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#1 | |
Uebermensch
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![]() ![]() Then the bad thing happened. In an insanely long discussion thread at Aximsite, member PocketTV Team first accused Picard of breaking the terms of the GPL license (mentioned earlier at MR). After a long and heated discussion, Picard decided to take the blame on himself and continue development of the plugin. Users were so happy and excited about his work that they decided to denote him Paypal money (including myself). Then someone (could have been me ![]() However, a free mpeg2 decoder library or plugin by itself is not an MPEG-2 decoding product until it is compiled, linked to an application and actually used by the end-user - in which case it is the end-user who is infringing the patent, not the programmer. Have a look at 3.4 of the VideoLAN FAQ: Quote:
And then I stumbled over today's interview at msmobiles, where PocketTV calls Betaplayer "an illegal hack" due to a) patent infridgement and b) stolen code. It saddens me deeply to see someone like PocketTV desperately vituperating someone elses work without showing definite proof. Is it just a coincidence that user PocketTV represents MpegTV LLC, who develops PocketTV, another video player for Pocket PC, which is not freeware and lacks some of the more advanced features of BetaPlayer? ![]() |
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#2 | |
Junior Member
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Quote:
- PocketTV Classic *is* Freeware, and it has many advanced features, including support for VGA, support for hardware acceleration (2700G, ATI), support for http streaming, frame capture, etc). - The developer of Betaplayer did recognize that he used source code that was developed and copyrighted by other developers (that was the point we raised), and he did the right thing: Betaplayer now correctly lists the authors of all the copyrighted code used in Betaplayer. That was the subject of your article, and Betaplayer did correct it. - All the legal issues related to Betaplayer using technology that is subject to patent royalties (MPEG-4, MP3, MPEG-2,...) are something that Betaplayer and the patent holders or the organisms representing them (such as Thomson and MPEGLA) should work out. CoreCodec.org, the website backing up and distributing Betaplayer, and DivxNetworks Inc, owner of the DivX technology, may be involved in these legal issues. Last edited by PocketTV Team; 02-13-2005 at 12:36 AM. |
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#3 | |||
Uebermensch
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#4 |
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> Until recently (which was last week and definitely after I had made this post), Pocket TV did NOT support Intel 2700 hardware acceleration.
PocketTV with Intel 2700 hardware acceleration was released about a week ago. > In addition, you are misquoting me. I did not talk about PocketTV Classic, but about PocketTV, which also implies the $49.95 Enterprise Edition. Your article involved Betaplayer (a freeware) and PocketTV, but it was hinting that PocketTV was not freeware: You wrote: <<PocketTV, another video player for Pocket PC, which is not freeware>> In fact he vast majority of people using PocketTV are using the freeware version of PocketTV, which provide an alternate choice for people playing MPEG files. Yes, there also an Enterprise Edition, which is for commercial use. > And what was your gripe with that? Were you one of the other developers who were affected by the missing copyright line? Are you suggesting that giving credits to others for their work is a minor detail ? > And again, please don't put words into my mouth. Subject of my article was not the missing copyright lines, but your accusation that Picard was not allowed to use the Intel 2700 plugin without a proper MPEG LA license. You are mixing several things: - Missing copyright statement (Picard fixed that, to his credit). - Closed-source Intel 2700 plugin (At one point, Picard released the Intel 2700G plugin as closed-source code, and this is not allowed by the GPL license of Betaplayer. Picard corrected this too, to his credit). This was the subject of the posting that you were refering to (by your "accused" link). - MPEG LA license (nothing to do with Intel 2700). > And what is your part of this? How does PocketTV relate to all of this? Why your constant accusations? We think it's important for the entire community i.e. the users, the open-source comminity and the software industry, that everyone "play by the rules" and respect licensing terms and copyrights. Betaplayer did the right thing and they get a lot of credit for that. The point of my previous posting was only to correct some mis-staments and inaccuracies in your article, not to start another flame war. Last edited by PocketTV Team; 02-15-2005 at 01:19 AM. |
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#5 |
Uebermensch
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Ok, since we both don't want any flame war, I am going to stop it here. Actually I am grateful for your reply; other developers would probably not even have cared to explain their point of view.
Tad |
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#6 |
Recovering Gadget Addict
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Thanks, TadW, for bringing this topic up, and to PocketTV Team for clarifying your position. Kudos for both of you for addressing these volatile issues in a constructive manner.
BetaPlayer is very popular, and an excellent piece of software, so this subject is close to a lot of people's hearts. But competition really helps all software improve, so we wish Pocket TV Team well, and hope to see both titles continue to prosper. |
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