openSUSE Making It Easier To Install H.264 Codec Support

[brad0]

This is an exceedingly bad joke.

[theuserbl]

This is an exceedingly bad joke.

Yes. And I don't know, why the codec isn't preinstalled.

At https://www.openh264.org/ stands

We will not pass on our MPEG-LA licensing costs for this module, and based on the current licensing environment, this will effectively make H.264 free for use on supported platforms.

So the costs for patents and licenses pays Cisco.
There is no reason to not integrating it in openSUSE.

[microchip8]

Most of distros already provide Openh264... so nothing new or big. Anyway openh264 still can't replace x264 in any project I know of. It seems to be used in Firefox but nothing else uses it.

OpenH264 is mostly used for decoding. x264 is an encoder. While OpenH264 can encode, no one uses that functionality.

[jeisom]

I have yet to hear of a case of mpeg-la specifically going after an oss project over this. I understand the concern though. AV1 is an attempt to have an industry standard that does not have the same concern, but that isn't widely used yet. Can't wait for it to be though. Doesn't get past the math shouldn't be patentable in the first place problem. And software is just complicated math.

[Quackdoc]

This is openSUSE's only major drawback before it can be user-friendly.
How does Arch Linux distribute full FFmpeg binaries without patent concerns?

because arch isn't corporate, nor to my knowledge has any ties to corporate, SUSE does

[tildearrow]

because arch isn't corporate, nor to my knowledge has any ties to corporate, SUSE does

Then how do Canonical ship these? Do they pay H.264/HEVC royalties?

[xorbe]

Too much time talking about backend infrastructure, and didn't tell me where to click to make it all happen. I assume the Packman repo already has me covered here.

[Quackdoc]

Then how do Canonical ship these? Do they pay H.264/HEVC royalties?

I dont know what canonical does, they might pay them, I doubt it, they might not ship them, they might decided that the benefits outweigh the risk, hard for me to say since I dont even know what canonical does.

[qarium]

wait a minute the patent of h264 expires in 2023 so why cisco continue pay patent fees ?

for example the patent (6,959,046 expired on 2022-12-08)

"H.264 is a newer video codec. The standard first came out in 2003, but continues to evolve. An automatically generated patent expiration list is available at H.264 Patent List based on the MPEG-LA patent list. The last expiration is US 7826532 on 29 nov 2027 ( note that 7835443 is divisional, but the automated program missed that). US 7826532 was first filed in 05 sep 2003 and has an impressive 1546 day extension. It will be a while before H.264 is patent free."

https://www.osnews.com/story/24954/us-patent-expiration-for-mp3-mpeg-2-h264/

the first version of h264 is patent free in 2023 and we already have 2023 the last version will be patent free in 2027...

don't know what version the base profile of the webbrowser used 264 is using.

in my point of view no one should pay MPEG LA any cent they are a evil entity:

https://wiki.endsoftwarepatents.org/wiki/MPEG_LA

[King InuYasha]

Yes. And I don't know, why the codec isn't preinstalled.

At https://www.openh264.org/ stands


So the costs for patents and licenses pays Cisco.
There is no reason to not integrating it in openSUSE.

The codec isn't preinstalled because the fees are only paid for Cisco distributing to users. If openSUSE (or Fedora, who has a similar arrangement) distributes it, then it's void and the fees need to be paid for each user all over again (which means we need a way to count people using it, which nobody has). That's why the repo and why it's not preinstalled.