6 ms·
proprietary H.264 codec Can people at least get their terminology right for once here? That isn't what proprietary means, and conflating "patented" with "prop
by DarkShikari 17y ago
proprietary H.264 codec
Can people at least get their terminology right for once here? That isn't what proprietary means, and conflating "patented" with "proprietary" simply serves to confuse people.
Many free software programs are covered by at least some patents--most, I would say, simply given the size of the patent minefield--and I wouldn't call them "proprietary". It seems to me that "proprietary" has basically become an insult to be applied towards anything "less free" than what one wants to advocate.
A proprietary format has no standard you can freely read and implement. At best it requires signing an NDA and/or paying tens of thousands of dollars to look at--at worst it doesn't even exist, with the "standard" being "whatever the official implementation does" (see Microsoft Word for a great example of this). There are tons of these in video: RealVideo, for example, along with all of Microsoft's video formats before they finally opened up with VC-1. Others include On2's video formats (e.g. VP6), Sorenson's (SVQ1, SVQ3), and many others.
One of the biggest dangers of this conflation is the understatement of the dangers that proprietary formats can cause. There has never, ever been a lawsuit over an open source implementation of a "patented-but-standardized" file format--as far as I know, the common interpretation seems to be that the sellers and distributors of an application are responsible for any royalties, placing no restrictions whatsoever on the developers. See LAME, for example.
But proprietary formats are different. The law is very vague and conflicting on whether or not it is legal to even reverse-engineer such formats (it varies between countries as well). Doing so almost always requires access to the disassembled binary of the original application, which violates the EULA and potentially the DMCA. Developers can be hit with legal threats merely for releasing source code, as we saw with RTMPdump.
Of course, proprietary formats tend to be patented as well, resulting in a "worst of both worlds" situation.
Don't mix up the terminology, lest people be convinced that RealVideo or another proprietary solution is no more evil than a internationally standardized, albeit patented, option. The greatest accomplishment in internet video in the past 10 years has been moving away from that horrendous mix of Quicktime, Windows Media, and Real that was used on almost every site on the internet. Even if it means we've been stuck with Flash for playback until recently, it's better than that ridiculous mix of proprietary garbage.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1074237 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1074237 has a great example of what happens when proprietary and patented are conflated: a piece of proprietary crap can be promoted in place of a free software solution.
- mmastrac 17y agoAll the definitions I can find for "proprietary" allow patented inventions to fall under them. Standardizing and documenting an algorithm or protocol does not allow developers to use it freely and without royalty. One example of many from define:proprietary: http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?o2=&o0=1&o7=&o5=&o1=1&o6=&o4=&o3=&s=proprietary&i=1&h=00#c http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?o2=&o0=1&... In this case, I believe Chris' terminology is correct. You are instead describing the difference between closed- and open-source. For x264, an implementation of H.264, it is an open source implementation of a proprietary algorithm. In Theora's case, it is open source implementation of a free (as in libre) algorithm. RealVideo is a closed-source implementation of a proprietary algorithm.
- DarkShikari 17y agoHow is an algorithm proprietary if I can go online to the website of the ITU, a division of the United Nations, and download a copy of the standard and go write my own implementation? ffmpeg's reverse-engineered Real Video decoder is an open-source implementation of a proprietary specification. Depending on the country and legal interpretation, the mere existence of this is illegal. ffmpeg's H.264 decoder is an open-source implementation of a patented, but not proprietary, specification. ffmpeg's Theora decoder is an open-source implementation of a probably-not-patented specification. If a definition doesn't distinguish between something freely available for all to view/implement and something which cannot even be implemented without potentially falling afoul of copyright laws and the DMCA, it isn't a very good definition.
- mmastrac 17y agoYou can implement it, but you are not free to distribute your implementation in binary form, and users are not free to use your algorithm without the consent of the patent holders. That is the definition of proprietary. Regardless of the availability of the specification and full, compliant implementations, you are not free to distribute this code in the United States of America. Microsoft has a patent on the openly-spec'd FAT filesystem and are still pursuing royalty agreements with distributors of FAT code: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/02/microsoft-sues-tomtom-over-fat-patents-in-linux-based-device.ars http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/02/microsoft-sues... If software patents were removed from the picture in the USA, H.264 would cease to be a proprietary algorithm. Edit: I'm updating this because the reply markers are slowed down to flamewar levels. :) Re: consent of the patent holders, this is guaranteed by the MPEG LA but only in return for royalties paid. You need their permission, which is granted only by paying the royalty.