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Microsoft Plays Fair, Competitors Cry Foul | |
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| Time: 00:00 EST/05:00 GMT | News Source: morons.org | Posted By: Todd Richardson | ||
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Microsoft recently released a new product called Windows Media 9 Series. Not just a player, as some people would think, Windows Media 9 series is a complete set of technologies for encoding, serving, and viewing digital media. This technology includes some real breakthroughs in streaming of digital media, and in compressing it.
And this is what MPEG-LA doesn't like: It's better than MPEG-4. And it's cheaper. | ||
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| #1 By 2332 (65.221.182.3) at 1/13/2003 12:32:05 AM |
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Pretty good summary of how I feel on this subject:
http://web.morons.org/article.jsp?sectionid=1&id=2708 |
| #2 By 135 (208.50.206.187) at 1/13/2003 2:03:25 AM |
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I would just like to point out that this statement "Are MPEG technologies open standards? Well no. That's why you have to license them, and pay MPEG-LA a lot of money." is wrong.
MPEG IS a set of Open Standards. Somewhere along the line the Free Software people subverted the word Open into meaning Free. Open means documented, Open means you can build an implementation which is interoperable with other peoples implementations. Open does not mean Free. |
| #3 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at 1/13/2003 3:08:12 AM |
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blue, I've been thinking quite a bit about standards lately. In terms of software, what is the definition of 'standard'? 'open standard'? 'proprietary'? and 'open'?
From a programmatic perspective, one could say that as soon as a public interface on a class has been compiled it becomes a standard. Any object that talks to it will always talk to it (specific to version of course) via the defined public interface. OK, so that's small scale. Along the same lines, COM is a standard. It defined two interfaces (IUnknown and IDispatch) for COM components to implement (the first being mandatory the second being optional). Further, it defined a metadata lanaguage to describe the public interfaces on the component (Microsoft Interface Definition Language or MIDL). Any component on earth that conforms, is by definition a COM component. Since COM was created and ratified by Microsoft alone does that make it a standard, but only a proprietary standard? And this despite the fact that other compiler vendors, namely Borland though I'm sure there are others, have built applications based on this standard. Every VBScript, JScript, VB, and many VC++ developers adhere to the COM standard (though perhaps inadvertantly). What makes a standard open? Does open standard mean a collection of companies said "it is a standard!". Since many people have said that of COM, does that make COM open? Or does a specific group (w3c, ECMA, ISO) have to say that it is a standard? Is Java not a standard even though many members of JCP call it a standard, because some predefined group (e.g. w3c, ECMA, ISO, etc) haven't? but CLI is definately a standard because ECMA and ISO said so? Perhaps standards should be based on usage and implementation. If a standard isn't implemented or is barely used, is it a standard? Kind of like if a tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it, did it make a sound? I'm not seeking argument here. I'm trying to define some terms that get thrown around, yet usually with different definitions attached. |
| #4 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at 1/13/2003 9:44:48 AM |
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If it is completely documented, that means it isn't obfuscated, right? Or are you talking about obfuscating compiled code?
What does it mean to be a moving target? If there are multiple versions (e.g. 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, etc) does that make it a moving target even if each version's API, features, or whatever is well documented? RE Free as in freedom... I'll second that Jagged. That doesn't make a bit of sense. Well subjectively to RMS and probably to ER it does, but objectively it doesn't. |
| #5 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at 1/13/2003 10:53:19 AM |
| Well quite obviously it doesn't make sense to at least two people. A snide remark from you won't help us out either. :-) |
| #6 By 20 (24.243.41.64) at 1/13/2003 11:18:36 AM |
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RMS defines free in two senses, Free as in Beer, and Free as in Speech.
He promotes Free Software (as in Speech) which means that it is not locked down by a single entity with a draconian license and can be used by anyone anytime for any purpose. But then he promotes GNU, I think, which is a single controlling entity with a draconian license that prevents the software from being used in many circumstances. The Apache/BSD/etc licenses are the true "Free" licenses, IMHO. |
| #7 By 135 (209.180.28.6) at 1/13/2003 11:19:34 AM |
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BobSmith - Ok, good question. Part of it is that standards may only exist in a given marketplace.
For Windows, COM is a standard. It may not be in the Unix world, but who cares. dupe - No, I agree with you... there is a difference. The GPL is only free for end-users, though. So saying "Free as in Freedom" is overexagerrating. |
| #8 By 3653 (63.162.177.140) at 1/13/2003 11:45:44 AM |
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Someone please help me understand the choices.
1.) With WM9, I pay "10 cents per decoder, 20 cents per encoder, and 25 cents for both." 2.) With MPEG4, I pay "25 cents per encoder and decoder, or 50 cents for both" 3.) WM9 represents a single vendor, whereas MPEG4 represents the work of "18 patent holders that have claims on underlying MPEG-4 technology". 4.) WM9 has on-par or better technology than MPEG4. Call me crazy, but I'll take the ~40% cost savings of WM9, and hire an extra accountant to count my profits. If the best argument for WPEG4 is that it doesn't allow Microsoft to grow... then they won't find many takers. Why in the hell can't someone just compete on the merits of their products, not on some deep-seeded hate to see Microsoft lose power? |
| #9 By 6859 (204.71.100.218) at 1/13/2003 11:47:41 AM |
| It's "Free" as in "you've been assimilated, now you (and all your progeny) belong to us." |
| #10 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at 1/13/2003 12:01:38 PM |
| daz, good explanation. I was hoping that dupe would admit that himself. IMO RMS doesn't support a license that means free as in freedom. So when he said free as in freedom and GPL as meaning that same thing, a logical man must conclude that the statement doesn't make sense. |
| #11 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at 1/13/2003 12:05:44 PM |
| blue, so if a standard is dependent upon the space in which it is used, then by narrowing the space it will be possible to call nearly anything a standard (as I did in my first post). The version(s) of HTML that IE accepts are standards in the IE space no matter what the w3c says. That JScript that IE accepts is a stanard no matter what ECMA says. The C++ that VisualStudio compiles is the standard no matter what ANSI says, etc. Also, I'd say that the behavior is consistent (accross all versions of the product at least), MSDN documents it, and there are no licensing fees to write IE brand HTML, IE brand JScript, or VisualStudio brand C++, so by definition these are not only standards but open standards as well. Is there a flaw in my logic? |
| #12 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at 1/13/2003 1:47:02 PM |
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I'll second that parker.
dupe, first of all, IE 6 is about as w3c compliant as any other browser out there. Second, Microsoft has stated that it adheres to standards when its customers demand it. In other words, it does what the consumer wants. (Yeah, I know you'll take issue with that.) Third, I imagine it's just as easy or difficult to write to one schema than it is to write to another. The primary reason web dev guys haven't written compliant HTML/Javascript/etc. is that there were not browsers that supported the standards. Even now, no single browser is 100% compliant with the latest HTML, XHTML, or CSS standards. Yeah, the latest browsers are pretty close, but pretty close still isn't perfect. |
| #13 By 20 (24.243.41.64) at 1/13/2003 3:29:21 PM |
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I don't get it. When people say Mozilla is "more compliant" than IE on the standards, but I CONSTANTLY run into CSS attributes, and even basic HTML tag attributes that just don't plain work in Mozilla. Like the friggin' height attribute on a table(!!!). That's been in the standard for awhile, IIRC, and no Netscape product has ever supported it.
I swear about twice a day I find something that's in the standards that just doesn't work in Mozilla that works well or moderately in IE 6. Anyone who says Mozilla is more standars compliant must be smokin' crack because in general use it's not the case. And I'm really not asking much, I'm not doing anything super fancy (just HTML + CSS, a little Javascript, but not much). |
| #14 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at 1/13/2003 4:26:00 PM |
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Not that I don't think a height attribute would be nice, but...
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/tables.html#h-11.2.1 I'm not too used to reading DTD's, but it seems to me that there is no such attribute defined by the HTML 4.01 standard. Now if you want width, that is defined. |
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