[Gllug] Re: EU council streaming petition

[Richard Jones]

On Mon, Jan 01, 2007 at 10:34:07PM +0000, Jason Clifford wrote:
> On Mon, 1 Jan 2007, Martin A. Brooks wrote:
> 
> > It's in a format I can view with an open source, GPLd piece of 
> > software.  I can convert it to a format deemed more convenient if I 
> > like.  It's a non-issue, it slashdot-like whining about perceived 
> > rebukes to openness.  Get over it.
> 
> You don't usually loose freedoms all in one go. They are eroded by degree 
> which is why it is important to defend on seemingly unimportant matters as 
> well as obviously important ones.
> 
> Which GPL software includes legal codecs able to read WMV and other 
> proprietary encoded data?

Well, ffmpeg can now apparently decode WMV9.  They reverse engineered
it.  Microsoft have [software-] patented around this codec.

However that doesn't detract from the point that the EU should have
used a truly open format.  What happens if Microsoft automatically
update the EU's servers and we are faced with "WMV10".

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, CTO Merjis Ltd.
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