On 10/31/2013 05:26 AM, Brion Vibber wrote:
We're churning through some internal discussion with legal on if and how how this affects our potential options...
Note that the specific thing announced there doesn't include a licensed AAC *audio* codec which would be required to generate audio and video+audio files playable on current browsers from Apple and Microsoft... so while an interesting development in the codec wars, we don't expect it to immediately change much for us.
Also, my understanding is that while some people at the Foundation have thought about supporting proprietary *formats* (as an exception to our support for open standards), we would still use open source software for them.
Cisco is basically paying licensing fees for a proprietary codec, but it only applies to someone if they use their binaries. Although Cisco's upstream codec will be open source (BSD), the license is not valid if you build your own binaries (which you have to do if you make even a simple change, or just to verify what you're running).
Since we (and third parties) would not be able to control the binaries we ran, it is not open source in a meaningful sense. I don't think we should use such software to run the site, all the more so for key user-facing functionality like media.
We could still rebuild Cisco's BSD code, but the patent license would not be valid (let alone for third parties). So it's the same position as if we just decided to use e.g. the open source x264, then somehow find a one-off solution to the licensing problems.
So this does not change anything in my view.
Speaking only for myself,
Matt Flaschen