user_Jamesday wrote:
*JPEG (the Forgent patent, Sony paid and an unnamed comapny paid US$15 million).
This patent is in court right now, and very big companies are arguing against it, including IBM, HP, and Dell. There is good reason to think that due to existing prior art, the patent will be invalidated. I propose that we take a wait and see attitude on this one.
For me, the gold standard here is whether I can use a format with legal free software. If I can't, then we must not use it.
*GIF of course, still royalties required in much of the world, though not the US. I assume that we'll ban something allowed in the US but encumbered elsewhere? I hope not,though - it would be foolish.
This is a moot point, since to my understandning the GIF patents have now expired everywhere.
*Most video formats. JPEG, MPEG, MP4 (including DivX), Real Media, Microsofts. I'm aware of some work in this area but nothing which will meet the needs of our users for at least a year or three.
We currently don't host video anyway, do we? I think that it very well could be that some of these will pose a problem, but before we decide anything, we need to do some research.
The gold standard is whether I can use a format with free software.
*Most fonts. Apple has patents on much of the core font hinting technology. We use fonts covered by these patents and if you've seen the alternatives, you probably won't want to switch to using them. See http://www.freetype.org/patents.html for a summary of the issues.
This is pure FUD, I'm surprised you posted it.
So, should we ban the most widely availabel and backwards compatible still image, audio, video and font technologies from Wikipedia?
What you're saying, basically, is that all the major formats are incompatible with free software (not true) and that therefore since software freedom is impossible, we should allow anything.
I don't agree.
We do need to recognise that these are the formats people have. And recognise that, however much we may like it, Windows 95 may not have support for Ogg.
Windows 95 supports Ogg just fine. All the major players that people could be using in Windows 95 support Ogg.
*We accept and use the de facto standards, including JPEG, MP3, MPEG and Apple patented type.
We can use JPEG and MPEG for sure, and your point about fonts is such nonsense that I can't even begin to respond to it.
MP3 is not possible to use in legal and free software, therefore we will not accept it.
*Where content requires it, we support a format forever. One example is legal cases involving specific media types, where an accurate article will require the use of the exact media type used as evidence or alleged to be infringing. There's simoply no substitute for the exact file used in this sort of situation.
There is virtually zero need for us to host an MP3 to properly illustrate and article about the MP3 format. This is like saying we need to host a copy of the Harry Potter books in order to have a proper article about it.
If there *is* a compelling case for a *particular* exception to the rule, then of course we should make that exception. But I think this this type of example doesn't work.
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I don't want to give the impression that we should have a long discussion that might or might not result in accepting the use of formats that are so encumbered that they don't meet my gold standard. We shouldn't, because I think there is virtually zero chance that the community will accept anything other than my gold standard.
We can talk about particular formats and the patent situation, in an effort to better understand what the patent situation actually is. Let's imagine that some landmark legal case overturns the Mp3 patents... then we should have a discussion about whether that case sufficiently unencumbers the format, etc.
But the notion that we should just accept formats because they are widely used isn't going to fly.
--Jimbo