3 ms·

is it possible to implement generic/unencumbered blocks at the HW level and then string them together at the SW or firmware layer? how much efficiency do you lo

is it possible to implement generic/unencumbered blocks at the HW level and then string them together at the SW or firmware layer? how much efficiency do you lose? if you can move all the patentable stuff into SW then we can do the same thing we all did with mp3 patents: i.e. ignore them (see: LAME).

wmf 4y ago
No, "we" cannot just ignore patents by implementing them in software. Maybe you can but that doesn't scale.
- colinsane 4y ago
  tell that to every Linux user who was doing anything with mp3's before the patents expired just a couple years ago. i'm pretty sure even the Windows version of Audacity -- a tool with over 100 million downloads -- integrated with it. are you claiming the LAME approach wasn't successful? or that its success was a fluke, context-dependent, or for some other reason is a bad analogue?
  - olliej 4y ago
    LAME is a really great example of why patents exist: the need to avoid the mp3 patents resulted in the development of technology that was superior to that covered by the mp3 patents. Do people really think LAME would have been developed if people were just reimplementing the existing mp3 encoder?
    - lmm 4y ago
      This is wrong in so many ways I'm not sure where to start. LAME was covered by the patents, so your whole idea is backwards and even if it weren't it's not supported by any evidence - there's just no relationship between patentability and how many encoders get implemented independently or not.
      - olliej 4y ago
        I had to wikipedia this - I would swear it wasn't, and that was apparently my incorrect interpretation 20+ years ago and has stuck with me since O_o I'd edit my original comment to note it being false, but apparently I'm outside the HN edit window :-/
  - woobilicious 4y ago
    Yeah downloading an OS that couldn't play MP3's by default, and required you to jump through hoops to let it play them, because said distro was avoiding law suits, Just like how Audacity didn't ship with LAME, but required you to supply your own dll. Yes patents had zero effect on the User experience.
    - colinsane 4y ago
      yes. of course patents impact UX. if patents didn’t make things more difficult for engineers, then they’d be worthless, and in open source that burden on the devs gets passed through to the users. a reasonable person might conclude that patents are a bad thing as a result. like it or not, HEVC is patented and that’s not changing anytime soon: but do we decide to develop tools around it, or banish it? that any users actually went through the awful UX of downloading codecs is some evidence that mp3 support was valuable to them. is this still the case, today with HEVC, or not? if the argument was really as simple as “HEVC is bad UX”, we wouldn’t have this discussion: nobody would use something with bad UX if they didn’t feel compelled to for some other reason. why anyone would feel compelled to, is the more interesting discussion.
  - kevingadd 4y ago
    I'm not sure how you think for-profit companies like Mozilla, Google or Apple would get away with shipping 'ha ha I tricked you!' patent circumventions to a billion people. It's not like Audacity. Keep in mind that Firefox AFAIK still relies on OS codecs for h264 because shipping it themselves is such a difficult proposition due to patents. And on Windows, if you want native HEVC or AV1 playback you have to buy it from the store, it doesn't ship with the OS.
    - jay_kyburz 4y ago
      On my new laptop, whenever opening a h265 I would get message from the media player saying I can buy HEVC for $3 or something. But if you follow the link below to the Windows store, you can download it for free! ms-windows-store://pdp/?ProductId=9n4wgh0z6vhq Found out on Howtogeek https://www.howtogeek.com/680690/how-to-install-free-hevc-codecs-on-windows-10-for-h.265-video/ https://www.howtogeek.com/680690/how-to-install-free-hevc-co...
      - kevingadd 4y ago
        Yeah, I had to buy it. I suspect maybe depending on your manufacturer your machine already has a license?
    - colinsane 4y ago
      maybe i misunderstood, then. i thought that HEVC licensing was paid for by the hardware vendor, and hence acted as a broad tax even if you’re not using HEVC, or using GPUs in a HPC context, etc (and unnecessarily raises the barrier of entry to new HW vendors, etc). but if Windows users are individually paying those licenses, that’s probably not the case. i guess the worry then is that HEVC crowds out AV1/others, and this Chrome change is setting the stage for it to become a broad tax on video? i could buy that angle.
      - thayne 4y ago
        There was a recent kerfuffle about Fedora removing support for hardware accelerated H.265 from their distribution of mesa because of threat of patent litigation. See https://www.phoronix.com/news/Fedora-Disable-Bad-VA-API https://www.phoronix.com/news/Fedora-Disable-Bad-VA-API. That would also seem to suggest that the OS has to pay royalties if it uses hardware acceleration. It seems pretty strange to me that the OS/library/driver has to pay royalties just to expose access to hardware, which is where the patented technology actually exists. But I also don't understand how a video codec can be patented in the first place. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ IANAL.

wmf 4y ago

No, "we" cannot just ignore patents by implementing them in software. Maybe you can but that doesn't scale.

colinsane 4y ago
tell that to every Linux user who was doing anything with mp3's before the patents expired just a couple years ago. i'm pretty sure even the Windows version of Audacity -- a tool with over 100 million downloads -- integrated with it. are you claiming the LAME approach wasn't successful? or that its success was a fluke, context-dependent, or for some other reason is a bad analogue?
- olliej 4y ago
  LAME is a really great example of why patents exist: the need to avoid the mp3 patents resulted in the development of technology that was superior to that covered by the mp3 patents. Do people really think LAME would have been developed if people were just reimplementing the existing mp3 encoder?
  - lmm 4y ago
    This is wrong in so many ways I'm not sure where to start. LAME was covered by the patents, so your whole idea is backwards and even if it weren't it's not supported by any evidence - there's just no relationship between patentability and how many encoders get implemented independently or not.
    - olliej 4y ago
      I had to wikipedia this - I would swear it wasn't, and that was apparently my incorrect interpretation 20+ years ago and has stuck with me since O_o I'd edit my original comment to note it being false, but apparently I'm outside the HN edit window :-/
- woobilicious 4y ago
  Yeah downloading an OS that couldn't play MP3's by default, and required you to jump through hoops to let it play them, because said distro was avoiding law suits, Just like how Audacity didn't ship with LAME, but required you to supply your own dll. Yes patents had zero effect on the User experience.
  - colinsane 4y ago
    yes. of course patents impact UX. if patents didn’t make things more difficult for engineers, then they’d be worthless, and in open source that burden on the devs gets passed through to the users. a reasonable person might conclude that patents are a bad thing as a result. like it or not, HEVC is patented and that’s not changing anytime soon: but do we decide to develop tools around it, or banish it? that any users actually went through the awful UX of downloading codecs is some evidence that mp3 support was valuable to them. is this still the case, today with HEVC, or not? if the argument was really as simple as “HEVC is bad UX”, we wouldn’t have this discussion: nobody would use something with bad UX if they didn’t feel compelled to for some other reason. why anyone would feel compelled to, is the more interesting discussion.
- kevingadd 4y ago
  I'm not sure how you think for-profit companies like Mozilla, Google or Apple would get away with shipping 'ha ha I tricked you!' patent circumventions to a billion people. It's not like Audacity. Keep in mind that Firefox AFAIK still relies on OS codecs for h264 because shipping it themselves is such a difficult proposition due to patents. And on Windows, if you want native HEVC or AV1 playback you have to buy it from the store, it doesn't ship with the OS.
  - jay_kyburz 4y ago
    On my new laptop, whenever opening a h265 I would get message from the media player saying I can buy HEVC for $3 or something. But if you follow the link below to the Windows store, you can download it for free! ms-windows-store://pdp/?ProductId=9n4wgh0z6vhq Found out on Howtogeek https://www.howtogeek.com/680690/how-to-install-free-hevc-codecs-on-windows-10-for-h.265-video/ https://www.howtogeek.com/680690/how-to-install-free-hevc-co...
    - kevingadd 4y ago
      Yeah, I had to buy it. I suspect maybe depending on your manufacturer your machine already has a license?
  - colinsane 4y ago
    maybe i misunderstood, then. i thought that HEVC licensing was paid for by the hardware vendor, and hence acted as a broad tax even if you’re not using HEVC, or using GPUs in a HPC context, etc (and unnecessarily raises the barrier of entry to new HW vendors, etc). but if Windows users are individually paying those licenses, that’s probably not the case. i guess the worry then is that HEVC crowds out AV1/others, and this Chrome change is setting the stage for it to become a broad tax on video? i could buy that angle.
    - thayne 4y ago
      There was a recent kerfuffle about Fedora removing support for hardware accelerated H.265 from their distribution of mesa because of threat of patent litigation. See https://www.phoronix.com/news/Fedora-Disable-Bad-VA-API https://www.phoronix.com/news/Fedora-Disable-Bad-VA-API. That would also seem to suggest that the OS has to pay royalties if it uses hardware acceleration. It seems pretty strange to me that the OS/library/driver has to pay royalties just to expose access to hardware, which is where the patented technology actually exists. But I also don't understand how a video codec can be patented in the first place. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ IANAL.