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This article mentions other standards that are managed in a way similar to H.264 such as bluetooth, USB, Wifi, etc... As far as I can recall, there hasn't been
by JunkDNA 16y ago
This article mentions other standards that are managed in a way similar to H.264 such as bluetooth, USB, Wifi, etc... As far as I can recall, there hasn't been much consternation about whether or not to support any of these in Linux. Can anyone enlighten me as to why there is such a line in the sand with respect to H.264 from the perspective of the open source community and not these other standards? Are the terms of the H.264 a departure from what these other groups have done?
- ZeroGravitas 16y agoIt's possibly just not true. I tried Googling for USB royalty fees. There's some info about paying to get vendor IDs and use the logo, but I also found several saying that USB 2.0 was specifically created to be royalty free, including e.g. this quote: "Frustrated by Apples royalty fees on firewire devices, in April 2000, seven industry-leading companies, consisting of Compaq, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Lucent, Microsoft, NEC, and Philips published the specifications for USB2.0." All the main Google results for "Bluetooth royalty" actually found things saying royalty-free, including this about Wireless USB: "The final abandoning of WiMedia may have come down to licensing battles. Foley said in the interview that the SIG asked WiMedia stakeholders to make their technology available on the same royalty-free basis as Bluetooth, so that it could be certified and licensed in the same way as the older standard. "Some WiMedia members weren't amenable to that," said Foley, wanting to hold on to their existing royalties, even in a market of "zero units", as he put it."
- wmf 16y agoThose are all "hardware patents" which is apparently totally fine in the Linux world... because someone else is responsible for paying the license fees.