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The pi includes h264 and mpeg4 decoding support. You only have to pay to activate the VC-1 and mpeg2 codecs. But, I don't see why you are blaming broadcom and r
by tbirdz 10y ago
The pi includes h264 and mpeg4 decoding support. You only have to pay to activate the VC-1 and mpeg2 codecs. But, I don't see why you are blaming broadcom and raspberry pi for this, the cost comes from the MPEG LA's license fee for using their patents related to the video codecs. I guess you are saying broadcom or raspberry pi or someone else should have paid the license fee for the users, instead of having the users pay the cost themselves? They did that for h264, which is probably the most needed codec.
- lkcl 10y agoenshrined in patent law is the right for anyone to implement a single instance of a patent, so that they may improve on it. source code that's downloaded and then compiled thus constitutes "a single instance". if the fuckers at broadcom had stopped for one second and thought, "we really should release the full source and just let people get on with it, because after all this is about education", then there wouldn't BE any need for them to collect royalties. instead they went "we make money from this, therefore we should continue to exploit school children". broadcom DOES NOT have to distribute binary versions of their CODECs. they COULD have chosen instead to release full source code under libre licenses. the fact that they are distributing binaries tells you everything you need to know.