4 ms·

Using HEIC apparently [1][2] requires a license and is patent encumbered[3], so I actually blame Apple for using a closed format by default. [1] https://forums

Using HEIC apparently [1][2] requires a license and is patent encumbered[3], so I actually blame Apple for using a closed format by default. [1] https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/97036 https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/97036 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17587923 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17587923 [2] http://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/833-HEIC-Yeah.html http://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/833-HEI...

azinman2 6y ago
First of all, as many others have pointed out by specifying the accepted file formats in the <input> tag, they would avoid HEIC entirely as the phone would simply convert to one of the accepted formats. It's also not clear to me that this patent license is actually an issue in terms of decoding and converting file formats on the backend. Even if that were the case, I'm certain there is some commercial license software they could purchase to do that for them. This isn't an open-source endeavor, and they charge each student to take the exam.
- lone_haxx0r 6y ago
  1. I think both parties are at fault The testing system for not using the <input> tag appropiately and Apple for using a closed, patent encumbered format as the default when most of their users don't know about software patents. > It's also not clear to me that this patent license is actually an issue in terms of decoding and converting file formats on the backend. It's reasonable to assume that it is. 2. Sure, the college could pay, but looking at the broader problem here, saying that colleges should accept closed formats would make it really hard for open source online testing systems to proliferate, and all colleges around the world would have to pay royalties to the HEIC patent holders. Even if they were to implement an open source decoder, unless you have plenty of lawyers, the legal uncertainty of the situation could be unacceptable to many individuals/institutions. 3. If the format was open in the first place, maybe we would have lots of open source decoders and maybe the library that the testing system developer used would have support for it, and would have transparently worked without the developer knowing about the format.
  - azinman2 6y ago
    1. I'm not going to argue about Apple's defaults here. It simply isn't germane when the college board has full control over the inputs and iPhones will make up a significant portion of test takers. 2. I think you don't understand what the College Board is. It's a single organization that administers test. This isn't something each university needs to deal with. They make and administer the test to all college-bound students in the US each year. 3. There are plenty of existing open source decoders, and all major open source graphics programs already accept the format (GraphicConverter, ImageMagick, GIMP), in addition to all the major OSes (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android).
    - lone_haxx0r 6y ago
      2. In the specific case of the College Board, yes. Keep in mind that maybe the license fee is based on number of institutions and every student would end up indirectly paying for the license. But also think about independent educational institutions (primary, secondary, higher, etc), think about all schools and colleges in other countries (we're all in a similar situation). All of them would have to find a way to license HEIC, just because Apple decided that they wanted HEIC as their default format. 3. I'd guess that companies that implement HEIC pay for their license. The legal situation of using open source programs to decode licensed and patent encumbered formats is uncertain to me, and I guess it is to most people, including software engineers and managers.
      - oivey 6y ago
        No other entity other than The College Board receives the raw test. Everyone else only receives the results. The College Board also charges around $100 for each of these tests, so even if they had to support the format (they don’t) they really should easily be able to do so.
        loeg 6y ago
        Note that many students take many of these tests, even dozens, so $100/test is quite a lot for what is usually a few hours sit down in a big room with a handful of proctors for hundreds of students (i.e., no more expensive to run than a typical university intro-level class final with a professor and some student TAs).
- tedunangst 6y ago
  Wait. There's a way to get safari to upload HEIF without conversion? All my photos, which are HEIF on my phone, turn into jpeg when I upload them. I've been trying to get the original HEIF off for months.
  - voisin 6y ago
    Dropbox and OneDrive allow you to sync HEIF instead of JPEG.
    - m0dest 6y ago
      Only native apps that explicitly opt-in to HEIC support.
  - thetinguy 6y ago
    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207022 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207022
  - loeg 6y ago
    Google Photos syncs HEIF/HEIC to their cloud.
  - tedunangst 6y ago
    Do I really need to explain that if I upload a file to Dropbox or iCloud it's still not on the web site form where I want it?
- bdcravens 6y ago
  If you don't use your phone to upload, but transfer the file to your computer, it won't do the conversion.
- savrajsingh 6y ago
  Yes, I was wondering why a recently completed photo upload feature for a web app didn't have this problem -- it's because we specified image/jpeg on the file input, so iPhone auto-converts. Likely a failure within the college board's software engineering processes for not testing this use case and then finding and deploying this fix? https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/input/file https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/in...
  - gary-kim 6y ago
    Some of the issues seems to be because some of these students transferred the HEIC file to their computers then tried to upload them by changing the extension of the file.
tantalor 6y ago
Here's a LGPL decoder: https://github.com/strukturag/libheif https://github.com/strukturag/libheif
- Gaelan 6y ago
  Assuming GP is right about the patents, the College Board would open themselves up to patent suits by using that without a license.
  - mlyle 6y ago
    Maybe they should just pay the $5 fee...
- pornel 6y ago
  Patents are separate from copyright, so even an independently developed freely licensed open-source software is illegal to use without a patent license from patent owners. https://www.hevcadvance.com/pdfnew/LicensorList.pdf https://www.hevcadvance.com/pdfnew/LicensorList.pdf
trhway 6y ago
>Using HEIC apparently [1][2] requires a license and is patent encumbered[3] College board could have added "iPhone HEIC license surcharge" for those users - that would have gotten Apple attention :)
tinus_hn 6y ago
So what formats do they accept when they want a video? Theora?

azinman2 6y ago

First of all, as many others have pointed out by specifying the accepted file formats in the <input> tag, they would avoid HEIC entirely as the phone would simply convert to one of the accepted formats. It's also not clear to me that this patent license is actually an issue in terms of decoding and converting file formats on the backend. Even if that were the case, I'm certain there is some commercial license software they could purchase to do that for them. This isn't an open-source endeavor, and they charge each student to take the exam.

lone_haxx0r 6y ago
1. I think both parties are at fault The testing system for not using the <input> tag appropiately and Apple for using a closed, patent encumbered format as the default when most of their users don't know about software patents. > It's also not clear to me that this patent license is actually an issue in terms of decoding and converting file formats on the backend. It's reasonable to assume that it is. 2. Sure, the college could pay, but looking at the broader problem here, saying that colleges should accept closed formats would make it really hard for open source online testing systems to proliferate, and all colleges around the world would have to pay royalties to the HEIC patent holders. Even if they were to implement an open source decoder, unless you have plenty of lawyers, the legal uncertainty of the situation could be unacceptable to many individuals/institutions. 3. If the format was open in the first place, maybe we would have lots of open source decoders and maybe the library that the testing system developer used would have support for it, and would have transparently worked without the developer knowing about the format.
- azinman2 6y ago
  1. I'm not going to argue about Apple's defaults here. It simply isn't germane when the college board has full control over the inputs and iPhones will make up a significant portion of test takers. 2. I think you don't understand what the College Board is. It's a single organization that administers test. This isn't something each university needs to deal with. They make and administer the test to all college-bound students in the US each year. 3. There are plenty of existing open source decoders, and all major open source graphics programs already accept the format (GraphicConverter, ImageMagick, GIMP), in addition to all the major OSes (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android).
  - lone_haxx0r 6y ago
    2. In the specific case of the College Board, yes. Keep in mind that maybe the license fee is based on number of institutions and every student would end up indirectly paying for the license. But also think about independent educational institutions (primary, secondary, higher, etc), think about all schools and colleges in other countries (we're all in a similar situation). All of them would have to find a way to license HEIC, just because Apple decided that they wanted HEIC as their default format. 3. I'd guess that companies that implement HEIC pay for their license. The legal situation of using open source programs to decode licensed and patent encumbered formats is uncertain to me, and I guess it is to most people, including software engineers and managers.
    - oivey 6y ago
      No other entity other than The College Board receives the raw test. Everyone else only receives the results. The College Board also charges around $100 for each of these tests, so even if they had to support the format (they don’t) they really should easily be able to do so.
      - loeg 6y ago
        Note that many students take many of these tests, even dozens, so $100/test is quite a lot for what is usually a few hours sit down in a big room with a handful of proctors for hundreds of students (i.e., no more expensive to run than a typical university intro-level class final with a professor and some student TAs).
tedunangst 6y ago
Wait. There's a way to get safari to upload HEIF without conversion? All my photos, which are HEIF on my phone, turn into jpeg when I upload them. I've been trying to get the original HEIF off for months.
- voisin 6y ago
  Dropbox and OneDrive allow you to sync HEIF instead of JPEG.
  - m0dest 6y ago
    Only native apps that explicitly opt-in to HEIC support.
- thetinguy 6y ago
  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207022 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207022
- loeg 6y ago
  Google Photos syncs HEIF/HEIC to their cloud.
- tedunangst 6y ago
  Do I really need to explain that if I upload a file to Dropbox or iCloud it's still not on the web site form where I want it?
bdcravens 6y ago
If you don't use your phone to upload, but transfer the file to your computer, it won't do the conversion.
savrajsingh 6y ago
Yes, I was wondering why a recently completed photo upload feature for a web app didn't have this problem -- it's because we specified image/jpeg on the file input, so iPhone auto-converts. Likely a failure within the college board's software engineering processes for not testing this use case and then finding and deploying this fix? https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/input/file https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/in...
- gary-kim 6y ago
  Some of the issues seems to be because some of these students transferred the HEIC file to their computers then tried to upload them by changing the extension of the file.

tantalor 6y ago

Here's a LGPL decoder: https://github.com/strukturag/libheif https://github.com/strukturag/libheif

Gaelan 6y ago
Assuming GP is right about the patents, the College Board would open themselves up to patent suits by using that without a license.
- mlyle 6y ago
  Maybe they should just pay the $5 fee...
pornel 6y ago
Patents are separate from copyright, so even an independently developed freely licensed open-source software is illegal to use without a patent license from patent owners. https://www.hevcadvance.com/pdfnew/LicensorList.pdf https://www.hevcadvance.com/pdfnew/LicensorList.pdf

trhway 6y ago

>Using HEIC apparently [1][2] requires a license and is patent encumbered[3] College board could have added "iPhone HEIC license surcharge" for those users - that would have gotten Apple attention :)

tinus_hn 6y ago

So what formats do they accept when they want a video? Theora?