[vorbis] Re: Patent issues

[Kyle Rose]

> It sounds a bit like telling everyone in your neighborhood to hand
> in papers with statements like "if there was a burglary around here
> now or in the future, I didn't do it".

This is an incorrect analogy.

It's more like getting a trusted member of your neighborhood to assert
that there is low probability that you would commit a burglary.  If
that member is wrong (willfully or not), he will command less trust in
the future.

In this case, the "trusted member" is anyone with something to lose by
coming to a false or misleading determination of confidence in Vorbis'
claims of being patent-unencumbered, e.g. AOL.  If AOL were to include
a Vorbis encoder in Winamp5, that would be a strong indication that
they believe it is not encumbered by patents, and other companies
would likely follow suit.  Absent that vote of confidence,
organizations with more to potentially lose to a patent suit than gain
by including Vorbis functionality will steer clear of it.

Cheers,
Kyle
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