Re: XMMS and the new MP3 patent terms
I am following this thread with interest, because this whole issue of
pattenting the wheel and then charging everyone who uses it is really quite
perverse.
I am a complete outsider as far as this kind of programming is concerned, but
I would like to get something a bit more clearer in my head. My parents have
been involved with patents at one stage or another in their lifes. And from
what I've seen they really had to work hard to prove that whatever they were
pattenting was original and not done before (this was/is happening in
Romania).
How then, can someone patent code which has been around and used for quite a
while I just don't get it.
On Thursday 29 August 2002 9:26 am, Paul Johnson wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 28, 2002 at 09:55:29AM -0400, Derrick 'dman' Hudson wrote:
> > The point was that even then, you would need to travel to China to
> > _use_ it legally. The (former) non-US stuff was totally legal to
> > _use_ in any country. It doesn't matter where the server is for the
> > MP3 codec, you can't _use_ it in your country without forking over the
> > cash.
>
> Oh, I see. It's worse than I imagined.
>
> > The real question is what is the best way to convert an mp3 to ogg?
> > If the masses ditch mp3 for ogg, then Fraunhofer won't get anything
> > out of this mess and the masses won't be encumbered by them.
>
> Furthermore, as losslessly as possible. Yes, yes, I realise going
> from one encoding to the other there's some unavoidable lossage, but
> realistically, how easily can this be done without noticably losing
> quality?
>
> > PS. Paul, thanks for quoting the useful part of /. in your original
> > posting. I found it really convenient to just stay in my mail
> > reader rather than browsing to /. to read it.
>
> No problem, I usually try to quote relavent portions of web pages when
> posting about them.
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