4 Jun
2010
4 Jun
'10
10:07 p.m.
http://webmproject.blogspot.com/2010/06/changes-to-webm-open-source-license…
................
Changes to the WebM Open Source License
Friday, June 4, 2010 | 9:20 AM
You'll see on the WebM license page and in our source code
repositories that we've made a small change to our open source
license. There were a couple of issues that popped up after we
released WebM at Google I/O a couple weeks ago, specifically around
how the patent clause was written.
As it was originally written, if a patent action was brought against
Google, the patent license terminated. This provision itself is not
unusual in an OSS license, and similar provisions exist in the 2nd
Apache License and in version 3 of the GPL. The twist was that ours
terminated "any" rights and not just rights to the patents, which made
our license GPLv3 and GPLv2 incompatible. Also, in doing this, we
effectively created a potentially new open source copyright license,
something we are loath to do.
Using patent language borrowed from both the Apache and GPLv3 patent
clauses, in this new iteration of the the patent clause we've
decoupled patents from copyright, thus preserving the pure BSD nature
of the copyright license. This means we are no longer creating a new
open source copyright license, and the patent grant can exist on its
own. Additionally, we have updated the patent grant language to make
it clearer that the grant includes the right to modify the code and
give it to others. (We've updated the licensing FAQ to reflect these
changes as well.)
We've also added a definition for the "this implementation" language,
to make that more clear.
Thanks for your patience as we worked through this, and we hope you
like, enjoy (and most importantly) use WebM and join with us in
creating more freedom online. We had a lot of help on these changes,
so thanks to our friends in open source and free software who traded
many emails, often at odd hours, with us.
Chris DiBona is the Open Source Programs Manager at Google.
..................
Niels
http://nielsmayer.com
10 Jun
10 Jun
1:31 a.m.
Going along with all this good-news-for-linux and open-source:
http://www.youtube.com/html5
..................
YouTube HTML5 Video Player
This is an opt-in experiment for HTML5 support on YouTube. If you are
using a supported browser, you can choose to use the HTML5 player
instead of the Flash player for most videos. Your comments will help
us improve and perfect the mixtures we're working on. So jump in, play
around, and send your feedback directly to the brains behind the
scenes.
Supported Browsers
We support browsers that support both the video tag in HTML5 and
either the h.264 video codec or the WebM format (with VP8 codec).
These include:
Firefox (WebM enabled version available here)
Google Chrome (h.264 supported now, WebM enabled version available here)
Opera (WebM enabled version available here)
Apple Safari (h.264, version 4+)
Microsoft Internet Explorer with Google Chrome Frame installed (Get
Google Chrome Frame)
Notes
Fullscreen support is partially implemented. Pressing the fullscreen
button will expand the player to fill your browser. If your browser
supports a fullscreen option, you can then use that to truly fill the
screen
The HTML5 player has a badge in the control bar. If you don't see the
"HTML5" icon in the control bar, you've been directed to the Flash
player (due to restrictions listed below)
The HTML5 player also has a badge to indicate the video is using the
WebM format. If you don't see the "WebM" icon, the video is encoded
using h.264
If you want to find videos with WebM formats available, you can use
the Advanced Search options to look for them (or just add &webm=1 to
any search URL)
Additional Restrictions (we are working on these!)
Videos with ads are not supported (they will play in the Flash player)
On Firefox and Opera, only videos with WebM transcodes will play in HTML5
If you've opted in to other testtube experiments, you may not get the
HTML5 player (Feather is supported, though)
...................
Likewise, some of the leading Flash Players are now supporting HTML5
media on platforms that don't have Flash:
http://www.longtailvideo.com/players/jw-flv-player/
Niels
http://nielsmayer.com
13 Jun
13 Jun
12:33 a.m.
In light of all these announcements, it's strange that Adobe decided
to drop support for the linux 64 bit flash player (
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/64bit.html ).
Checking http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ and
http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/ , now I find that i386 10.1.53.64
is the only Linux release .
It looks like alternative architectures and platforms are going to be
Flash's Achilles heel: especially w/ the diversity of platforms that
mobile solutions will bring. I hope the open source community exploits
this weakness and will rally to help kick Flash and Adobe to the curb.
Multiplatform support is exactly what the open-source community does
well (e.g. http://www.linaro.org/ ).
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Flash gives some more information on
the "hope" of WebM and the timeframe when said curb-kicking might
start:
YouTube and WebM support
Google has recently open sourced VP8 video format and combined it
with Ogg Vorbis audio and a adaptation of the Matroska container
to create a new format for free and open video and audio called
WebM. YouTube is switching over to using WebM extensively and
Fedora has embraced this format as well. Fedora 13 and Fedora 12
has updates to Gstreamer multimedia framework to enable users to
play many YouTube videos directly without any use of Flash via
browsers such as Epiphany and Midori which use Gstreamer. Fedora
12 users also need the webkitgtk update. Once you have the updates
installed, to enable support for it in YouTube, go to
http://youtube.com/html5 and click on "Join the HTML5 Beta" link
in the bottom of that page. Note that all videos are not available
in WebM format yet but this is expected to happen over time. Here
( http://www.permadi.com/blog/2010/05/sample-webm-video-2/ )
is a sample video for testing. Fedora 14 will have more extensive
support for WebM by default.
Actually, it appears this will be supported well before Fedora14. Recent updates
indicate gstreamer-plugins now support VP8: libvpx-0.9.0-5.fc12.x86_64
( https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=593879 "Review Request:
libvpx - VP8 Video Codec SDK").
http://blogs.gnome.org/otte/2010/05/31/youtube-out-of-the-box/
With today’s GStreamer update, you are able to watch
WebM
videos. That means you can enjoy Youtube with a stock Fedora
13. You need the following ingredients:
The updates-testing repository enabled until the update hits the
stable repository. A browser that uses GStreamer, such as
Epiphany or Midori. Opting in to the Youtube HTML5 beta. A
Youtube video that is already provided in WebM, such as this one (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W0zjXh6gXE ) This update will also
arrive in Fedora 12.
........
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Flash#Installing_Gnash also points to
Gnash, which is unfortunately, hobbled by
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ForbiddenItems :
Free alternatives to Adobe Flash
There is a free and open source alternative called Gnash available
in Fedora's package repositories. Gnash can play flash videos but
the audio portion of Flash is often under the MP3 format which is
patent encumbered. Since Gnash uses Gstreamer, you can get
additional codecs from other third party repositories but Fedora
unfortunately cannot include them. Scroll below for more details
on installing Gnash. ...
...........
Niels
http://nielsmayer.com
PS: Is there a "codec dynamic loader" for http://lame.sourceforge.net
, such that applications can be compiled once, and then, at load time,
dynamically load and support MP3 if the lame-libraries are present?
Seems like such a "meta-lame" package would solve all sorts of
problems, such as having to provide both "free" and never-up-to-date
"nonfree" versions of most audio editing software,
e.g.:audacity.x86_64 1.3.11-0.1.beta.fc12 @updates vs.
audacity-freeworld.x86_64 1.3.7-0.6.1.beta.fc11 rpmfusion-free.
3:11 a.m.
Excerpts from Niels Mayer's message of 2010-06-13 00:33:53 +0200:
PS: Is there a "codec dynamic loader" for
http://lame.sourceforge.net
, such that applications can be compiled once, and then, at load time,
dynamically load and support MP3 if the lame-libraries are present?
Seems like such a "meta-lame" package would solve all sorts of
problems, such as having to provide both "free" and never-up-to-date
"nonfree" versions of most audio editing software,
e.g.:audacity.x86_64 1.3.11-0.1.beta.fc12 @updates vs.
audacity-freeworld.x86_64 1.3.7-0.6.1.beta.fc11 rpmfusion-free.
I'm reasonably sure it's somehow possible. I know that it works for the
audio player moc, at least with wavpack. If it's compiled with wavpack
support and it's not installed nothing bad happens. Wavpack files don't
show up and those in a playlist don't play, that's all. No idea how it's
implemented, but I'd like to see that kind of behavior in more apps.
--
Regards,
Philipp
--
"Wir stehen selbst enttäuscht und sehn betroffen / Den Vorhang zu und alle Fragen
offen." Bertolt Brecht, Der gute Mensch von Sezuan
8:38 a.m.
Why should Adobe care for supporting Linux when so many people try not to
use
proprietary technology anyway?
Also, I've seen big companies make such mistakes simply because their
management doesn't happen to see the situation as it is.
3:31 p.m.
On Sun, Jun 13, 2010 at 2:38 AM, Louigi Verona <louigi.verona(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Why should Adobe care for supporting Linux when so
many people try not to
use
proprietary technology anyway?
maybe you should ask adobe engineers what platforms they use for
development ...
anyway, companies like adobe are not as interested in the
philosophical ideals of the free software movement, but are quite
taken with the way that a platform like linux gets used in large
numbers for things like animation rendering and even some actual
on-desk animation workstations. if you want people to take your
software seriously (e.g. flash) then you'd better take their choices
seriously too. its not a huge pile of money, but it is a rather
influential set of users.
5353
days inactive
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linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org
6 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
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Louigi Verona -
Niels Mayer -
Paul Davis -
Philipp Überbacher