It is a mistake to take for granted that "more technological advance" is worth the price society would pay for it. That price, imposed through patents, is unac

It is a mistake to take for granted that "more technological advance" is worth the price society would pay for it. That price, imposed through patents, is unacceptable in this case. We are better off if other people encode in older, less efficient codecs that we can support in in free/libre software, than if they encode the files a little smaller and we are forbidden by the MPEG patent portfolio to handle it with free software. See https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/software-literary-patents.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/software-literary-patents.htm... and https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/limit-patent-effect.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/limit-patent-effect.html. You'll note that I do not use the term "open source". Since 1983, I have led the free software movement, which campaigns to win freedom in our computing by insisting on software that respects users' freedom. Open source was coined in 1998 to discard the ethical foundation and present the software as a mere matter of convenience. See https://gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html https://gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html for more explanation of the difference between free software and open source. See also https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-meme-hustler https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-meme-hustler for Evgeny Morozov's article on the same point. Which one you advocate is up to you. If you stand for freedom, please show it -- by saying "free" and "libre", rather than "open".