[Theora] Independent implementations?

[Maik Merten]

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Message-ID: <40F58932.4060309 at gmx.net>

Freun Laven wrote:
>>Does that matter?
> Apparently it does to the guy who was wanting to know about the patents and
> whether it was okay to write one from scratch, or whether he had to use the
> given code as a starting point!

Hmmm... I fail to see how _any_ of the software-licenses we are talking
about could be of relevance for a completely new, written-from-scratch
implementation.

Example: I could happen to live in a cave. With a computer. I feel
lonely and bored. So I write a video-codec for recording a video-message
(Possible message: "I am lonely and bored"). This codec amazingly
happens to be compatible with Ogg Theora.

I think I can put any license I can think of on this amazing, completely
new, written-from-scratch software.

3rd-party licenses don?t apply. Any negotiations between On2 and Xiph
seem to be irrelevant to me. Any source-code transferred between On2 and
Xiph seem be irrelevant. Is this really the case? I don?t know. I?m a
layman in legal practice.

However, On2?s patents surely _do_ apply. How could a passage in a
license that doesn?t apply to my software protect me?

So, you?re right! The details of the negotiations between On2 and Xiph
seem to be relevant. If On2 granted a licencse to all humanity (not
being bound to a specific codebase) (I assume they did) they should
document this outside of a license which may or may not apply...

Did I mention I am a layman? ;-)