA and in Europe) don't make the necessary verifications when they validate a patent. It has to be proved (or not) in court, even for prior art. That's also _almost- acceptable in theory but again, in practice, such cases can last for months or years, and it gets really, really expensive (which is why the software patents don't "protect David from Goliath", unlike what the pro-software-patents lobbying politicians from UK/Ireland say again and again, thank gawd their EU presidency is over). I don't know for the US, but the EPO (European Patent Office) only makes money from the patents that are filed and accepted, they don't have any other source of revenue (and no, they're actually not an official body of European Union). Hence, it's pretty obvious why they accept anything without properly validating.

...

for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) { std::cout << i << std::endl; }

I'm sure this violates a software patent as well.

not so sure...

Oh really ;) http://news.com.com/2100-1001-836322.html http://news.com.com/Kodak+wins+Java+patent+suit/2100-1014_3-5394765.html http://news.zdnet.co.uk/itmanagement/0,1000000308,39168864,00.htm "Kodak's case centred on three patents that it bought from Wang Laboratories in 1997, several years after Java was created. These patents -- numbers 5,206,951; 5,421,012; and 5,226,161 -- referred to the integration of data between object managers, and between data managers, and to the integration of different programs that were manipulating data of different types. Kodak argued in court that these patents covered the method where an application "asked for help" from another application -- such as in Java's object-oriented programming." Great example of a patent rip-off.

...

umm... hang on for a minute... /me checks... /me files a patent for the for loop and gets rich !!!

That may get accepted, but it will be most definitly an invalid patent.

Sure, prior art all the way. But still, it could potentially be accepted (I mean, Amazon's one-click-buy patent [1] isn't any better) and if I was a business with lots of cash and lawyers, I could sue <smaller company that eats a little of my market share> and suck out their cash reserves on law suite costs. Oh, and as that smaller company is probably filed at some stock market, it would cause fear and loathing and their shares would drop really hard. [1]http://cse.stanford.edu/class/cs201/projects-99-00/software-patents/amazon.h... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon.com#Patent_controversies http://www.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/2000/amazon_patent.html And yes, it has been patented in Europe too: http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/amaz0818/

...

No, seriously, Vorbis, FLAC and Theora probably violate patents.

Here We can assume that these 'probably violated patents' are invalid. Can't we?

Sure, we can ;) Unless someone proves in court that they do violate some patent, they don't. But given that Frauenhofer & friends have filed a lot of patents in that area, it is quite possible that there is room for a law suit. From them or from others. MS has some proprietary codecs too, no doubt they've filed patents on these. Note that I'm _not_ saying: don't use Vorbis/FLAC/Theora because they probably violate patents. I'm just saying that software patents are an absurd and dangerous Damocles sword over the head of software development (both closed source and open source).

[...]

...

That's exactly why software patents are a ridiculous (but extremely dangerous) idea in the first place.

No doubt about the 'ridiculous', but dangerousness becomes relative, once you strip the FUD off.

Not so sure. It only got a little more quiet now because we entered the "cold war of software patents", where larger businesses file patents like crazy just to have a retaliation weapon -- IBM (they have the largest software patent portfolio of them all), Microsoft (I sure don't like them but they're not patent trolls, fortunately), Oracle, Amazon (*g*), etc etc... E.g. if MS or whoever was to file a lawsuit for software patent violation against Novell or Redhat, there would be a lot of IBM and Sun and others to step up against MS, waving the threat of a few lawsuits against them using their own patent portfolio. That's what is currently sort of balancing the situation out, but for how long... And btw, they wouldn't step up because of their love for OpenSource or Linux, but because they have large investments and partnerships.

...

Still, with MP3, the question isn't even open. It's pretty clear, and it's damn restrictive.

Right. Thomson and Fraunhofer have tried hard to demonstrate the validity of their patents...

Indeed http://bladeenc.mp3.no/ http://www.northcode.com/forums/archive/index.php?t-5393.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5312696.stm And Jürgen, I know you know all that, it's more meant as a piece of information for those how haven't had the joy (?) of taking a dive into the topic of software patents ;) cheers -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ _\_v http://www.fosdem.org http://opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Juergen Weigert wrote:

On Feb 01, 07 13:47:15 +0100, Pascal Bleser wrote:

...

I don't know for the US, but the EPO (European Patent Office) only makes money from the patents that are filed and accepted, they don't have any other source of revenue (and no, they're actually not an official body of European Union). Hence, it's pretty obvious why they accept anything without properly validating.

I've been told exactly the same about the US Patent Office. I am under the impression that a patent is almost never rejected.

Indeed, heard the same.

And I've heard a very absurd reason: An inventor could sue the patent office for not protecting his work ... (absurd, but plausible)

Eww... chicken/egg... or rather, chicken/egg/lawyer ^^

...

http://news.com.com/Kodak+wins+Java+patent+suit/2100-1014_3-5394765.html

Right. That is about the worst that can happen. Some other troll squeezed money out of Sony for using JPEG.

True, but the Kodak-vs-Sun one is even worse IMO. First of all, software development is totally not Kodak's business. It's a patent they got from buying what were the remaining of Wang. Second, it's so insanely fuzzy that almost any piece of software or programming language can be sued. Anything using the Observer pattern is obviously threatened. And all the rest.

...

Note that I'm _not_ saying: don't use Vorbis/FLAC/Theora because they probably violate patents.

D'accord. Do *use* Vorbis/FLAC/Theora because they are not activly threatened. (Not yet. Ouch, I know ...)

Absolutely. And especially, as opposed to MP3, anyone may implement an encoder or a decoder for Ogg/Vorbis/FLAC/Theora. There are no restrictions whatsoever (at least, AFAIK). As a side note: Ogg is the transport that encapsulates one of the following: - - Vorbis for lossy audio - - FLAC for lossless audio - - Theora for video

...

I'm just saying that software patents are an absurd and dangerous Damocles sword over the head of software development (both closed source and open source).

It is a strange life we live here. There may be threats hanging up there, but lawyers advise me, do not let these intimidate you. Otherwise, if we all stare at the threats, our business grinds to a halt.

Yeah. It's a sick situation. 75% of the software patents that have been filed at the EPO (European Patent Office which, as said, is not an official body of the European Union, it just wants to sound like it does) have been done so by businesses from the USA and from Japan. Software patents cannot be enforced in Europe (= you cannot go to court because someone infringes one of your patents on software), but you're allowed to file them at the EPO. The very day the EU Commission acknowledges software patents (and let's hope that day will never come), there's going to be a lot of lawsuits coming down on European businesses. The "funniest" thing is, there are European politicians (in the Commission, in the Parliament and in national bodies) who are pushing hard in favor of software patents, because it would "protect the investments of European businesses against those from the USA and Japan". Yeah, right. Want fries with the big cars and that bank account in Switzerland/Luxembourg ? We definitely have to support the FFII (Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure). The FFII is actively fighting against software patents in Europe: http://swpat.ffii.org/ On a side note, Pieter Hintjens [1], the current president of the FFII, will give a short status update on the situation of swpats in Europe [2] at FOSDEM. [1] http://fosdem.org/2007/schedule/speakers/pieter+hintjens [2] http://fosdem.org/2007/schedule/events/status_swpats

...

And Jürgen, I know you know all that, it's more meant as a piece of information for those how haven't had the joy (?) of taking a dive into the topic of software patents ;)

Sometimes I am not so sure about what I know :-) I simply spoke up, beaucse this thread appeared to come to the conclusion that both mp3 and ogg are equally encumbered. There is definitely less threat to ogg formats, than there is to mp3.

100% ACK. Sorry, that's absolutely not what I meant ;) Everyone should use Ogg/(Vorbis|FLAC|Theora) wherever possible. cheers - -- -o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/ /\\ _\_v The more things change, the more they stay insane. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFFwikbr3NMWliFcXcRAvvgAJ94+IpjZGH7I4iUQzLnPRCmu8VKMwCdF70i rk39+cKhhpu7BqSEYLGUtTo= =bnWX -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Robert Smits wrote:

I'd certainly prefer to have been able to purchase a car radio in this town that plays .ogg, but I couldn't find one when I bought my car five years ago.

I sincerely think we should list all the og compatible hardware we know, for example from this page: http://en.opensuse.org/Ogg tehre are few, but there are some and they deserve as much advertisement as we can do, because, this is also good for us :-) jdd -- http://www.dodin.net Votez pour nous, merci - vote for us, thanks :-) http://musique.sfrjeunestalents.fr/artiste/Magic-Alliance/ http://photo.sfrjeunestalents.fr/artiste/jddphoto/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 30 Jan 2007, jdd@dodin.org wrote:

I sincerely think we should list all the og compatible hardware we know, for example from this page: http://en.opensuse.org/Ogg

Just off the top of my head: iAudio, iRiver, MPIO, Samsung, and devices that supports Rockbox (Archos, iRiver, Apple, iAudio, Toshiba): http://www.rockbox.org/ Charles -- printk(CARDNAME": Bad Craziness - sent packet while busy.\n" ); linux-2.6.6/drivers/net/smc9194.c

On 30 Jan 2007, fgs@epulse.net wrote:

FOr music you can add cowon, meizu and ezav :: all support ogg music and work fine with linux out of the box.

iAudio is Cowon. Charles -- printk("GSCD: magic ...\n"); linux-2.6.6/drivers/cdrom/gscd.c