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Who would write a web server? Who would write Curl? Who would write a whole operating system to compete with Microsoft when that would take thousands of engin

by rwmj 1y ago

Who would write a web server? Who would write Curl? Who would write a whole operating system to compete with Microsoft when that would take thousands of engineers being paid $100,000s per year? People don't understand that these companies have huge R&D budgets! (The answer is that most of the work would be done by companies who have an interest in video distribution - eg. Google - but don't profit directly by selling codecs. And universities for the more research side of things. Plus volunteers gluing it all together into the final system.)

thinkingQueen 1y ago
Are you really saying that patents are preventing people from writing the next great video codec? If it were that simple, it would’ve already happened. We’re not talking about a software project that you can just hack together, compile, and see if it works. We’re talking about rigorous performance and complexity evaluations, subjective testing, and massive coordination with hardware manufacturers—from chips to displays. People don’t develop video codecs for fun like they do with software. And the reason is that it’s almost impossible to do without support from the industry.
- eqvinox 1y ago
  > Are you really saying that patents are preventing people from writing the next great video codec? If it were that simple, it would’ve already happened. You wouldn't know if it had already happened, since such a codec would have little chance of success, possibly not even publication. Your proposition is really unprovable in either direction due to the circular feedback on itself.
- bayindirh 1y ago
  > People don’t develop video codecs for fun like they do with software. And the reason is that it’s almost impossible to do without support from the industry. Hmm, let me check my notes: - Quite OK Image format: https://qoiformat.org/ - Quite OK Audio format: https://qoaformat.org/ - LAME (ain't a MP3 Encoder): https://lame.sourceforge.io/ - Xiph family of codecs: https://xiph.org/ Some of these guys have standards bodies as supporters, but in all cases, bigger groups formed behind them, after they made considerable effort. QOI and QOA is written by a single guy just because he's bored. For example, FLAC is a worst of all worlds codec for industry to back. A streamable, seekable, hardware-implementable, error-resistant, lossless codec with 8 channels, 32 bit samples, and up to 640KHz sample rate, with no DRM support. Yet we have it, and it rules consumer lossless audio while giggling and waving at everyone. On the other hand, we have LAME. An encoder which also uses psycho-acoustic techniques to improve the resulting sound quality and almost everyone is using it, because the closed source encoders generally sound lamer than LAME in the same bit-rates. Remember, MP3 format doesn't have an reference encoder. If the decoder can read the file and it sounds the way you expect, then you have a valid encoder. There's no spec for that. > Are you really saying that patents are preventing people from writing the next great video codec? Yes, yes, and, yes. MPEG and similar groups openly threatened free and open codecs by opening "patent portfolio forming calls" to create portfolios to fight with these codecs, because they are terrified of being deprived of their monies. If patents and license fees are not a problem for these guys, can you tell me why all professional camera gear which can take videos only come with "personal, non-profit and non-professional" licenses on board, and you have pay blanket extort ^H^H^H^H^H licensing fees to these bodies to take a video you can monetize? For the license disclaimers in camera manuals, see [0]. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42736254 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42736254
- Taek 1y ago
  People don't develop video codecs for fun because there are patent minefields. You don't *have* to add all the rigour. If you develop a new technique for video compression, a new container for holding data, etc, you can just try it out and share it with the technical community. Well, you could, if you weren't afraid of getting sued for infringing on patents.
- fires10 1y ago
  I don't do video because I don't work with it, but I do image compression for fun and no profit. I do use some video techniques due to the type of images I am compressing. I don't release because of the minefield. I do it because it's fun. The simulation runs and other tasks often I kick to the cloud for the larger compute needs.
- unlord 1y ago
  > People don’t develop video codecs for fun like they do with software. And the reason is that it’s almost impossible to do without support from the industry. As someone who lead an open source team (of majority volunteers) for nearly a decade at Mozilla, I can tell you that people do work on video codecs for fun, see https://github.com/xiph/daala https://github.com/xiph/daala Working with fine people from Xiph.Org and the IETF (and later AOM) on royalty free formats Theora, Opus, Daala and AV1 was by far the most fun, interesting and fulfilling work I've had as professional engineer.
  - tux3 1y ago
    Daala had some really good ideas, I only understand the coding tools at the level of a curious codec enthusiast, far from an expert, but it was really fascinating to follow its progress Actually, are Xiph people still involved in AVM? It seems like it's being developed a little bit differently than AV1. I might have lost track a bit.
- scott_w 1y ago
  > Are you really saying that patents are preventing people from writing the next great video codec? Yes, that’s exactly what people are saying. People are also saying that companies aren’t writing video codecs. In both cases, they can be sued for patent infringement if they do.
- Spooky23 1y ago
  Patents, by design, give inventors claims to ideas, which gives them the money to drive progress at a pace that meets their business needs. Look at data compression. Sperry/Univac controlled key patents and slowed down invention in the space for years. Was it in the interest of these companies or Unisys (their successor) to invest in compression development? Nope. That’s by design. That moat of exclusivity makes it difficult to compensate people to come up with novel inventions in-scope or even adjacent to the patent. With codecs, the patents are very granular and make it difficult for anyone but the largest players with key financial interests to do much of anything.
raverbashing 1y ago
These are bad comparisons The question is more, "who would write the HTTP spec?" except instead of sending text back and forth you need experts in compression, visual perception, video formats, etc
- rwmj 1y ago
  Did TBL need to patent the HTTP spec?
mike_hearn 1y ago
Google funding free stuff is not a real social mechanism. It's not something you can point to and say that's how society should work in general. Our industry has come to take Google's enormous corporate generosity for granted, but there was zero need for it to be as helpful to open computing as it has been. It would have been just as successful with YouTube if Chrome was entirely closed source and they paid for video codec licensing, or if they developed entirely closed codecs just for their own use. In fact nearly all Google's codebase is closed source and it hasn't held them back at all. Google did give a lot away though, and for that we should be very grateful. They not only released a ton of useful code and algorithms for free, they also inspired a culture where other companies also do that sometimes (e.g. Llama). But we should also recognize that relying on the benevolence of 2-3 idealistic billionaires with a browser fetish is a very time and place specific one-off, it's not a thing that can be demanded or generalized. In general, R&D is costly and requires incentives. Patent pools aren't perfect, but they do work well enough to always be defining the state-of-the-art and establish global standards too (digital TV, DVDs, streaming.... all patent pool based mechanisms).
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- breve 1y ago
  > Google funding free stuff is not a real social mechanism. It's not a social mechanism. And it's not generosity. Google pushes huge amounts of video and audio through YouTube. It's in Google's direct financial interest to have better video and audio codecs implemented and deployed in as many browsers and devices as possible. It reduces Google's costs. Royalty-free video and audio codecs makes that implementation and deployment more likely in more places. > Patent pools aren't perfect They are a long way from perfect. Patent pools will contact you and say, "That's a nice codec you've got there. It'd be a shame if something happened to it." Three different patent pools are trying to collect licencing fees for AV1: https://www.sisvel.com/licensing-programmes/audio-and-video-coding-decoding/video-coding-platform-av1/ https://www.sisvel.com/licensing-programmes/audio-and-video-... https://accessadvance.com/licensing-programs/vdp-pool/ https://accessadvance.com/licensing-programs/vdp-pool/ https://www.avanci.com/video/ https://www.avanci.com/video/
chubot 1y ago
> Who would write a whole operating system to compete with Microsoft when that would take thousands of engineers being paid $100,000s per year? You might be misunderstanding that almost all of Linux development is funded by the same kind of companies that fund MPEG development. It's not "engineers in their basement", and never was https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/members https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/members e.g. Red Hat, Intel, Oracle, Google, and now MICROSOFT itself (the competitive landscape changed) This has LONG been the case, e.g. an article from 2008: https://www.informationweek.com/it-sectors/linux-contributor-list-grows-longer-many-paid https://www.informationweek.com/it-sectors/linux-contributor... 2017 Linux Foundation Report: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/press-release/linux-foundation-releases-annual-kernel-development-report https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/press-release/linux-fo... Roughly 15,600 developers from more than 1,400 companies have contributed to the Linux kernel since the adoption of Git made detailed tracking possible The Top 10 organizations sponsoring Linux kernel development since the last report include Intel, Red Hat, Linaro, IBM, Samsung, SUSE, Google, AMD, Renesas and Mellanox --- curl does seem to be an outlier, but you still need to answer the question: "Who would develop video codecs?" You can't just say "Linux appeared out of thin air", because that's not what happened. Linux has funding because it serves the interests of a large group of companies that themselves have a source of revenue. (And to be clear, I do not think that is a bad thing! I prefer it when companies write open source software. But it does skew the design of what open source software is available.)
- rwmj 1y ago
  I've used and developed for Linux since 1994 (long before major commercial interests), and I work for Red Hat so it's unlikely I misunderstand how Linux was and is developed.
- cwizou 1y ago
  > You can't just say "Linux appeared out of thin air", because that's not what happened. It kinda did though https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux#Creation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux#Creation ! The corporate support you mentioned arrived years after that.
  - 1y ago

by rwmj 1y ago

thinkingQueen 1y ago

Are you really saying that patents are preventing people from writing the next great video codec? If it were that simple, it would’ve already happened. We’re not talking about a software project that you can just hack together, compile, and see if it works. We’re talking about rigorous performance and complexity evaluations, subjective testing, and massive coordination with hardware manufacturers—from chips to displays. People don’t develop video codecs for fun like they do with software. And the reason is that it’s almost impossible to do without support from the industry.

eqvinox 1y ago
> Are you really saying that patents are preventing people from writing the next great video codec? If it were that simple, it would’ve already happened. You wouldn't know if it had already happened, since such a codec would have little chance of success, possibly not even publication. Your proposition is really unprovable in either direction due to the circular feedback on itself.
bayindirh 1y ago
> People don’t develop video codecs for fun like they do with software. And the reason is that it’s almost impossible to do without support from the industry. Hmm, let me check my notes: - Quite OK Image format: https://qoiformat.org/ - Quite OK Audio format: https://qoaformat.org/ - LAME (ain't a MP3 Encoder): https://lame.sourceforge.io/ - Xiph family of codecs: https://xiph.org/ Some of these guys have standards bodies as supporters, but in all cases, bigger groups formed behind them, after they made considerable effort. QOI and QOA is written by a single guy just because he's bored. For example, FLAC is a worst of all worlds codec for industry to back. A streamable, seekable, hardware-implementable, error-resistant, lossless codec with 8 channels, 32 bit samples, and up to 640KHz sample rate, with no DRM support. Yet we have it, and it rules consumer lossless audio while giggling and waving at everyone. On the other hand, we have LAME. An encoder which also uses psycho-acoustic techniques to improve the resulting sound quality and almost everyone is using it, because the closed source encoders generally sound lamer than LAME in the same bit-rates. Remember, MP3 format doesn't have an reference encoder. If the decoder can read the file and it sounds the way you expect, then you have a valid encoder. There's no spec for that. > Are you really saying that patents are preventing people from writing the next great video codec? Yes, yes, and, yes. MPEG and similar groups openly threatened free and open codecs by opening "patent portfolio forming calls" to create portfolios to fight with these codecs, because they are terrified of being deprived of their monies. If patents and license fees are not a problem for these guys, can you tell me why all professional camera gear which can take videos only come with "personal, non-profit and non-professional" licenses on board, and you have pay blanket extort ^H^H^H^H^H licensing fees to these bodies to take a video you can monetize? For the license disclaimers in camera manuals, see [0]. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42736254 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42736254
Taek 1y ago
People don't develop video codecs for fun because there are patent minefields. You don't *have* to add all the rigour. If you develop a new technique for video compression, a new container for holding data, etc, you can just try it out and share it with the technical community. Well, you could, if you weren't afraid of getting sued for infringing on patents.
fires10 1y ago
I don't do video because I don't work with it, but I do image compression for fun and no profit. I do use some video techniques due to the type of images I am compressing. I don't release because of the minefield. I do it because it's fun. The simulation runs and other tasks often I kick to the cloud for the larger compute needs.
unlord 1y ago
> People don’t develop video codecs for fun like they do with software. And the reason is that it’s almost impossible to do without support from the industry. As someone who lead an open source team (of majority volunteers) for nearly a decade at Mozilla, I can tell you that people do work on video codecs for fun, see https://github.com/xiph/daala https://github.com/xiph/daala Working with fine people from Xiph.Org and the IETF (and later AOM) on royalty free formats Theora, Opus, Daala and AV1 was by far the most fun, interesting and fulfilling work I've had as professional engineer.
- tux3 1y ago
  Daala had some really good ideas, I only understand the coding tools at the level of a curious codec enthusiast, far from an expert, but it was really fascinating to follow its progress Actually, are Xiph people still involved in AVM? It seems like it's being developed a little bit differently than AV1. I might have lost track a bit.
scott_w 1y ago
> Are you really saying that patents are preventing people from writing the next great video codec? Yes, that’s exactly what people are saying. People are also saying that companies aren’t writing video codecs. In both cases, they can be sued for patent infringement if they do.
Spooky23 1y ago
Patents, by design, give inventors claims to ideas, which gives them the money to drive progress at a pace that meets their business needs. Look at data compression. Sperry/Univac controlled key patents and slowed down invention in the space for years. Was it in the interest of these companies or Unisys (their successor) to invest in compression development? Nope. That’s by design. That moat of exclusivity makes it difficult to compensate people to come up with novel inventions in-scope or even adjacent to the patent. With codecs, the patents are very granular and make it difficult for anyone but the largest players with key financial interests to do much of anything.

raverbashing 1y ago

These are bad comparisons The question is more, "who would write the HTTP spec?" except instead of sending text back and forth you need experts in compression, visual perception, video formats, etc

rwmj 1y ago
Did TBL need to patent the HTTP spec?

mike_hearn 1y ago

Google funding free stuff is not a real social mechanism. It's not something you can point to and say that's how society should work in general. Our industry has come to take Google's enormous corporate generosity for granted, but there was zero need for it to be as helpful to open computing as it has been. It would have been just as successful with YouTube if Chrome was entirely closed source and they paid for video codec licensing, or if they developed entirely closed codecs just for their own use. In fact nearly all Google's codebase is closed source and it hasn't held them back at all. Google did give a lot away though, and for that we should be very grateful. They not only released a ton of useful code and algorithms for free, they also inspired a culture where other companies also do that sometimes (e.g. Llama). But we should also recognize that relying on the benevolence of 2-3 idealistic billionaires with a browser fetish is a very time and place specific one-off, it's not a thing that can be demanded or generalized. In general, R&D is costly and requires incentives. Patent pools aren't perfect, but they do work well enough to always be defining the state-of-the-art and establish global standards too (digital TV, DVDs, streaming.... all patent pool based mechanisms).

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
breve 1y ago
> Google funding free stuff is not a real social mechanism. It's not a social mechanism. And it's not generosity. Google pushes huge amounts of video and audio through YouTube. It's in Google's direct financial interest to have better video and audio codecs implemented and deployed in as many browsers and devices as possible. It reduces Google's costs. Royalty-free video and audio codecs makes that implementation and deployment more likely in more places. > Patent pools aren't perfect They are a long way from perfect. Patent pools will contact you and say, "That's a nice codec you've got there. It'd be a shame if something happened to it." Three different patent pools are trying to collect licencing fees for AV1: https://www.sisvel.com/licensing-programmes/audio-and-video-coding-decoding/video-coding-platform-av1/ https://www.sisvel.com/licensing-programmes/audio-and-video-... https://accessadvance.com/licensing-programs/vdp-pool/ https://accessadvance.com/licensing-programs/vdp-pool/ https://www.avanci.com/video/ https://www.avanci.com/video/

chubot 1y ago

> Who would write a whole operating system to compete with Microsoft when that would take thousands of engineers being paid $100,000s per year? You might be misunderstanding that almost all of Linux development is funded by the same kind of companies that fund MPEG development. It's not "engineers in their basement", and never was https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/members https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/members e.g. Red Hat, Intel, Oracle, Google, and now MICROSOFT itself (the competitive landscape changed) This has LONG been the case, e.g. an article from 2008: https://www.informationweek.com/it-sectors/linux-contributor-list-grows-longer-many-paid https://www.informationweek.com/it-sectors/linux-contributor... 2017 Linux Foundation Report: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/press-release/linux-foundation-releases-annual-kernel-development-report https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/press-release/linux-fo... Roughly 15,600 developers from more than 1,400 companies have contributed to the Linux kernel since the adoption of Git made detailed tracking possible The Top 10 organizations sponsoring Linux kernel development since the last report include Intel, Red Hat, Linaro, IBM, Samsung, SUSE, Google, AMD, Renesas and Mellanox --- curl does seem to be an outlier, but you still need to answer the question: "Who would develop video codecs?" You can't just say "Linux appeared out of thin air", because that's not what happened. Linux has funding because it serves the interests of a large group of companies that themselves have a source of revenue. (And to be clear, I do not think that is a bad thing! I prefer it when companies write open source software. But it does skew the design of what open source software is available.)

rwmj 1y ago
I've used and developed for Linux since 1994 (long before major commercial interests), and I work for Red Hat so it's unlikely I misunderstand how Linux was and is developed.
cwizou 1y ago
> You can't just say "Linux appeared out of thin air", because that's not what happened. It kinda did though https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux#Creation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux#Creation ! The corporate support you mentioned arrived years after that.
- 1y ago