[libre-riscv-dev] [Bug 137] NLNet 2019 Video Acceleration Proposal 2019-10-031

[bugzilla-daemon at libre-soc.org]

https://bugs.libre-soc.org/show_bug.cgi?id=137

--- Comment #21 from Michael Pham <pham.michael.98 at gmail.com> ---
(In reply to cand from comment #20)
> I believe it's too late to add AAC, however due to how ffmpeg is structured,
> some of the work on the other codecs will speed up AAC too. Not as much as
> focusing on it, but more than plain sw.
> 

Ah ok, at least it will get some treatment.

> MPEG2, MP3, AC3 are all free, patents expired. Vorbis and Opus were
> explicitly designed for that.
> 
Ok, good to hear the other audio formats are safe!

> For the newer video codecs, it's possible any implementation would infringe
> patents. So does 90% of ffmpeg code. IANAL, but only the sw patents I
> believe, as the hw blocks we will have will not be specialized to any codec.
> Unlike a modern GPU that has "H.264 frame in, RGB out" blocks, we will have
> sub-operations such as "calculate transform XYZ for this data". Those are
> not patentable in general, some specific algorithm in hw may be.
> 
> So my conclusion is that the hw is safe, but if a commercial entity wishes
> to ship our software in the US, they will need to disable the newer video
> codecs or to license patents. I.e. the exact same situation as ffmpeg code,
> if they want to ship that in a product with new stuff enabled.

I'm not a lawyer either, though your conclusion sounds reasonable to me. :)

Patents are a minefield to navigate (sigh)

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