Re: [rtcweb] On the topic of MTI video codecs

I suspect the fallacy in your argument is in the statement

"Unlicensed binary comes in, licensed binary comes out."

If it was as simple as that, you ISP would them become liable for you H264 license fees.

I suspect that what occurs for Cisco to become liable to the license fees is some degree of ownership of the product they are distributing.

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.

Keith

> -----Original Message-----
> From: rtcweb-bounces@ietf.org 
> [mailto:rtcweb-bounces@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Simon Perreault
> Sent: 01 November 2013 13:06
> To: rtcweb@ietf.org
> Subject: Re: [rtcweb] On the topic of MTI video codecs
> 
> Le 2013-10-31 18:36, Richard Barnes a écrit :
> > You would need something more than that if you don't trust 
> Cisco not 
> > to tinker with the binaries (no offense).  But even that 
> doesn't have 
> > to be complicated.  You could just do something like have 
> the software 
> > call back to the vendor whenever it gets a new binary from Cisco to 
> > check that the binary it just got is good (say, by 
> comparing hashes).
> 
> Is it even necessary that Cisco do the actual compiling of 
> source code?
> 
> As far as I understand, Cisco only needs to be distributing 
> the binaries. So here's a crazy idea... how about a 
> self-serve binary hosting service? You compile your code, 
> upload it to Cisco, Cisco does the download tracking and 
> accounting, and you and your users just need to download and 
> verify the checksum. Heck, Cisco could even host binaries of x264!
> 
> That would be much simpler on Cisco's part: much less 
> investment in manpower, much fewer things to maintain and 
> care for. It would just be a glorified FTP server. Unlicensed 
> binary comes in, licensed binary comes out. Platforms could 
> multiply without any effort from Cisco. Win win.
> 
> Simon
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