Maybe you want to read this article: http://xiphmont.livejournal.com/61927.html

lbenedix

m Do 31.10.2013 10:26, schrieb Brion Vibber:

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.

-- brion

On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 2:10 AM, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.comwrote:

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http://gigaom.com/2013/10/30/mozilla-will-add-h-264-to-firefox-as-cisco-make...

So, should we support this format now? (not advocating, just curious) _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

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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

On Sat, Nov 2, 2013 at 12:35 AM, Tyler Romeo tylerromeo@gmail.com wrote:

On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 5:41 PM, Matthew Flaschen <mflaschen@wikimedia.org

...

wrote:

...

So this does not change anything in my view.

Actually it changes something pretty important. This means that now all major browsers will have H.264 support. MediaWiki may not be able to encode its own videos in H.264, but we can still serve existing H.264 videos. So if somebody uploads an MP4 to Commons, that video can be served without having to transcode it into another less efficient format.

Just serving the same bits back out that you saw uploaded isn't enough; just as with still photos we need to be able to convert formats and resize to fit appropriate bandwidth and processing limits.

As with still photos, we want to archive the highest-resolution, highest-quality source material (today that generally means pre-compressed .mp4 files at up to 1080p HD)... but for most viewers we'll actually ship a lower-resolution, lower-bitrate transcode.

Also keep in mind that the announced Cisco H.264 codec is video only; most .mp4 video files include *audio* tracks encoded in AAC, another patent-encumbered part of the MPEG-4 family. There may or may not be further announcements from Mozilla about audio codecs -- we can only wait -- but Cisco's involvement appears to be specific to WebRTC, and they claim no plans to provide a licensed AAC codec or otherwise support general .mp4 file playback.

If all this makes you want to just punch patents in the nose and run away, that's understandable...

-- brion

<quote name="Brad Jorsch (Anomie)" date="2013-10-31" time="10:04:56 -0400">

On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 9:57 AM, Antoine Musso hashar+wmf@free.fr wrote:

...

Le 31/10/13 10:10, Magnus Manske a écrit :

...

http://gigaom.com/2013/10/30/mozilla-will-add-h-264-to-firefox-as-cisco-make...

So, should we support this format now? (not advocating, just curious)

Can we get a summary?

Summarizing http://xiphmont.livejournal.com/61927.html: It seems that there's a yearly cap on the licensing fees for H.264. So Cisco is paying the cap, and then anyone can download binaries implementing the codec from them for free.

Also good reading on the topic, from one of the main authors of Opus (the best audio codec available, and it happens to be big F Free) and long time Wikipedian Greg Maxwell:

http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/571978/3226db9ce394bf07/

(LWN Subscriber link, join if you like good reporting in this area)

"Codec licensing amounts to a billion-dollar tax on communication software. In addition, it is used as a weapon between battling competitors, so it even affects people in countries without software patents." quoth Greg.

Other Greg.