Re: US-centricity of the Ogg problem

At 21:46  +0000 11/12/07, Kornel Lesinski wrote:
>As far as I know (IANAL) submarine patents are problem mainly in the 
>US. If rest of the world doesn't have so crippling patent law, it 
>would be unfair to let negative effects of US law affect standard 
>that is used internationally, to a great extent outside US 
>jurisdiction.
>
>I think it's entirely possible that in some countries/communities 
>Ogg will become viable alternative, even if Microsoft and Apple 
>ignore it -- for example in Poland Opera+Gecko already have nearly 
>40% of the market and are still gaining popularity (ranking.pl).
>
>SHOULD requirement in the spec is needed to raise awareness of the 
>codecs among authors who otherwise wouldn't even suspect that 
>browsers may be capable of playing Vorbis/Theora.
>OTOH SHOULD is not an absolute requirement, so it's not stopping 
>anyone from having spec-compliant implementation. If it doesn't, 
>then what is the benefit of removing it, other than letting few 
>corporations feel good about ignoring these codecs?

The revision to the draft merely made it clear that work is 
continuing, and that a MUST is desirable, neither of which were clear 
from the previous placeholder language.  That's all.
-- 
David Singer
Apple/QuickTime

Received on Wednesday, 12 December 2007 00:21:16 UTC