Talking Radeon GLSL From X@FOSDEM 2010

[Apopas]

By trying to prove that by using mp3 you are not in danger to pay and speaking about royalties and such, you prove that you don't understand that patents affects far more important things than just money yotambien.

Anyway, to conclude my dogma...
if Michael had decided to use vorbis instead of mp3 at first place, then this quarrel wouldn't have take place at all. That's a viable reason, at least, to use vorbis.

[yotambien]

Well, my reasoning was a bit more articulated than that; but yes, I focused on the most practical consequences of mp3 playback--don't lose sight of what was being discussed, which wasn't patents in general. Now, you seem like having a good argument there, but again you are not sharing it. I hope you realise that if you don't exchange your views this is rather pointless.

And heh, yes, you could threat Phoronix with having endless arguments in the forum about patents to coerce Michael to use Vorbis. He is perfectly aware of the bitching, as it transpires from the Ubuntu One Music Store story...which linked to this thread...and now I'm going to create a singularity (or two) by LINKING BACK TO IT!.

Seriously now, what were the reasons originally given for not pleasing you? That's the core issue. You mentioned a vote or something, which I must have completely missed. As I said, I too would expect a more "OSS friendly" format, knowing what a lot of people over here think; surely there must be a reason for the decision, if only perhaps a trivial one.

[TwistedLincoln]

I will add my voice to the calls to provide files only in Free multimedia formats like Vorbis or Theora.

While it is true that end users are unlikely to be in peril for using unlicensed codecs, the same cannot be said for businesses. And the more ubiquitous non-free formats become, the harder it will be for businesses to compete using only Free formats in their products.

For example, my company maintains a GNU/Linux distro (Nexradix). We do not include support for mp3 playback because we cannot pay the licensing fees and still provide the distro for download at no charge. Since we are a for profit company, we could very easily be sued if we were to add mp3 support without paying, even if our end-users remain safe. So instead, we only support Vorbis.

The more popular mp3 is, the harder it is to convince users that they should use Vorbis instead (and that they will therefore be happy with Nexradix). So the more sites there are that provide content ONLY in non-free formats, the harder it is to get people to use something else.

I have no issue with non-free file formats by themselves -- just make the content available in FREE formats as well. The resources required are minimal -- my company even offers to do the file conversions at no charge to those that request it.

Free multimedia formats like Vorbis and Theora are incredibly imporant to the sucess of Free Software platforms such as GNU/Linux. It is time more "open source" advocates started realizing it.

[Apopas]

Well, my reasoning was a bit more articulated than that; but yes, I focused on the most practical consequences of mp3 playback--don't lose sight of what was being discussed, which wasn't patents in general. Now, you seem like having a good argument there, but again you are not sharing it. I hope you realise that if you don't exchange your views this is rather pointless.

The argument wasn't the technical advantages of vorbis either. But that it was choosen a patented format instead of a free one. So it was the patents finally. Now, do you realy want to continue and examine why patents are good or bad? By the way you say it, looks like as if it is something that I keep secret

And heh, yes, you could threat Phoronix with having endless arguments in the forum about patents to coerce Michael to use Vorbis. He is perfectly aware of the bitching, as it transpires from the Ubuntu One Music Store story...which linked to this thread...and now I'm going to create a singularity (or two) by LINKING BACK TO IT!.

I know, I've already replied there.

Seriously now, what were the reasons originally given for not pleasing you? That's the core issue. You mentioned a vote or something, which I must have completely missed. As I said, I too would expect a more "OSS friendly" format, knowing what a lot of people over here think; surely there must be a reason for the decision, if only perhaps a trivial one.

I doubt there is a thing like "more oss friendly". It's just OSS or not. Anyway, I'm a free software advocate as you've understood so far. Like many, entered the world of Linux, because of its technical advantages (it was back in the windows98 days). My needs weren't for proffessional use so I had whatever I wanted, Loki was alive back then so I had some nice games like Myth2 and Quake3, my system for first time was fast and rock stable and as an appplied mathematics student was quite capable to configure and tweak this difficult at that time Linux thing. I had bought SuSE Linux Professional 7 something, back then, which had wonderful books which in combination with the technical support from SuSE, helped me tremendously (hell, once I had problems with my xf86config file and the support guy asked to sent it to him, he fixed it and sent it back!!! That's support).
On the other hand, my friends struggled with windows98 and then windowsme. Paid things that never worked in the way they supposed to (I forgot, I had my BIOS f****d up too when my last windows machine was infected by Chernobyl virus) but still they used to pirate and crack them because they wanted the best software (their words) even if they didn't do anything with it...
Anyway, slowly I understood what free software really means besides the technical merits and from the very begining I saw this model was working and was working pretty good. The only problem was the uni professors who demanded the experiments, the presentations and every exercise to be in ms office format. No, my poor StarOffice wasn't very good for them.
Ofcourse, they didn't offer something, I had to find (steal, buy) it with its operating system ofcourse together, by myself. So what did I have? Something that while worked perfectly (Linux) wasn't a viable solution because of some stupid morons fat asses who was accepting education only in specific formats. No wonder why I had crappy marks in a lot of courses... Certainly I could, always, get a pirated copy of ms office and windows98 (no millenium thank you) and do whatever the wise professors commanded. But why to follow this stupid way when you can live otherwise?
Since then I've met the same situation many times, under different covers. You are always forced to use things you don't want or need while there are always better alternatives... Anyway, if I let it go, I'll write till tomorrow night, the meaning is to be forced is always a sucky thing. I suppose you understand very well what I mean.
So what do I believe? Everything that is used by default must be free in every of its aspects. Free to be used by anyone for any purpose. That's the real fairness and equality. If someone wants to use another limited (proprietary) way because he feels he will gain something more by this, it's his right but must be only after his choice. The limited must be choosen not enforced. Unfortunately, today happens the oppossite.
So what do we have here? In a forum which supports freedom, in some way enforces something no free. Ofcourse an mp3 may be not a big deal, but since we have to examine it and look it from this and that angle... finally it becomes. Few things are really important till the human decides that they are. So I say in forums like these, mp3s and wmas etc etc don't have place. Only vorbis does. Is it a dogma? Maybe it is, but the free ways must be a dogma in freedom, because without them there is not freedom at all...

There was a vote some time ago about proprietary media formats in phoronix that was made by another pissed user like me. As we see, it didn't change anything though...

[DanL]

Michael, if you want to generate more traffic to your site, use Silverlight next time. I guarantee a sh!tstorm!

Oh, now is a good time for me to buy Phoronix premium!.. err NO

[jrch2k8]

i understand both points here, but the thing here if not only if phoronix use privative software(lol btw) or not is about 2 forces struggling here.

is true privative software isnt bad, god even been a linux user i pay for my licenses where it needed. so what is the real issue here.

1.) OSS advocates are cheap bastards? normally no but in both side there are always cheap bastards
2.) all software should be free? hell no, that will kill the human resource for next generation (only true geeks will gradute in this job knowing there is no job market for them) so commercial software is needed as OSS is a 50 50 thing.
3.) all privative software is bad? no, as long you have a choice aka i can buy nero for linux cuz is actually pretty competitive (could be better thow) but i can use k3b too for example.
4.) so why mp3/h264/etc even "free" for non commercial use is bad? is not the codec per se. look all normal software market is about choice example i only go to buy adobe dreamweaver cuz i like it not cuz is an standard or i go to pgi to buy a commercial compiler cuz i feel it fit best with my C++ code so in any way im not tied to them cuz competence exist from the beggining and even pretty rough competition on the OSS is available too. so the real issues with media patents is the way they behave. aka this patents companies are mostly cover up for big media firms (sony, universal, etc) and this american dinosaours companys still play the monopoly type of bussiness (i know there should be laws against that but they have the most expensive lawyer the money can pay to handle the zillion legal procedure for anti trust they have and well you know what will happen rigth? )

5.) what is the influence of those methods anyway?, i can still hear my mp3 free!!.

well as you may know, studios believe with drm everything, piracy will go down but piracy was born cuz of their bussiness model. so this cicle begun a war between both faction. hackers break it studio make it more closed and more expensive and well most companies have to stay to dont losse market share and face legal procedure in retaliation.

so let me give you an personal experience, im making a distro for some especific clients of mine, so at first i thought well lets integrate mp3 along with flac and ogg in my application so my user have a open set of alternatives to save their files, cool rigth? ok so my lawyer contact xiph.org just to be sure and all was super fine, then naturally he goes to talk with mp3 patent holders to get thing rigth. some days later we found ourselve a meeting and well i explained all the tech stuff ill will do with their codec and they ask me which OS my will use, and i said Linux ofc(lol of me), the guy look me weird and said they dont offer support in "that" OS so i should consider use windoze, i said no way in hell, bla bla bla, the dude reponse well you are on you own, i said hey fine by me. at the end they told that for my country microsoft hold the legal stuff to give me the licensing (i couldnt belive it lol),
i still naive call the regional microsft office nd explain all the crap again, their response was denied at first cuz one of their gold member got a similar apps in my country market so it was no bussiness for them to allow me to use it too, so after many legal crap we got a response like
"reconsidreing your petitions, bla bla bla, we can allow you the use of the patents and blah blah blah for the initial amount of XXX.XXX,00 american dollars and a post payment per royalty over content encoded of XX,00 dollars. that was the lolest thing ever heard and tehy even sent me a second option much cheaper if i accept migrate the app to windows server 2008 and become a partner and sign an agreement of exclusivity with them !!!LOL!!!. rigth in my fragging face try to sue them but no use.

so if today stuff like ogg or theora didnt exist me and many companies will just go to bankrupcy or out of market victims of that dirty extortion. so using OSS i could offer a much cheap alternative to my clients and after explaining them the issues they understood and agree if needed they will transcode it later to mp3.

the importance of OSS standards in the topics is vital to the industry grow and for the user to remain free to choose. i dare you prove me that the web can be what is today if html, CSS, ajax, php, etc where owned by this company instead of be OSS.

you as user loose too in this situatuion, your mp3 player could be cheaper or have more space to hold songs or a better material if that company didint have to cut a 45% cost to be able to pay of the patent and royalty for mp3 and still be buyable. or your rented movies in netflix could be more cheaper if they didnt have to pay the huge money for the h264 royalty and patents for example, lol even your monthly pay for online porn would be cheaper .

so in any way im forcing you to choose OSS or anything like that, i just what to enligth you that an OSS standrad in this kind of sector will benefit everybody (except the greedy dirty pigs of the studios, ofc)

just imagine a software world totally owned by microsoft, sony, unversal, apple. im sure you will get the creeps, especially since your current laptop would cost 15k$ + 50% per file open cuz microsft hold the IP of your files too and running win95 renamed with better icons.

this is the reason we try so hard to change ppl minds here to avoid that kind of future but at the end is always your choice

[that guy]

Wow. I started reading this thread to see if there was something new about Radeon but all I got was trolls trolling trolls about patents.

Way to turn any thread to crap.

[Melcar]

Like the trolling of a great bell.

[yotambien]

Right, but you insist in changing the terms of the discussion. I wasn't arguing about patents in general. If you want to discuss those you'll have to find somebody else to beat up, because I may even agree with you. If you read what I wrote you won't find a case to defend proprietary formats over unencumbered ones. What you will find is me talking about the specific issues of mp3 audio, and particularly from the point of view of the end user, since that is precisely the case of Phoronix readers in relation to the uploaded file.

In that specific case you will have a hard time to find any negative consequences arising from the choice of codec Phoronix made. Contrary to what you initially and incorrectly claimed, everybody has the technical means to play mp3 files, mp3 playback is legal everywhere and no extra payments are to be done as of Friday, February 19th 2010. In these respects, and in this context, Vorbis represents no advantage over mp3. Unless you want to argue about the technical superiority of Vorbis--which was never the issue--all you really have in this case is the symbolic value of choosing an unencumbered format. How important this is for you and why you made it clear, providing examples that, however, do not apply here.

[yotambien]

Seriously now, what were the reasons originally given for not pleasing you? That's the core issue. You mentioned a vote or something, which I must have completely missed. As I said, I too would expect a more "OSS friendly" format, knowing what a lot of people over here think; surely there must be a reason for the decision, if only perhaps a trivial one.

I doubt there is a thing like "more oss friendly". It's just OSS or not. Anyway, I'm a free software advocate [...]

There was a vote some time ago about proprietary media formats in phoronix that was made by another pissed user like me. As we see, it didn't change anything though...

Actually I was asking about what reasons Michael gave for not using Vorbis when that poll took place. I'm curious now.