4 ms·

From what I understand, the main reason for Mozilla and Opera not wanting to include H.264 is that there would be licensing fees for including a decoder with th

by Osiris 16y ago

From what I understand, the main reason for Mozilla and Opera not wanting to include H.264 is that there would be licensing fees for including a decoder with the browser. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it could potentially cost both Mozilla and Opera a significant amount in licensing fees to include H.264 support. Apple doesn't care because it's already a licensee, the same for Microsoft (including in Win7) and Google (encoding for YouTube).

bzbarsky 16y ago
The fee would be about $5 million a year. Arguably, both could afford it (it would be about 5-10% of revenue, but doable). The reason Mozilla is not wanting to include H.264 is that: 1) It can't do that in the open source version, and doesn't want to have separate open-source and closed-source releases. 2) It feels H.264 would be bad for the web, since it requires paying to create content in H.264. Reason #2 is somewhat more important than reason #1, since #1 could be worked around by using system media frameworks, etc.
- Locke1689 16y ago
  Both of those things are misleading or wrong. There's no reason why they would have to make it closed source, especially if they use x264. H264 patents don't require everyone to pay to create content, you should read the MPEG licensing agreement.
  - bzbarsky 16y ago
    > There's no reason why they would have to make it closed > source, especially if they use x264. That's not what the lawyers said. In the US, at least; things may be different in your jurisdiction. Note that this is the route Chrome used to take: Chromium did not support H.264, while the Chrome binaries, built from some source that was not public, did. > H264 patents don't require everyone to pay to create > content They do require you to pay to produce an encoder. Of course someone can then distribute said encoder for free if they want, so the end user doesn't technically _have_ to pay. But in practice they do. And if you use an unlicensed encoder, then you're infringing on the patents. So is anyone who views any videos that were produced with the unlicensed encoder, even if their decoder is licenced. And some other restrictions to do with the fact that encoders are typically not licensed for arbitrary use (e.g. the encoder in a typical digital camera doesn't give you the right to put the resulting video on a website that you make money from, via Google Adwords, say). You should in fact read the licensing agreements involved, or at least the excerpts in http://bemasc.net/wordpress/2010/02/02/no-you-cant-do-that-with-h264/ http://bemasc.net/wordpress/2010/02/02/no-you-cant-do-that-w...
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - Locke1689 16y ago
      That's not what the lawyers said. In the US, at least; things may be different in your jurisdiction. http://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/x264-devel/2010-July/007508.html http://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/x264-devel/2010-July/0... Even if you decide to use a closed-source decoder, just because the decoder has to be closed source doesn't necessarily mean the entire browser has to be closed. What exactly was the lawyers' reasoning behind this? http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/231/n-10-08-26.pdf http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachme... They do require you to pay to produce an encoder. Of course someone can then distribute said encoder for free if they want, so the end user doesn't technically _have_ to pay. But in practice they do. And if you use an unlicensed encoder, then you're infringing on the patents. So is anyone who views any videos that were produced with the unlicensed encoder, even if their decoder is licenced. What are you talking about? The page you linked clearly says that non-commercial content is free. I didn't say that no one has to pay to create content, I said not everyone has to pay to create content.
      - bzbarsky 16y ago
        > doesn't necessarily mean the entire browser has to be closed. Right. I did say that #1 can be worked around. If you you you approach, you still get the Chromium/Chrome model, where you can't release the actual source to the binaries you ship, and worse yet others can't easily fork your "open-source" app while keeping the functionality or redistribute your binaries. > The page you linked clearly says that non-commercial content is free. "commercial use" in that context includes putting it up on a website that has ads. So yes, not everyone has to pay to create content. If you find someone who will give you a free encoder for which they paid the licensing fees, and you make sure that either you don't put your content on the web or if you do that there are no ads on the page and you don't charge for the videos, then you can get away with paying nothing. Quick; name me the places on the web where there are free videos and no ads. I'd love to know where this is!

by Osiris 16y ago

bzbarsky 16y ago

The fee would be about $5 million a year. Arguably, both could afford it (it would be about 5-10% of revenue, but doable). The reason Mozilla is not wanting to include H.264 is that: 1) It can't do that in the open source version, and doesn't want to have separate open-source and closed-source releases. 2) It feels H.264 would be bad for the web, since it requires paying to create content in H.264. Reason #2 is somewhat more important than reason #1, since #1 could be worked around by using system media frameworks, etc.

Locke1689 16y ago
Both of those things are misleading or wrong. There's no reason why they would have to make it closed source, especially if they use x264. H264 patents don't require everyone to pay to create content, you should read the MPEG licensing agreement.
- bzbarsky 16y ago
  > There's no reason why they would have to make it closed > source, especially if they use x264. That's not what the lawyers said. In the US, at least; things may be different in your jurisdiction. Note that this is the route Chrome used to take: Chromium did not support H.264, while the Chrome binaries, built from some source that was not public, did. > H264 patents don't require everyone to pay to create > content They do require you to pay to produce an encoder. Of course someone can then distribute said encoder for free if they want, so the end user doesn't technically _have_ to pay. But in practice they do. And if you use an unlicensed encoder, then you're infringing on the patents. So is anyone who views any videos that were produced with the unlicensed encoder, even if their decoder is licenced. And some other restrictions to do with the fact that encoders are typically not licensed for arbitrary use (e.g. the encoder in a typical digital camera doesn't give you the right to put the resulting video on a website that you make money from, via Google Adwords, say). You should in fact read the licensing agreements involved, or at least the excerpts in http://bemasc.net/wordpress/2010/02/02/no-you-cant-do-that-with-h264/ http://bemasc.net/wordpress/2010/02/02/no-you-cant-do-that-w...
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - Locke1689 16y ago
    That's not what the lawyers said. In the US, at least; things may be different in your jurisdiction. http://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/x264-devel/2010-July/007508.html http://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/x264-devel/2010-July/0... Even if you decide to use a closed-source decoder, just because the decoder has to be closed source doesn't necessarily mean the entire browser has to be closed. What exactly was the lawyers' reasoning behind this? http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/231/n-10-08-26.pdf http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachme... They do require you to pay to produce an encoder. Of course someone can then distribute said encoder for free if they want, so the end user doesn't technically _have_ to pay. But in practice they do. And if you use an unlicensed encoder, then you're infringing on the patents. So is anyone who views any videos that were produced with the unlicensed encoder, even if their decoder is licenced. What are you talking about? The page you linked clearly says that non-commercial content is free. I didn't say that no one has to pay to create content, I said not everyone has to pay to create content.
    - bzbarsky 16y ago
      > doesn't necessarily mean the entire browser has to be closed. Right. I did say that #1 can be worked around. If you you you approach, you still get the Chromium/Chrome model, where you can't release the actual source to the binaries you ship, and worse yet others can't easily fork your "open-source" app while keeping the functionality or redistribute your binaries. > The page you linked clearly says that non-commercial content is free. "commercial use" in that context includes putting it up on a website that has ads. So yes, not everyone has to pay to create content. If you find someone who will give you a free encoder for which they paid the licensing fees, and you make sure that either you don't put your content on the web or if you do that there are no ads on the page and you don't charge for the videos, then you can get away with paying nothing. Quick; name me the places on the web where there are free videos and no ads. I'd love to know where this is!