On Thu, Nov 28, 2013 at 10:04 AM, Dave Cridland <dave(_at_)cridland(_dot_)net>
wrote:
On Thu, Nov 28, 2013 at 2:40 PM, Dave Crocker <dhc(_at_)dcrocker(_dot_)net>
wrote:
BTW, as distasteful as it might be, is there a reason that making /both/
MTI would not work?
Speaking as a third party to this, so I may have misinterpreted, then yes.
My (possibly simplistic and/or plain wrong) summary follows:
The problem appears to be largely driven by actual IPR issues surrounding
H.264, though it has strong hardware support particularly within the
incumbent VOIP market players.
My impression is that VP8 is largely (though not entirely) thought to be
free from IPR headaches, but lacks the hardware support that is baked into
the market. [I have seen exchanges suggesting that other people suspect VP8
of having IPR issues, but nobody I've seen in the posts I've reviewed has
claimed that position for themselves, so it's not clear to me how IPR-free
it's really perceived]
The issues for vendors are litigation risk and cost.
If you are a commercial vendor with an existing H.264 license there is no
cost and no litigation risk for using that codec but the licenses you have
acquired are almost certainly specific to H.264. So using any other CODEC
is likely to create a substantial liability risk.
If you are an open source provider without a H.264 license the situation is
very different.
This is not going to be settled by a vote. I am not speaking for any of the
parties but if I did have a dog in this fight I would have my corporate
counsel write a letter to the WG stating that we are not going to be bound
on the WG decision in this case.
We are talking about a decision that could result in a hundred million
dollar lawsuit. The issue is not who is going to write code but who is
likely to get hit with a suit.
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