[rtcweb] Cisco to open source its H.264 implementation and absorb MPEG-LA licensing fees

"Jonathan Rosenberg (jdrosen)" <jdrosen@cisco.com> Wed, 30 October 2013 12:28 UTC

Return-Path: <jdrosen@cisco.com>
X-Original-To: rtcweb@ietfa.amsl.com
Delivered-To: rtcweb@ietfa.amsl.com
Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ietfa.amsl.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id B0F0011E8147 for <rtcweb@ietfa.amsl.com>; Wed, 30 Oct 2013 05:28:56 -0700 (PDT)
X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at amsl.com
X-Spam-Flag: NO
X-Spam-Score: -10.598
X-Spam-Level:
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-10.598 tagged_above=-999 required=5 tests=[BAYES_00=-2.599, HTML_MESSAGE=0.001, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_HI=-8]
Received: from mail.ietf.org ([12.22.58.30]) by localhost (ietfa.amsl.com [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id qRqIyR9UHnAH for <rtcweb@ietfa.amsl.com>; Wed, 30 Oct 2013 05:28:51 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from rcdn-iport-4.cisco.com (rcdn-iport-4.cisco.com [173.37.86.75]) by ietfa.amsl.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 80FBD11E80FA for <rtcweb@ietf.org>; Wed, 30 Oct 2013 05:28:51 -0700 (PDT)
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=cisco.com; i=@cisco.com; l=5608; q=dns/txt; s=iport; t=1383136131; x=1384345731; h=from:to:cc:subject:date:message-id:mime-version; bh=Mnenfux7wos5YbX4DzoRZwA+To3TUNlhk/GMEE2dbU4=; b=L9BGOOwg0ky+11hzPXorwH4WUhOn6/v3c7OoqSSTSd754FAxpc5fqZ4x P/qDMRmN84+yiLKMKxE2/lqakUR5BDjZRpomhjBMC8F+xdABjG3E6cfwv 3/KEfd/g5Wz53KfDwscxdGipFEBfJB0xODZJs2qK1wxbRhYhyyMjE17U8 4=;
X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true
X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: Am4GAHj6cFKtJXHB/2dsb2JhbABZgkNEOFS/TYEmFm0HgicBBC1MEgEqViYBBA4FCAyHc7p9jx4xEIMWgQ0DqhODJoIq
X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos; i="4.93,600,1378857600"; d="scan'208,217"; a="278526412"
Received: from rcdn-core2-6.cisco.com ([173.37.113.193]) by rcdn-iport-4.cisco.com with ESMTP; 30 Oct 2013 12:28:51 +0000
Received: from xhc-rcd-x12.cisco.com (xhc-rcd-x12.cisco.com [173.37.183.86]) by rcdn-core2-6.cisco.com (8.14.5/8.14.5) with ESMTP id r9UCSol0001164 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=AES128-SHA bits=128 verify=FAIL); Wed, 30 Oct 2013 12:28:50 GMT
Received: from xmb-rcd-x07.cisco.com ([169.254.7.33]) by xhc-rcd-x12.cisco.com ([173.37.183.86]) with mapi id 14.02.0318.004; Wed, 30 Oct 2013 07:28:50 -0500
From: "Jonathan Rosenberg (jdrosen)" <jdrosen@cisco.com>
To: "rtcweb@ietf.org" <rtcweb@ietf.org>
Thread-Topic: Cisco to open source its H.264 implementation and absorb MPEG-LA licensing fees
Thread-Index: Ac7Va44Tmf9gXRoQT1qWOAYOe51tPQ==
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 12:28:50 +0000
Message-ID: <186CE8D65BA3A741A81A543F936DD0D10A5803D8@xmb-rcd-x07.cisco.com>
Accept-Language: en-US
Content-Language: en-US
X-MS-Has-Attach:
X-MS-TNEF-Correlator:
x-originating-ip: [10.86.255.238]
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="_000_186CE8D65BA3A741A81A543F936DD0D10A5803D8xmbrcdx07ciscoc_"
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Mailman-Approved-At: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 05:37:40 -0700
Subject: [rtcweb] Cisco to open source its H.264 implementation and absorb MPEG-LA licensing fees
X-BeenThere: rtcweb@ietf.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.12
Precedence: list
List-Id: Real-Time Communication in WEB-browsers working group list <rtcweb.ietf.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/options/rtcweb>, <mailto:rtcweb-request@ietf.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/rtcweb>
List-Post: <mailto:rtcweb@ietf.org>
List-Help: <mailto:rtcweb-request@ietf.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/rtcweb>, <mailto:rtcweb-request@ietf.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 12:28:56 -0000

I'd like to make an announcement material to the conversations around MTI video codecs in rtcweb.

Cisco is announcing today that we will take our H.264 implementation, and open source it under BSD license terms. Development and maintenance will be overseen by a board from industry and the open source community.  Furthermore, we will provide a binary form suitable for inclusion in applications across a number of different operating systems (Windows, MacOS, Linux x86, Linux ARM and Android ARM), and make this binary module available for download from the Internet. We will not pass on our MPEG-LA licensing costs for this module, and based on the current licensing environment, this will effectively make H.264 free for use on supported platforms.

We believe that this contribution to the community can help address the concerns many have raised around selection of H.264 as MTI. I firmly believe that with H.264 we can achieve maximal interoperability and now, do it with open source and for free (well, at least for others - its not free for Cisco :))
More information on the open source project can be found at http://www.openh264.org, which is sparse now but more coming soon.


Thx,
Jonathan R.

--
Jonathan Rosenberg, PhD
VP, CTO Collaboration
Cisco Systems
jdrosen@cisco.com