Patent nonsense of course refers to the US and Japanese laws which allow software patents. Fortunately the rest of the world isn't (yet) so daft. However, before we get too caried away with banning the world's standard formats, lets consider what it involves us banning:
*JPEG (the Forgent patent, Sony paid and an unnamed comapny paid US$15 million). So, most current camera photos will be banned. I'm not yet aware of a suitable alternative, though I hope there's one. I doubt that there's one with wide enough browser support for our purpose. If you're not aware of this one, search - it'll probably be the top Google result.
*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.
*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.
*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.
*Probably others - I didn't take more than a few seconds to come up with this list.
So, should we ban the most widely availabel and backwards compatible still image, audio, video and font technologies from Wikipedia?
With respect, that would be shooting ourselves in the foot.
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. Libraries, schools, offices and many other places prohibit software installation without permission and we probably don't want to bar those users from our content, nor third world or poor users who may have older equipment.
We do, of course, want to encourage the use of formats which are less restricted. While doing that we should remember that it's common for patent holders to wait a decade and then spring a trap, even when they have participated in standards meetings where participants were asked to disclose their patents in advance. We do need to remember that the format we think is patent free may not be.
Rather than doing this piecemeal, lets try to find a policy we and our users can live with today, and one which encourages people to use new formats without blocking those who don't yet have those new formats. The ICANN did that yesterday. It announced the start of IPv6 support in the core DNS servers started yesterday and also said that IPv4 would be supported for about 20 years to allow a smooth transition time.
So, I propose for all encumbered formats:
*We accept and use the de facto standards, including JPEG, MP3, MPEG and Apple patented type. *Where there is a less encumbered alternative, we encourage people to also make that available and to list the less encumbered format(s) first, to increase awareness of that format. *Browsers send information on the formats they support. Where we have multiple formats available, we should serve the least encumbered format the client says it can support. This will involve changes to the software, which can, I hope, be done fairly slowly as we develop standards for specifying alternative forms of all multimedia works. *Where there is a clear advantage in content or technically, we accept the encumbered format until it's clear that the vast majority (at least 99%) of users support the new format seamlesly, just as we have our target for browser support at about that level. *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. *When we do phase out a format, we provide a link to the old file and an archive of all such files with information about where they were used, so we don't completely lock out those who are not able to support the new format. *When we plan to phase out a format, we give at least two yers notice and do not do so until we have alternatives available for all affected content. *Where we are aware of external links to a specific format, we continue to make that format available for as long as the link exists.
This approach avoids failing to serve the existing clients, promotes the new formats and provides clear transition times and goals to allow resuers to adapt at a predictable pace.
I was tempted to suggest the copyleft approach: use all of the formats the US and Japanese laws encumber and not serve them in the US and Japan, to encourage people to get those nasty laws changed. I took pity on the people in those places, though.:)
About still formats, why not use PNG? It does hold some restrictions, depending on your building method (http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngfaq.html#patents), but it should be pretty much safe if we can arrange automatically converting whatever format the user uploads to the "proper" (i.e. free) PNG format.
--Gutza
user_Jamesday wrote:
Patent nonsense of course refers to the US and Japanese laws which allow software patents. Fortunately the rest of the world isn't (yet) so daft. However, before we get too caried away with banning the world's standard formats, lets consider what it involves us banning:
*JPEG (the Forgent patent, Sony paid and an unnamed comapny paid US$15 million). So, most current camera photos will be banned. I'm not yet aware of a suitable alternative, though I hope there's one. I doubt that there's one with wide enough browser support for our purpose. If you're not aware of this one, search - it'll probably be the top Google result.
*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.
*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.
*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.
*Probably others - I didn't take more than a few seconds to come up with this list.
So, should we ban the most widely availabel and backwards compatible still image, audio, video and font technologies from Wikipedia?
With respect, that would be shooting ourselves in the foot.
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. Libraries, schools, offices and many other places prohibit software installation without permission and we probably don't want to bar those users from our content, nor third world or poor users who may have older equipment.
We do, of course, want to encourage the use of formats which are less restricted. While doing that we should remember that it's common for patent holders to wait a decade and then spring a trap, even when they have participated in standards meetings where participants were asked to disclose their patents in advance. We do need to remember that the format we think is patent free may not be.
Rather than doing this piecemeal, lets try to find a policy we and our users can live with today, and one which encourages people to use new formats without blocking those who don't yet have those new formats. The ICANN did that yesterday. It announced the start of IPv6 support in the core DNS servers started yesterday and also said that IPv4 would be supported for about 20 years to allow a smooth transition time.
So, I propose for all encumbered formats:
*We accept and use the de facto standards, including JPEG, MP3, MPEG and Apple patented type. *Where there is a less encumbered alternative, we encourage people to also make that available and to list the less encumbered format(s) first, to increase awareness of that format. *Browsers send information on the formats they support. Where we have multiple formats available, we should serve the least encumbered format the client says it can support. This will involve changes to the software, which can, I hope, be done fairly slowly as we develop standards for specifying alternative forms of all multimedia works. *Where there is a clear advantage in content or technically, we accept the encumbered format until it's clear that the vast majority (at least 99%) of users support the new format seamlesly, just as we have our target for browser support at about that level. *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. *When we do phase out a format, we provide a link to the old file and an archive of all such files with information about where they were used, so we don't completely lock out those who are not able to support the new format. *When we plan to phase out a format, we give at least two yers notice and do not do so until we have alternatives available for all affected content. *Where we are aware of external links to a specific format, we continue to make that format available for as long as the link exists.
This approach avoids failing to serve the existing clients, promotes the new formats and provides clear transition times and goals to allow resuers to adapt at a predictable pace.
I was tempted to suggest the copyleft approach: use all of the formats the US and Japanese laws encumber and not serve them in the US and Japan, to encourage people to get those nasty laws changed. I took pity on the people in those places, though.:)
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Gutza wrote:
About still formats, why not use PNG? It does hold some restrictions, depending on your building method (http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngfaq.html#patents), but it should be pretty much safe if we can arrange automatically converting whatever format the user uploads to the "proper" (i.e. free) PNG format.
PNG is unsuitable for continuous-tone graphics.
By "unsuitable" I mean its compression isn't much better than BMP.
Timwi
That's true, but it can happily replace GIF's, it's actually smaller if compared on par (8-bit images).
Gutza
Timwi wrote:
Gutza wrote:
About still formats, why not use PNG? It does hold some restrictions, depending on your building method (http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngfaq.html#patents), but it should be pretty much safe if we can arrange automatically converting whatever format the user uploads to the "proper" (i.e. free) PNG format.
PNG is unsuitable for continuous-tone graphics.
By "unsuitable" I mean its compression isn't much better than BMP.
Timwi
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 17:27:48 +0300, Gutza gutza@moongate.ro wrote:
That's true, but it can happily replace GIF's, it's actually smaller if compared on par (8-bit images).
Yes. Both PNG and GIF are lossless, and you can convert between them until the [[You have two cows|cows]] come home. Also, PNG compression is highly variable- you can generally compress an image better with PNG than with GIF, easily, if you tweak your compression (instead of accepting some 24-bit low-compression default). If you REALLY want to make a crack at it, run pngcrush or something similar with insane try-and-try-again compression. When the PNG is bigger, you're usually talking of file sizes too small to matter much anyway. :)
Fennec Foxen wrote:
On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 17:27:48 +0300, Gutza gutza@moongate.ro wrote:
That's true, but it can happily replace GIF's, it's actually smaller if compared on par (8-bit images).
Yes. Both PNG and GIF are lossless, and you can convert between them until the [[You have two cows|cows]] come home
Yuck: the misconception that GIF is lossless was common when JPEG just came out. You are right that recoding GIF's ad infinitum does not lose more and more information every time, but encoding to GIF for the first time loses 16 out of 24 bitplanes of information. GIF is a colormapped format accommodating at most 256 colors.
Rob
On Friday 23 July 2004 23:20, Rob Hooft wrote:
Yuck: the misconception that GIF is lossless was common when JPEG just came out. You are right that recoding GIF's ad infinitum does not lose more and more information every time, but encoding to GIF for the first time loses 16 out of 24 bitplanes of information. GIF is a colormapped format accommodating at most 256 colors.
Well, sometimes there are no 24 bitplanes of information.
Hi,
Le Thursday 22 July 2004 05:16, user_Jamesday a écrit :
*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.
I think this is not true any more. All patents about GIF have expired. cf. http://www.unisys.com/about__unisys/lzw There was a discussion recently about this, isn't?
Yann
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.
----
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
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
user_Jamesday wrote:
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.
I wonder if, in an understandable effort to emphasise the importance of free software, you have overplayed how easy it is easy to get Ogg working in Windows. As I understand it for the usual players:
Windows Media Player : You can download a plugin from an unofficial site
Apple Quicktime: You can download a plugin from an unofficial site
Real Networks Real Player: Our article states they announced support in 2002, but my version doesn't have it and I can't find any confirmation that the next version has it (version 10)
Winamp (unfornuately from our view point this is not as popular as it was): Out-of-the-box support
Given that no other major website forces you to play OGG, most users would not have downloaded these plugins. They would have to download them specifically for Wikipedia.
The question is: Is forcing them to do this a big deal? You appear to say no it isn't. I would disagree and say yes it IS a big deal. Many, many web users CAN NOT update software on their computer (virtually anyone on a locally managed network: school, library, office, cybercafe etc) because they do not have the rights to do so. Only home users would.
Note: we bend over backwards to support all major browsers (minimizing JavaScript etc) because most people cannot change their browser. Yet when we come to sound, we are changing tack.
Whether this consideration is sufficiently strong in order for us to consider allowing other formats, I'm not sure. But it is worth bearing in mind before going GNUng-ho into going ogg-only.
Pete
On Mon, 26 Jul 2004 16:15:44 +0100, Pete/Pcb21 pete_pcb21_wpmail@pcbartlett.com wrote: snip
The question is: Is forcing them to do this a big deal? You appear to say no it isn't. I would disagree and say yes it IS a big deal. Many, many web users CAN NOT update software on their computer (virtually anyone on a locally managed network: school, library, office, cybercafe etc) because they do not have the rights to do so. Only home users would.
No the question is, do we inconvenience Windows users to download a legal and free plugin, or do we force FOSS users get illegal/pay software?
Note: we bend over backwards to support all major browsers (minimizing JavaScript etc) because most people cannot change their browser. Yet when we come to sound, we are changing tack.
Do we force people to pay for content or have them view it illegally (well maybe we do when it comes to fair use, but that's a different argument)?
Whether this consideration is sufficiently strong in order for us to consider allowing other formats, I'm not sure. But it is worth bearing in mind before going GNUng-ho into going ogg-only.
We're not GNUng-ho for the sake of being GNUng-ho, there actually are some sound reasons behind it (like the whole GFDL concept vs copyrighting everything ala Britannica). Do we want to impose a DVD/CSS style hassle on our users?
Dori wrote:
On Mon, 26 Jul 2004 16:15:44 +0100, Pete/Pcb21 pete_pcb21_wpmail@pcbartlett.com wrote: snip
The question is: Is forcing them to do this a big deal? You appear to say no it isn't. I would disagree and say yes it IS a big deal. Many, many web users CAN NOT update software on their computer (virtually anyone on a locally managed network: school, library, office, cybercafe etc) because they do not have the rights to do so. Only home users would.
No the question is, do we inconvenience Windows users to download a legal and free plugin, or do we force FOSS users get illegal/pay software?
[This is getting a little away from the remit of the technical mailing list, perhaps follow up at wikipedia-l?]
I must protest a little bit. You selectively edit my post in order to suggest something that I am not, then attack me for it. I was talking solely in the context of Windows - raising some points that Jimbo may not have been aware and then saying "the question is are those points important?" This is plainly different from suggesting that Windows users are the only people we care about. Remember that James's initial post was about creating a migration path.
Note: we bend over backwards to support all major browsers (minimizing JavaScript etc) because most people cannot change their browser. Yet when we come to sound, we are changing tack.
Do we force people to pay for content or have them view it illegally (well maybe we do when it comes to fair use, but that's a different argument)?
Whether this consideration is sufficiently strong in order for us to consider allowing other formats, I'm not sure. But it is worth bearing in mind before going GNUng-ho into going ogg-only.
We're not GNUng-ho for the sake of being GNUng-ho, there actually are some sound reasons behind it (like the whole GFDL concept vs copyrighting everything ala Britannica). Do we want to impose a DVD/CSS style hassle on our users?
It appears you can _play_ MP3s libreally and gratisly. The difficulty is creating them. Thus as long as the uploader "signs" to say they have done so legally, then the migration path that allows dual formats (even of the same piece) might be an option.
Pete
On Tue, 27 Jul 2004 12:23:14 +0100, Pete/Pcb21 pete_pcb21_wpmail@pcbartlett.com wrote:
Dori wrote:
On Mon, 26 Jul 2004 16:15:44 +0100, Pete/Pcb21 pete_pcb21_wpmail@pcbartlett.com wrote: snip
The question is: Is forcing them to do this a big deal? You appear to say no it isn't. I would disagree and say yes it IS a big deal. Many, many web users CAN NOT update software on their computer (virtually anyone on a locally managed network: school, library, office, cybercafe etc) because they do not have the rights to do so. Only home users would.
No the question is, do we inconvenience Windows users to download a legal and free plugin, or do we force FOSS users get illegal/pay software?
[This is getting a little away from the remit of the technical mailing list, perhaps follow up at wikipedia-l?]
I must protest a little bit. You selectively edit my post in order to suggest something that I am not, then attack me for it. I was talking solely in the context of Windows - raising some points that Jimbo may not have been aware and then saying "the question is are those points important?" This is plainly different from suggesting that Windows users are the only people we care about. Remember that James's initial post was about creating a migration path.
I snipped it because I don't like replying at the bottom of a long text. Your original post is on the mailing list for anyone to read so it's not like I'm hiding anything.
I most certainly was not attacking you, but the idea of using non-free media. I have no ill-regard towards you whatsoever, but I am dead set against that non-free media. It's not like we don't have a choice, and it's not like it's a hard choice. I will never be for convenience (read lazyness) over openess. I have had to read Wikipedia from public workstations where you can't install anything many times. Let me tell you, those comp's don't even have speakers. They probably can't play mp3's or video either. So the questions is just do we inconvenience a few windows users, and I say we definitely should. In the end, we teach them to use the best tools out there. If people weren't so complacent and lazy we wouldn't have to deal with non-standard web sites out there, and the crap-for-a-program that is IE. I don't want Wikipedia to become another IE/DVD/CSS debacle.
Note: we bend over backwards to support all major browsers (minimizing JavaScript etc) because most people cannot change their browser. Yet when we come to sound, we are changing tack.
Do we force people to pay for content or have them view it illegally (well maybe we do when it comes to fair use, but that's a different argument)?
Whether this consideration is sufficiently strong in order for us to consider allowing other formats, I'm not sure. But it is worth bearing in mind before going GNUng-ho into going ogg-only.
We're not GNUng-ho for the sake of being GNUng-ho, there actually are some sound reasons behind it (like the whole GFDL concept vs copyrighting everything ala Britannica). Do we want to impose a DVD/CSS style hassle on our users?
It appears you can _play_ MP3s libreally and gratisly. The difficulty is creating them. Thus as long as the uploader "signs" to say they have done so legally, then the migration path that allows dual formats (even of the same piece) might be an option.
My understanding is that you can play them gratis, but the producers of the player that you are using must have payed a fee. But even if it is just for encoding, do we want to have our editors spend money to splice together or edit some GFDL sounds?
I just don't see how people could be for the GFDL, but against OGG? It's the same principle, namely openess and freedom.
Pete/Pcb21 wrote:
It appears you can _play_ MP3s libreally and gratisly. The difficulty is creating them. Thus as long as the uploader "signs" to say they have done so legally, then the migration path that allows dual formats (even of the same piece) might be an option.
Pete
As far as I can see, this is no longer true. It appears that Thomson revoked their preious royalty-free licence for free software-based MP3 players in 2002.
Read Thomson's own information:
http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/index.html http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/software.html
and Xiph.org's open letter to Thomson:
http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/openletter.html
-- Neil
Pete/Pcb21 wrote:
I must protest a little bit. You selectively edit my post in order to suggest something that I am not, then attack me for it. I was talking solely in the context of Windows - raising some points that Jimbo may not have been aware and then saying "the question is are those points important?" This is plainly different from suggesting that Windows users are the only people we care about.
Yes, in defense of Pete, I did understand him to be saying this.
And let me say this: if it were determined that the vast majority of Windows users could not view (or listen to, in this case) our content unless we used some proprietary format, we would have a tough decision to make indeed.
As a thought experiment, imagine a nightmare scenario where someone is granted a patent on html, and for a period of time that patent is vigourously enforced against free software, rendering it virtually impossible to use the web at all without using non-free or semi-free software. Would we just shut down? No, we would make the pragmatic decision to move forward with reluctance.
So Pete's questions and comments are very much on-point. There is a judgment call to be made here: how much inconvenience for end users is tolerable in order to encourage them to switch to an unencumbered format?
My sense of it is that the inconvenience is minor. The point about libraryies and schools is well-taken, but I don't know (none of us do) how many people would actually be frustrated by that. The question about what is required of end users is also a valid one, but it seems like nothing to me to download a plug-in... most people do that sort of thing all the time.
It appears you can _play_ MP3s libreally and gratisly. The difficulty is creating them. Thus as long as the uploader "signs" to say they have done so legally, then the migration path that allows dual formats (even of the same piece) might be an option.
I think the situation is worse than that. I think it is not possible for legal free software to even play mp3s. Am I wrong about that?
--Jimbo
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
As a thought experiment, imagine a nightmare scenario where someone is granted a patent on html, and for a period of time that patent is vigourously enforced against free software, rendering it virtually impossible to use the web at all without using non-free or semi-free software. Would we just shut down? No, we would make the pragmatic decision to move forward with reluctance.
In that case, I suppose one could still realistically offer two alternatives (HTML for the Windows users and a new alternative that would no doubt emerge in the free-software community for the free-software users). In the case of media files, it would be wasteful to offer all of them in several or even two formats.
My sense of it is that the inconvenience is minor. The point about libraryies and schools is well-taken, but I don't know (none of us do) how many people would actually be frustrated by that. The question about what is required of end users is also a valid one, but it seems like nothing to me to download a plug-in... most people do that sort of thing all the time.
I completely agree with all of that. For the longest time I was opposed to OGG, thinking "We already have MP3, and I can play it with my Winamp, I don't wanna switch!" but then I found out that all I needed was a little plug-in, and it was trivial to install too.
I think the situation is worse than that. I think it is not possible for legal free software to even play mp3s. Am I wrong about that?
According to http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/openletter.html, it was legal up until recently, because the owners of the MP3 patent officially allowed royalty-free use of the decoding technology. They have now revoked this permission and are collecting royalties.
I have Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) installed on my computer, and it can read but not save MP3 files. I downloaded this at a time when royalty-free implementation of MP3 decoders was still allowed. Maybe someone should check if the newest version can still do that or if the functionality has been removed; I don't want to risk losing this functionality by installing the newest version myself.
Timwi
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
My sense of it is that the inconvenience is minor. The point about libraryies and schools is well-taken, but I don't know (none of us do) how many people would actually be frustrated by that. The question about what is required of end users is also a valid one, but it seems like nothing to me to download a plug-in... most people do that sort of thing all the time.
[I wrote]
It appears you can _play_ MP3s libreally and gratisly. The difficulty is creating them. Thus as long as the uploader "signs" to say they have done so legally, then the migration path that allows dual formats (even of the same piece) might be an option.
I think the situation is worse than that. I think it is not possible for legal free software to even play mp3s. Am I wrong about that?
Well other posts in this thread indicate that at best, the _threat_ of patents being enforced against MP3 decoders is very real. At worst, it is already not possible (though it looks like there are plenty of GPL programs on sourceforge today offering MP3 playback.
In other words, it would completely against our ethos to put users in this position.
Having thrown up the concerns that I did, and listened to the responses, I personally now agree we have to go with OGG. And I think we should be quite evangelical about it. (Note NPOV applies to articles, not surrounding meta pages wear we can be POV)
In particular
1) The OGG for Windows Media Player plug-in site has an "unofficial" look about it. We should consider asking permission to host the download on our site (with full link backs to authors) to reassure users.
2) Provide a mechanism for users to give feedback. "Can't play OGG? Can't download the plugin? Please let us know where you are trying to access Wikipedia from (home/school/college/etc)" We could then even have a standard form letter to send to sysadmins of the school/college in question.
Wikipedia is one of very very few projects where regular Joe User comes into contact with the _idea_ of FOSS and free content. We can't sit in geek "ivory towers" expecting Mr AOL User to figure it out. Those who, like me, have given tech support to the average intelligent fifty year old will appreciate just how alien an environment computers to them. We go with OGG, and we help people out.
Pete
Pete/Pcb21 wrote:
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
My sense of it is that the inconvenience is minor. The point about libraryies and schools is well-taken, but I don't know (none of us do) how many people would actually be frustrated by that. The question about what is required of end users is also a valid one, but it seems like nothing to me to download a plug-in... most people do that sort of thing all the time.
Having thrown up the concerns that I did, and listened to the responses, I personally now agree we have to go with OGG.
In particular
- The OGG for Windows Media Player plug-in site has an "unofficial"
look about it. We should consider asking permission to host the download on our site (with full link backs to authors) to reassure users.
- Provide a mechanism for users to give feedback. "Can't play OGG?
Can't download the plugin?
This is an important point, Sites with Acrobat files make it very easy to download the reader, and are not at all stingy about adding the needed links. This is even most of us start to believe that surely everyone must have this program by now.
Outside of the geek world there is bound to be resistance to downloading yet another program which may be only occasionally useful. We often end up with software that we use just once, but has nevertheless insinuated itself into the start-up file. This certainly hampers the performance of computers, especially older ones, and the unskilled user finds it very difficult to rid himself of useless files. He has no way of knowing what files can be safely removed from the start up.
Ideally there should be a single free software program that can decipher all audio files, including MP3s. In the meantime, EVERY page with a link to an OGG files should have a link to download the siftware.
Please let us know where you are trying to access Wikipedia from (home/school/college/etc)" We could then even have a standard form letter to send to sysadmins of the school/college in question.
My school district is a suburban one with 38 elementary and 11 secondary schools, compared to many other school districts its computer inventory is very good. Kids begin to learn keyboarding skills in the first grade. They are very concerned and in my opinion overly cautious about copyright infringement. At the same time they are extremely wary about any kind of free software. A few years ago they took the position that all the computers in all the schools should have only software that was approved and loaded by the district level technical staff. No individual school would be allowed to choose and load its own software.
I still believe that individual schools should have more autonomy, but I can understand where they were coming from. Very few of the teachers charged with overseeing the computers in a school had any technical background at all. When this was left up to local teachers they were flooded with maintenance calls arising from incompatible software that the teachers could not cope with, and that might have knocked out a series of computers. Having specally trained district staff going around to install programs was much more cost effective. The challenge is in marketing free software to district systems administrators, and convincing school boards that this software works just as well as professionally distributed software with expensive licences for multiple sites.
Wikipedia is one of very very few projects where regular Joe User comes into contact with the _idea_ of FOSS and free content. We can't sit in geek "ivory towers" expecting Mr AOL User to figure it out. Those who, like me, have given tech support to the average intelligent fifty year old will appreciate just how alien an environment computers to them. We go with OGG, and we help people out.
Yes. Geeks find it difficult to conceive how amazingly unobvious much of this stuff is. Help files and FAQs only manage to make the situation worse. They invariably answer all the wrong questions. It is often easier to flip through a physical book and land at the right page than looking it up in the index, but much software now comes witnout much of an instruction book. In our family I have with my limited knowledge defaulted into the role of system administrator for computers. My wife feels completely lost when something goes wrong with the family computers, yet where she works (as a bookkeeper) her colleagues consider her the most capable one for dealing with such things. Every time she mentions something that she has had to fix I find it hard to restrain my laughter. That crowd for whom she fixes problems is a lot more populous than computer experts would like to believe.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Yes. Geeks find it difficult to conceive how amazingly unobvious much of this stuff is. Help files and FAQs only manage to make the situation worse. They invariably answer all the wrong questions.
It occurred to me while wreading this that Pete's idea is brilliant, the idea of us offering to host ogg-decoder software plugins and whatever like that.
We have great skills in explaining complex topics to interested users -- that's what we do, after all, and we're pretty good at it as encyclopedists. It seems likely to me that our ogg pages (the meta pages to help people install the software) could be very professional and user-friendly, and can be updated quickly using the wiki miracle to reflect the real needs of real users.
So if the ogg pages on the net are unofficial and all scary looking, we can actually help out a great deal with that problem, while also helping to resolve our own dilemma (i.e. our concerns about inconveniencing users in our quest to evangelize for freedom).
--Jimbo
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
So if the ogg pages on the net are unofficial and all scary looking, we can actually help out a great deal with that problem, while also helping to resolve our own dilemma (i.e. our concerns about inconveniencing users in our quest to evangelize for freedom).
I suppose we can fix the "scary looking" part, but I don't think we can make it official.
Hi
Le Wednesday 04 August 2004 13:34, Timwi a écrit :
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
So if the ogg pages on the net are unofficial and all scary looking, we can actually help out a great deal with that problem, while also helping to resolve our own dilemma (i.e. our concerns about inconveniencing users in our quest to evangelize for freedom).
I find this very interesting. I think it will remove the last hurdle non-geeks users may find while using ogg.
I suppose we can fix the "scary looking" part, but I don't think we can make it official.
What does official mean? It doesn't make sense here. We could provide the plug-in for our users. What needs to be "official"?
Yann
Yann Forget wrote:
I suppose we can fix the "scary looking" part, but I don't think we can make it official.
What does official mean? It doesn't make sense here. We could provide the plug-in for our users. What needs to be "official"?
I agree with Yann. If we make a nice professional page with clear instructions, a page that looks trustworthy (because, being Wikipedia, of course it *is* trustworthy), then that'll be official enough for most users.
--Jimbo
Pete/Pcb21 wrote:
Well other posts in this thread indicate that at best, the _threat_ of patents being enforced against MP3 decoders is very real. At worst, it is already not possible (though it looks like there are plenty of GPL programs on sourceforge today offering MP3 playback.
I don't think that's true. Debian's legal team is pretty conservative (read: paranoid) on these matters, and Debian currently includes mp3-playback software in the main distribution (package 'xmms', among others). Mp3-encoding software is not part of Debian due to patent issues, but playback software is, so it seems their legal team has determined there aren't any problems with playback.
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
Debian's legal team is pretty conservative (read: paranoid) on these matters, and Debian currently includes mp3-playback software in the main distribution (package 'xmms', among others). Mp3-encoding software is not part of Debian due to patent issues, but playback software is, so it seems their legal team has determined there aren't any problems with playback.
How recent is the distribution you're referring to? As evidenced by http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/openletter.html, the MP3 decoding patent has only been enforced for less than two years now.
Timwi wrote:
Delirium wrote:
Debian's legal team is pretty conservative (read: paranoid) on these matters, and Debian currently includes mp3-playback software in the main distribution (package 'xmms', among others). Mp3-encoding software is not part of Debian due to patent issues, but playback software is, so it seems their legal team has determined there aren't any problems with playback.
How recent is the distribution you're referring to? As evidenced by http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/openletter.html, the MP3 decoding patent has only been enforced for less than two years now.
It's quite recent: about 10 minutes old. I just updated my system, and the various MP3 playback things are all of course still in the official repository. Debian pulls things pretty aggressively when legal troubles arise, and there's been a lot of discussion about MP3 but nothing's been pulled. I didn't follow the discussion, but there was quite a bit two years ago when that Vorbis open letter came out, and I assume by the lack of action over such a lengthy period of time that the discussion's ended in favor of "no legal problems with MP3 playback".
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
It's quite recent: about 10 minutes old. I just updated my system, and the various MP3 playback things are all of course still in the official repository. Debian pulls things pretty aggressively when legal troubles arise, and there's been a lot of discussion about MP3 but nothing's been pulled. I didn't follow the discussion, but there was quite a bit two years ago when that Vorbis open letter came out, and I assume by the lack of action over such a lengthy period of time that the discussion's ended in favor of "no legal problems with MP3 playback".
So what exactly does that mean? Does it mean the MP3 decoding patent is invalid, or does it mean that Debian can continue to use the software that was written before the patent was enforced, or something else?
I wonder if anyone can find the Debian discussion/official decision (do they publish official decisions on things like this?) on this.
I am generally glad to defer tough questions to outside organizations who we can respect, because it saves us from having to argue about it.
Of course, Debian says that the GNU FDL is non-free, so obviously we can't defer to them on everything. However, they are still a respectable voice.
--Jimbo
Delirium wrote:
Timwi wrote:
Delirium wrote:
Debian's legal team is pretty conservative (read: paranoid) on these matters, and Debian currently includes mp3-playback software in the main distribution (package 'xmms', among others). Mp3-encoding software is not part of Debian due to patent issues, but playback software is, so it seems their legal team has determined there aren't any problems with playback.
How recent is the distribution you're referring to? As evidenced by http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/openletter.html, the MP3 decoding patent has only been enforced for less than two years now.
It's quite recent: about 10 minutes old. I just updated my system, and the various MP3 playback things are all of course still in the official repository. Debian pulls things pretty aggressively when legal troubles arise, and there's been a lot of discussion about MP3 but nothing's been pulled. I didn't follow the discussion, but there was quite a bit two years ago when that Vorbis open letter came out, and I assume by the lack of action over such a lengthy period of time that the discussion's ended in favor of "no legal problems with MP3 playback".
-Mark
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Le Wednesday 04 August 2004 18:36, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales a écrit :
I wonder if anyone can find the Debian discussion/official decision (do they publish official decisions on things like this?) on this.
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2000/06/msg00089.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/08/msg00376.html
Some interesting URL on this subject:
http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/openletter.html http://www.debianplanet.org/node.php?id=786
--Jimbo
Yann
Delirium wrote:
I don't think that's true. Debian's legal team is pretty conservative (read: paranoid) on these matters, and Debian currently includes mp3-playback software in the main distribution (package 'xmms', among others). Mp3-encoding software is not part of Debian due to patent issues, but playback software is, so it seems their legal team has determined there aren't any problems with playback.
I think this is relevant, but not necessarily definitive. Even if playback is legal, but encoding is not legal, there's still a huge problem, just not *as* huge.
I favor a careful cost/benefit analysis, except of course there is no mathematical way to actually measure the costs and benefits.
--Jimbo
Pete/Pcb21 wrote:
Note: we bend over backwards to support all major browsers (minimizing JavaScript etc) because most people cannot change their browser. Yet when we come to sound, we are changing tack.
To my knowledge, we don't offer any content which would be impossible for people to view using free software for reasons related to software patents. Free browsers can and do display javascript, java, etc.
Notice that the situation with mp3's is much worse than it was with gif's when the gif patents were still existing. With gif, free software could view them no problem. But free software could not _create_ them.
With mp3, free software can't view them or play them.
Therefore, when we encourage people to use the mp3 format, we are encouraging them not to use free software, and we continue the illusion that proprietary software is better somehow.
--Jimbo
I think the decision re: media standards, and the decision re: fair use images, are closely related. The sweet spot for WP seems to me to be accepting all formats that improve content, recording the encumbered nature of their formats, and actively working to replace any encumbered content with unencumbered content.
It is partly a matter of scalability and efficiency. A new contributor may find dealing with strange new standards and formats a real barrier to contribution. We can have focused groups of volunteers which efficiently convert from encumbered to unencumbered formats, thousands at a time.... but it is far more difficult to efficiently create from scratch relevant content for thousands of articles at a time.
If people are strongly against allowing any encumbered content in the public view of the projects, perhaps we could have a special holding area for uploaded content which does not meet high standards of free-formatting, but could be converted -- providing for a way to indicate via links? that such content exists in association with a page -- rather than disallowing it altogether.
~~~sj~
Sj wrote:
I think the decision re: media standards, and the decision re: fair use images, are closely related.
Only in the sense that they fall under the general heading of "how can we best create a GNU-free encyclopedia?"
The key difference is that fair use is a perfectly legitimate copyright doctrine which ought to be expanded considerably. Going under different names ("fair dealing" for example) and with different limits, it exists under every sane copyright jurisdiction. It's what allows you to quote from a book in a review of the book, which to my knowledge, you can legally do anywhere that has anything remotely approaching the freedom of speech.
Therefore, there is nothing at all inconsistent with fair use and GNU freedom.
I have taken the view, which I still hold, that we should be conservative with fair use, because we have to be cognizant of fair use being different in different jurisdictions, and because we have to be cognizant that fair use depends not just on the content itself but also on the use of the content.
The situation with patents is quite different.
If people are strongly against allowing any encumbered content in the public view of the projects, perhaps we could have a special holding area for uploaded content which does not meet high standards of free-formatting, but could be converted -- providing for a way to indicate via links? that such content exists in association with a page -- rather than disallowing it altogether.
I have no objection to something like this. There is no harm that I can think of in empowering people to use legal means (but not necessarily _GNU free_ means, if that's impossible) to help others have free content.
--Jimbo
On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:09:32 -0700, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Sj wrote:
I think the decision re: media standards, and the decision re: fair use images, are closely related.
Only in the sense that they fall under the general heading of "how can we best create a GNU-free encyclopedia?"
The key difference is that fair use is a perfectly legitimate copyright doctrine which ought to be expanded considerably.
The situation with patents is quite different.
Fair enough.
If people are strongly against allowing any encumbered content in the public view of the projects, perhaps we could have a special holding area for uploaded content which does not meet high standards of free-formatting, but could be converted -- providing for a way to indicate via links? that such content exists in association with a page -- rather than disallowing it altogether.
I have no objection to something like this. There is no harm that I can think of in empowering people to use legal means (but not necessarily _GNU free_ means, if that's impossible) to help others have free content.
Great. Perhaps we could use the same holding area for images and other media with "unknown" copyright status, and with possible-copyvio texts. Though each class of item requires a different kind of effort to convert it (where possible) to a valid WM entry, all are being quarantined because the purity of their freedom is in doubt.
--:-------.-.--------.--.--------.-.--------.--.--------[...] +sj+
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