From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Mar 16 18:38:23 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1574E106564A for ; Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:38:23 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from gull@gull.us) Received: from mail-ey0-f182.google.com (mail-ey0-f182.google.com [209.85.215.182]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A67848FC17 for ; Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:38:22 +0000 (UTC) Received: by eyg7 with SMTP id 7so571749eyg.13 for ; Wed, 16 Mar 2011 11:38:21 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.213.4.143 with SMTP id 15mr288127ebr.9.1300300701349; Wed, 16 Mar 2011 11:38:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.14.119.1 with HTTP; Wed, 16 Mar 2011 11:38:21 -0700 (PDT) X-Originating-IP: [128.95.17.209] In-Reply-To: <20110316180938.GA10333@guilt.hydra> References: <20110307162153.0463fa73@atmarama.net> <20110307170014.GB65289@guilt.hydra> <4D7FE8E1.90600@herveybayaustralia.com.au> <20110315203753.55f1ec3b@scorpio> <20110316004351.GA6614@guilt.hydra> <20110316180938.GA10333@guilt.hydra> Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2011 11:38:21 -0700 Message-ID: From: David Brodbeck To: FreeBSD Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Subject: Re: HAL must die! X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:38:23 -0000 On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 11:09 AM, Chad Perrin wrote: > It's certainly true that video is a bit of a "sticky widget" with regard > to open standards. =A0The moment someone develops something that is > verifiably free of patent encumbrances for video and doesn't just *suck*, > I expect that either it will achieve escape velocity in mere moments to > become the most widely deployed type of video in the world, or the guy > who created it will die under mysterious circumstances and his heirs will > somehow arrange to dummy up a patent application in his name with the > help of whoever's going to buy the patent from those heirs. The problem is it'd have to be someone who's unemployed. ;) Any software company is going to want to patent something that valuable; they'd be failing their shareholders if they didn't. We may just have to wait for the patents to expire on some older but still viable codecs, much like eventually happened with GIF.