Re: [Proposal] Better multimedia formats.
Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2020 5:02 am
software patents are bad, period.
It is possible and has been done. The public domain status of some works has been reversed. I remember there was a company (probably Caldera, but could have been Oracle or Microsoft) who changed their mind about their promise not to sue with regards to certain code, and began to do so.desttiny wrote: ↑Fri Feb 21, 2020 7:15 amYou cant just give something for free then turn around and claim it is not free anymore, it doesn't work like that. I mean, imagine just the backlash google would get for trying to meddle with the license like this in a malicious way, it is just not worth it even if it was possible which i do not think it is.
I think it's fallacious to expect some major licensing flip in future just because there are patents filed or some obscure legal language. Big companies file patents on everything just because they can. Remember that samsung/apple scrollbar bounce lawsuit, suing people because of the way it bounces. They do it because there is potentially big money involved suing other companies, it does not need to mean that webp is some masterplan by google to take over the world. Its ridiculous.raidho36 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2020 2:31 am I think it's fallacious to think that, if a group of best available lawyers wrote a license in a way that it can be revoked, they didn't do this for the express purpose of having the ability to revoke the license. If the intention was to create a free format, there wouldn't be patents filed, which would prevent them from getting filed in the future due to prior art clause. WEBP is not getting adopted because popular editors don't adopt it, and they don't adopt it because they have sensible lawyers.
Again you are downplaying the significance of lossy format with alpha channel. How is it a duplicate feature? Do you have any alternative for jpg with alpha channel? If yes, then please tell me because I really want to know. There is none because if there was you would suggested it already instead of just putting out excuse after excuse. No, I don't want to mask jpg's with another file, I don't want flawed workarounds or workarounds that increase workload for something that can be solved in much more elegant way.raidho36 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 21, 2020 7:32 am Adding virtually anything whatsoever can be argued to be beneficial. It doesn't mean that you should go ahead and add virtually everything. Every single thing you add increases program complexity and makes it more difficult to maintain - you should argue FOR inclusion of any specific feature, as strong arguments against it exist by default. The devs think it's a good idea, in my opinion it isn't because it's a duplicate feature. If I argue my singular point too much it's because of that effect where you think that if you explain yourself more thoroughly then people will agree, which is rarely the case.