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I don't have a license to use x264, and it's patented in the country I live in. I understand that there are ways to watch H.264 in Linux if you're willing to s

I don't have a license to use x264, and it's patented in the country I live in. I understand that there are ways to watch H.264 in Linux if you're willing to skirt / violate patent law (such as pirate repositories), but I'm not interesting in doing so. Advocating for open formats is, in the long run, better.

jrockway 17y ago
The license is to redistribute, not to use. I'm no H.264 supporter, but it's a non-issue to play it on Linux, so you really need a better argument, like "I refuse to use it out of principle".
- _delirium 17y ago
  I believe you actually need a license to use it, even at home, non-commercially, under U.S. doctrine of what constitutes "practicing" a patent (but this is rarely litigated, for obvious practical reasons).
  - jrockway 17y ago
    Similarly, it's illegal to cross the street against the light at 3am. But nobody has ever gone to jail for this.
    - _delirium 17y ago
      Yeah, in practice you'd have to be using it in a way that someone would notice. I believe there's some 19th-century precedent on it being illegal for farmers to make DIY versions of patented tools, even if they never bought or sold them--- just making and using them was a patent violation. Presumably they were somehow obvious enough for somebody to notice.
    - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
      They might not get arrested but if someone on hacker news stated the completely false claim that it was legal, just like you did (twice!) for H.264 further up this thread then they'd probably expect to be corrected by someone. (I'd also assume that some poor, probably non-white person has gone to jail for exactly this kind of law that everyone ignores.)
      - jrockway 17y ago
        Well, remember that most people in the world aren't from the US. It's like saying "you can't say whatever you want on the Internet" because in China you can't.
        deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
        jmillikin 17y ago
        You also can't in the US, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, etc. There might be some country where speech on the internet is completely unrestricted, but its population is likely too small to matter except to bittorrent operators.

jrockway 17y ago

The license is to redistribute, not to use. I'm no H.264 supporter, but it's a non-issue to play it on Linux, so you really need a better argument, like "I refuse to use it out of principle".

_delirium 17y ago
I believe you actually need a license to use it, even at home, non-commercially, under U.S. doctrine of what constitutes "practicing" a patent (but this is rarely litigated, for obvious practical reasons).
- jrockway 17y ago
  Similarly, it's illegal to cross the street against the light at 3am. But nobody has ever gone to jail for this.
  - _delirium 17y ago
    Yeah, in practice you'd have to be using it in a way that someone would notice. I believe there's some 19th-century precedent on it being illegal for farmers to make DIY versions of patented tools, even if they never bought or sold them--- just making and using them was a patent violation. Presumably they were somehow obvious enough for somebody to notice.
  - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
    They might not get arrested but if someone on hacker news stated the completely false claim that it was legal, just like you did (twice!) for H.264 further up this thread then they'd probably expect to be corrected by someone. (I'd also assume that some poor, probably non-white person has gone to jail for exactly this kind of law that everyone ignores.)
    - jrockway 17y ago
      Well, remember that most people in the world aren't from the US. It's like saying "you can't say whatever you want on the Internet" because in China you can't.
      - deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
      - jmillikin 17y ago
        You also can't in the US, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, etc. There might be some country where speech on the internet is completely unrestricted, but its population is likely too small to matter except to bittorrent operators.