[theora] Steve Jobs about theora

[Shayne Wissler]

If/when it turns out to be true, don't say I didn't warn you.

There is no reliable defense against patents, particularly given how
it they have been applied to software.


Shayne

On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 4:01 PM, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 1:32 PM, Patrick Aljord <patcito at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I guess you've all read it already, but here it goes:
>>
>> "All video codecs are covered by patents. A patent pool is being
>> assembled to go after Theora and other “open source” codecs now.
>> Unfortunately, just because something is open source, it doesn’t mean
>> or guarantee that it doesn’t infringe on others patents. An open
>> standard is different from being royalty free or open source.
>>
>> Sent from my iPad"
>
>
> It would seem both surprising and remarkably underhanded, even
> considering the probable involved parties, to undertake constructing a
> patent pool for some product without ever consulting the vendor of
> that product: Surely no good faith effort to construct a valid and
> usable patent pool for a codec could be undertaken without contacting
> the developers of the codec.
>
> In particular— according to the US Department of Justice "A licensing
> scheme premised on invalid or expired intellectual property rights
> will not withstand antitrust scrutiny." So, even though it is apparent
> that the Xiph.org or its participants would have no interest in
> receiving royalties from such a pool a failure to contact the
> developers in an effort to determine the validity of any potential
> patent claim would be unconscionable.
>
> Since the developers of Theora have received no such contact, I can
> only conclude that no such effort is being undertaken and that the
> quoted statement is either a forgery, the result of a
> misunderstanding, or that the statement may be indicative of a
> dishonest and anti-competitive collusion by Apple and other H.264
> patent holders to interfere which the development, promotion, and
> utilization of unencumbered media standards.
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