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VPx reference software is open source. The article is not referring to the software but the specification which is developed and published by Google (a private

by 0x09 11y ago

VPx reference software is open source. The article is not referring to the software but the specification which is developed and published by Google (a private company), as opposed to an open standards consortium like ISO, ITU or the IETF. VP8 was published as an informational RFC under the IETF, but not as part of a standards track, see "Not All RFCs are Standards": https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1796 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1796

indolering 11y ago
Parent has the right idea. One of the few valid criticisms of VP8 was that the code /was/ the standard, so you had to reverse engineer the encoder/decoder. This is not only a PITA but also prompts questions such as whether an obvious bug is part of the spec. It also took a full year after Google bought the company behind VP8 to actually release the code. Someone from Firefox actually wrote an open letter to Google basically asking WTF was going on. I don't have any first or even second hand knowledge of the current situation, but I suspect that Google has continued to ... not collaborate as much as everyone else would like. (Caveat emptor: the above is based off of memory of events that took place a few years ago.)