I'd appreciate it if downvoters could point me towards the standards body that oversees the VP8 standard. Apparently I just missed the news when it was submitted to an independent standards organisation…
(This debate makes me appreciate how RMS must feel trying to educate people about the difference between free-as-in-beer and free-as-in-freedom)
"In May 2010, after the purchase of On2 Technologies, Google provided an irrevocable patent promise on its patents for implementing the VP8 format, and released a specification of the format under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.[6] That same year, Google also released libvpx, the reference implementation of VP8, under a BSD license.[7]"
Every codec's situation is unclear. MPEG-LA doesn't provide indemnification either, and they would be stupid to do so.
As an example, there are license pools for MP3, and companies generally pay them. Yet over the course of several years, German customs cleared out displays with mp3 players at Cebit because their creators didn't know that there's another patent to license.
Now, that isn't too bad for someone providing indemnification: It would be a matter of the pool paying that third party, and including that in their future pool fees.
"Unfortunately" a patent holder is generally allowed to control distribution entirely (eg refuse to license to any single party they dislike). Indemnification in that case would probably mean reimbursing the costs of development and production (and maybe lost future income).
None of that changes the fact that it is proprietary. Free to use does not mean the same thing as non-proprietary. The definition of VP8 is entirely defined and controlled by a single corporation (Google), not by a standards body.
For example XUL is proprietary, even though the specification is available under a CC licence, because it is controlled by a single vendor, not an open vendor-neutral standardisation process.
Unless VP8 has been submitted to some standards body that I'm unaware of it remains proprietary. Evidence of such a submission and ratification is the only thing that would be relevant to this discussion. The licence of various implementations, or any patent grants are irrelevant to its status as proprietary.
And yet, strange to say, anon1385's definition is routinely used to describe Google Native Client as proprietary; and particularly by Mozilla partisans.
Just to emphasis that, here is the (former) top man Brendan Eich on the topic:
>"Proprietary" as in "sole proprietor" is appropriate for a project with zero governance, launched by Google after some incubation closed-source, dominated by Googlers.[1]
Which sounds exactly like VP8 to me (even libvpx for that matter).
That is a page about software implementations not standards. We are talking about standards.
For example, there are various implementations of both H.264 and VP8 that meet that definition of non-proprietary software. The licence of those implementations has no bearing on the status of the standards themselves. I could write a proprietary, closed source VP8 or H264 encoder and again that would make no difference at all to the status of the standards because it would just be an implementation.
>You are, apparently. Why do you think that's what anyone else is talking about?
This thread started with the quote "proprietary codecs vs vp8". That is clearly talking about standards not implementations. The very post you replied to talked about standards, standards bodies and ended with "The licence of various implementations […] are irrelevant to its status as proprietary".
>H.264 is patent-encumbered.
I've no idea what you are getting at here. You seem to still be confusing standards and implementations. Are saying that software that is affected by patent claims must be proprietary? x264 is proprietary? LAME is proprietary? ffmpeg is proprietary? Are you aware of the huge number of extremely broad software patents that have been granted? Just about any non-trivial software will infringe some patent or other.
>Are saying that software that is affected by patent claims must be proprietary?
Yes, I'm saying that if a piece of software cannot be freely distributed and used because of intellectual property laws, it is proprietary.
>Are you aware of the huge number of extremely broad software patents that have been granted? Just about any non-trivial software will infringe some patent or other.
In practice, it all depends on to what extent the patents are enforced. Real-world usage of "proprietary" reflects practicalities.
and "VP8" is a standard not an implementation (libvpx is an implementation). So the original comment was not clear, but in the context of Mozilla pushing VP8 as video standard for the web it would be very strange if the original poster had meant implementations rather than standards. Unless Mozilla are advocating that everybody use a specific implementation of VP8, but that would be hugely hypocritical and inconsistent after their war against WebDB/SQLite.
>Yes, I'm saying that if a piece of software cannot be freely distributed and used because of intellectual property laws, it is proprietary.
I think that is a ridiculous definition. That means all VP8 implementations are proprietary[1]. In a world of submarine patents and patent trolls your definition of proprietary is meaningless because any software could become proprietary at any time when a previously unknown or unenforced patent starts being enforced. Additionally, it's a definition that is very location specific - many of these software patents are not valid or recognised in most of the world. I don't have much interest in the US legal system being forced upon me by people obsessed with US patent law when I'm not a US citizen or resident.
>and "VP8" is a standard not an implementation (libvpx is an implementation).
It's apparently called "libvpx" internally, but the project page refers to it as "the VP8 video codec, a high quality, royalty free, open source codec". http://www.webmproject.org/docs/vp8-sdk/index.html
>So the original comment was not clear, but in the context of Mozilla pushing VP8 as video standard for the web it would be very strange if the original poster had meant implementations rather than standards.
No one on this thread besides you has said anything about standards. The original comment included "proprietary codecs vs vp8" on a list of positive things Mozilla has done, which also included other implementation-specific things like "javascript performance".
>Unless Mozilla are advocating that everybody use a specific implementation of VP8, but that would be hugely hypocritical and inconsistent after their war against WebDB/SQLite.
Mozilla is, in their own browser, using a codec (read as: implementation) which isn't proprietary. This has two positive effects: it keeps Firefox from becoming proprietary; and it also helps push other browsers to implement the same video format (either using the same codec or not), which helps increase the format's marketshare, meaning that more videos on the Web can be viewed using a non-proprietary codec (implementation).
>In a world of submarine patents and patent trolls your definition of proprietary is meaningless because any software could become proprietary at any time when a previously unknown or unenforced patent starts being enforced.
It's not meaningless, it's just somewhat fuzzy. I think you're committing the continuum fallacy here. A piece of software which I can only use if I pay the patent owner a million dollars is clearly proprietary. A piece of software which is more than 20 years old is clearly not proprietary (unless it's proprietary for copyright reasons), since any patents would have expired. In between are some gray areas, but that doesn't invalidate the overall concept. As a practical matter, it's useful to only consider software proprietary on patent grounds if there is a specific patent holder who has asserted a specific patent against it.
>Additionally, it's a definition that is very location specific - many of these software patents are not valid or recognised in most of the world. I don't have much interest in the US legal system being forced upon me by people obsessed with US patent law when I'm not a US citizen or resident.
So, you think it doesn't matter if people in the US can't see videos on the Web without paying for a patent license as long as it doesn't affect you directly?
>Nokia have actively brought cases against HTC over some of those patents.
Wikipedia mentions that a German court ruled against Nokia.
VP8 is proprietary.
I'd appreciate it if downvoters could point me towards the standards body that oversees the VP8 standard. Apparently I just missed the news when it was submitted to an independent standards organisation…
(This debate makes me appreciate how RMS must feel trying to educate people about the difference between free-as-in-beer and free-as-in-freedom)