On Tue, 2011-06-28 at 09:30 +0200, David Jaša wrote: > Dne 28.6.2011 00:39, John A. Sullivan III napsal(a): > > On Tue, 2011-06-28 at 00:14 +0200, David Jaša wrote: > >> Dne 27.6.2011 20:45, John A. Sullivan III napsal(a): > >>> On Mon, 2011-06-27 at 08:32 +0300, Yaniv Kaul wrote: > >>>> Licensing and patent concerns of x264 aside (see > >>>> http://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/x264-devel/2010-July/007508.html), > >>>> the more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me to have H.264 > >>>> offload feature in QXL: > >>> > >>> This sounds great (gaming on SPICE!) but that's a pretty big aside. How > >>> would we handle the patent issues? - John > >>> > >> > >> Gaming needs 3D acceleration, video needs video acceleration. That's two > >> distinct features despite being implemented by the same transistors. :) > >> > >> Patent issues can be solved pretty easily in an ugly way - make it > >> possible to pass any video stream to client if the client claims it > >> supports the container + codec, but do not include any patented stuff in > >> client by default. Users could observe the U.S. patent law and buy > >> codecs from e.g. Fluendo, who will pay the royalties for them, or if > >> they don't mind crossing it, they can add support of patented codecs > >> themselves. > >> > > <snip> > > <grin> I was making a reference to the X264 dev in they hyperlink who > > exclaimed, "ideoconferencing? Pah! I’m playing Call of Duty 4 over a > > live video stream!". Interesting idea though! > > > > However, more seriously, that is ugly. Is it really something we would > > expect our users to do? Would it completely torpedo most commercial > > installation in the contract legal review stage? > > > > It's exactly what Fedora does: > > =========================== > > Patent licenses usually require the licensee to pay royalties based on the > number of users. Since Fedora is free and open source software, the effective > number of users is essentially unrestricted. Patent holders are generally > unwilling to give a blanket patent license for unlimited use; moreover, the > royalty payments would be too high for it to be practical for the Fedora > Project, or its sponsors, to pay them. Proprietary operating systems like > Microsoft Windows include the costs of third-party patent licenses paid by > Microsoft in the pricing of the product as sold to end users. Fedora is not > sold commercially, so there is no way to recoup these substantial expenses. > > ... > > Note that Fluendo offers a MP3 plugin for the Gstreamer multimedia framework > (used by Totem, Rhythmbox and other multimedia applications) for free and > other codecs and DVD player for a price that includes patent licenses. Fedora > does not include or endorse these options but you can choose to use them with > Fedora if you want to. > > ========================== > > (from > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Software_Patents#Can.27t_you_pay_the_patent_license_fees_for_patent_encumbered_codecs.3F > ) > > > From reading the referenced hyperlink about x264 > > (http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/249) it sounds like an excellent > > solution but only if we can practically surmount the patent issues. > > Thoughts? <snip> Thanks for the reference, Having read it, I wonder if we should follow its advice and focus on VP8 or Theora. What does RedHat do to deal with the issue in large commercial accounts as opposed to Fedora? I suppose the big question is if VP8 or Theora has implemented a similar on-the-fly encoding scheme as outlined in the referenced x264dev page.
If no one knows off hand, I wonder if that would be a good place for Andrea's project to start - evaluating if those codecs have similar implementations to see if they could be used in SPICE as an MJPEG alternative - John _______________________________________________ Spice-devel mailing list Spice-devel@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/spice-devel
