[whatwg] on codecs in a 'video' tag.

[Dave Singer]

At 18:14  +0300 28/03/07, Henri Sivonen wrote:
>On Mar 27, 2007, at 23:40, Silvia Pfeiffer wrote:
>
>>I would be curious for the reasons that 3GPP has taken the requirement
>>of vorbis out of the spec. Was that a decision based on technical
>>reasons and could you please explain what these technical reasons
>>were?
>
>First: I don't know about what goes on inside 3GPP.
>
>However, about one 3GPP stakeholder with significant clout:
>When Nokia guys show up Open Source meetings, the FAQ about Maemo is 
>why they don't ship Vorbis support. The manager of the Maemo 
>operation has said that Nokia is afraid of Vorbis having some 
>Fraunhofer-owned stuff in it after all, so Nokia does not want to 
>ship Vorbis support until their own people have vetted Vorbis for 
>patent issues. It is entirely unclear to me if they are actively 
>vetting it.
>
>That's the stated reason.
>
>In addition, it might be relevant that *all* the companies that have 
>patents in the AAC patent portfolio are 3GPP members. If everyone 
>used Vorbis, the value of the AAC patents would be diluted both in 
>terms of licensing revenue and as MAD warheads mounted on defensive 
>patent missiles.

I think the first reason is more likely.  The dominant players in 
3GPP are network operators and equipment vendors, and the AAC patent 
owners are (to my impression) very much both a minority and less 
powerful.

The AAC patent owners are, for the most part, organizations that do 
R&D for license -- that's their business, and it's perfectly 
respectable.  They develop good technology and understand that 
without licenses they don't have a business.  Just my personal 
opinion, you understand;  I don't see anything wrong with this 
business model, and indeed I think it benefits the industry.  (There 
are other business models around patents which we need not elaborate, 
which I dare say many of us would have a harder time defending).
-- 
David Singer
Apple Computer/QuickTime