Re: [rtcweb] x264 vs OpenH264 (Was: On the topic of MTI video codecs)

IIUC, by providing a BSD implementation, developers will be able to build
the library directly into their apps, if they're willing to accept the
MPEG-LA restrictions.  This could be helpful for developers who are willing
to pay the license fees, or who are too small to be required to pay the
license (think I had head 100k users).  The BSD licensed implementation
means that those developers don't have to either (1) bother with the Cisco
song and dance or (2) worry about GPL restrictions.

--Richard

On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 12:51 PM, Emil Ivov <emcho@jitsi.org> wrote:

> Hey Olle,
>
> On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 5:36 PM, Olle E. Johansson <oej@edvina.net> wrote:
> >
> > On 01 Nov 2013, at 17:19, Emil Ivov <emcho@jitsi.org> wrote:
> >
> >> On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 4:56 PM, Cullen Jennings <fluffy@iii.ca> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> On Nov 1, 2013, at 9:14 AM, Emil Ivov <emcho@jitsi.org> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 3:27 PM, DRAGE, Keith (Keith)
> >>>> <keith.drage@alcatel-lucent.com> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> That ownership means they are also take responsibility for any of
> the liabilities arising
> >>>>> from defective code they so distribute. I see no reason why Cisco
> would want to do
> >>>>> that under anything but a controlled evironment, which would have
> its own set of
> >>>>> non-trivial costs.
> >>>>
> >>>> They could have the same by distributing x264 binaries that they have
> >>>> compiled by themselves.
> >>>>
> >>>> One of the things in the Cisco grand, that sound a bit incoherent to
> >>>> me is their declared will on building a healthy open source community
> >>>> around their implementation. Specifically, what baffles me is that
> >>>> there is already a very well oiled implementation that does a lot more
> >>>> than just baseline. That implementation already has a vibrant
> >>>> community, significant popularity and, again, it sounds like it would
> >>>> be considerably superior to what Cisco are planning on rolling out in
> >>>> OpenH264.
> >>>>
> >>>> In addition to wondering at the pure waste of resources (with a casual
> >>>> reference to NIH), potential contributors could legitimately ask "why
> >>>> would we contribute to your project when you made the exact opposite
> >>>> choice when faced with the decision?".
> >>>>
> >>>> Emil
> >>>
> >>> We considered just using x264 (I like x264 myself) that but Mozilla
> told us it would not work for them because it is GPL.
> >>
> >> It would be nice for Mozilla to comment then. They wouldn't have been
> >> required to statically link against it or even distribute it. It is
> >> already possible to use GPL plug-ins with Firefox, so why is x264 an
> >> insurmountable problem?
> >>
> > Emil. If you take x264 and link into Jitsi you will have to pay license
> fees to MPEG-LA.
> >
> > If you let the Jitsi users download the codec binary from Cisco and use
> the plugin API which will
> > be defined by the OpenH264 community you don't have to pay any license
> fees. Cisco will.
>
> My question was: why not have users download x264 binaries from Cisco.
> Basically, nothing changes from the current Cisco suggestion, except
> for where the source code comes from.
>
> Emil
>
> --
> https://jitsi.org
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