Quote:
Originally Posted by Silock
Why no uproar over MP3, then?
According to engadget (and many others), it's an open format, which means it's not proprietary based upon the definition provided by your link.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/04/k...nsing-and-you/
Your link bases the definition of proprietary based on this link:
http://www.openformats.org/en1
So, while H.264 isn't FREE, it IS open, which means it's not proprietary.
But whatever. It's all just semantics. H.264 isn't hurting anyone, so I don't see what the big to-do is. It's only because Apple is involved. If they hadn't been involved in it, no one would even be considering this a big deal. Apple just causes violent reactions in people for some reason. |
No uproar on mp3 cuz it isn't part of this argument... but for the record I prefer the idea of vorbis and would support it.
First, h.264 is a codec not a file format... which is probably why you don't see it or any other video codecs listed in the examples in the article I posted.
Second, even in the VERY limited context of a "format" the wikipedia article I quoted is wrong in a few places. I only quoted it to show you more general examples.
Here is where th article is wrong...
Quote:
A proprietary format is a file format where the mode of presentation of its data is opaque and its specification is not publicly available.[1] Proprietary formats are typically controlled by a private person or organization for the benefit of its appliances and can be protected with patents or copyrights which are intended to give the license holder exclusive control of the technology to the (current or future) exclusion of others.[2] Typically such restrictions attempt to prevent Reverse engineering, though reverse engineering of file formats for the purposes of interoperability is generally believed to be legal by those who practice it. Legal positions differ according to each country's laws related to, among other things, software patents.
The opposite of a proprietary format is an open format.
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The last statement is clearly an off shoot of the first and has no citation so let's toss it. The first statement is cited from a webiste called openformats.org... It appears the "site" was created simply to prop up the wikipedia article which at the time (and still is) under dispute, otherwise it serves no true puprose and was created by a college student in Europe whose degrees are in Philosophy and Cognitive Science. I have gone in and corrected the article if you'd like to take a look now.
Again, OPEN does not = nonproprietary even though you want to believe that... REGARDLESS it really doesn't matter because here is the scale of bad to good...
closed proprietary > open proprietary > open source with license issues > true open source