[vorbis] Here is a link to what they say about "Other Formats"

[Steven Bailey]

Angus Griffin wrote:
> 
> I am genuinely scared by any laws allowing people to hold patents on
> mathematical processes. Think of Einstein, he worked in the bloody Swiss
> patent office and didn't care less for patenting any of his maths (unless
> I'm very much mistaken, which is possible!).
> 
> These people are not trying to patent things they have created. To me, it'd
> be similar to, for instance, HP trying to patent a multiplication operation
> just because their processors use it. Or, Intel patenting XOR just because
> it's fundamental part of their processors. I can understand someone
> patenting architecture and process, but not underlying principals. Not even
> Intel manage to safely patent their arcitecture, look at all the x86-like
> processors around.
> 
> Not only that, I am pretty happy to assume that any of the mathematical
> processes they use were developed many years prior to their implementing
> them.
> 
> Perhaps I have misunderstood the issue, please correct me of I have!
> 
> Angus
> 
You are observing something well known to a lot of the research
community, though it seems to effect some more than others.  In
Einstein's day, there was an enormous push by governments and
corporations and the plain old working-class citizen to come up with the
next paradigm shift.  Research got huge sums of money fed into it and
the working scientist was one of the most respectable positions a person
could be in.  Coming up with new ideas was the goal.  New ideas, better
technology; all for the good of the common man.  Ulterior motives were
certainly there some of the time, but they were more in the background
and didn't derail the invention process.  Yet.

Shift to today.  Profit.  That is all that the company cares about, and
the government usually doesn't get involved because... well, a lot of
reasons, but a biggie is special interest groups getting lots of money
from big corporations so long as they protect the company's interests. 
Creativity is only encouraged if it will increase profits and increase
them quickly.  If a good idea comes up, you make sure no one else can
"steal" it from you.  In short, the companies don't care about what is
good for the consumers.  It is not about making a product as good as it
can be.

As a consequence, many good ideas that wouldn't require much capital
investment to implement get snubbed out because they would be "bad for
business," and many good ideas that would take years of time and money
get snubbed out because no corporation wants to wait that long to make
money off an idea.

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