[theora] Steve Jobs about theora

[Jason Self]

Patrick Aljord <patcito at gmail.com> wrote ..

> A patent pool is being assembled to go after Theora and other "open source"
> codecs now.

The response from Steve Jobs made me think of Eben Moglen's comment at [1], 
from rougly 0:19 - 1:08 of the whole video. Although in the entire video Eben 
was talking about the Microsoft/Novell deal, I think that part of the video 
could be applied here.

Thank goodness for people like Eben Moglen and the Software Freedom Law 
Center. :)

The FSF has weighed in at [2]. Specifically:

"We have legal assurances from the only publicly claimed patent
holders that Ogg Theora can be used both commercially and
noncommercially, in any software, by anyone, without royalty.

Of course, other patents may arise, and we will have to fight
them if they do. H.264 could also find itself dealing with some
hitherto unknown patent claims in the future; that's just the
nature of the system. Buying a license to H.264 does not
magically protect you from such submarine attacks.

The software patent system is broken and we will continue
campaigning for its abolition.

 * <http://endsoftpatents.org>

You can help with this campaign by watching and sharing the new
film, Patent Absurdity: How software patents broke the system.

 * <http://patentabsurdity.com>

In the meantime, "Everything could be patented anyway" is not an
argument for "Give up even trying and just submit to MPEG-LA."

It's an argument for Ogg Theora, and against software patents."


[1] http://tinyogg.com/watch/G4jnm/
[2] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-fsf/2010-04/msg00004.html