[Openchrome-users] A bounty for XVMC on the CX700?

[Xavier Bachelot]

Harald Welte wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 12:54:05AM +0200, Xavier Bachelot wrote:
>>> Yeah, I am still patiently awaiting this. Discussions w/ VIA have
>>> gotten me nowhere, as VIA's employees want me to acquire an MPEG LLA
>>> license *before* I can get the code from them, at least last time
>>> that I tried.
> 
> Which is exactly in conformance with the MPEG-LA patent license agreement as
> available from http://www.mpegla.com/m2/m2-agreement.cfm
> 
> VIA produces an 'intermediate product' and is not responsible for paying the
> royalties.  It is the entity that 'makes a consumer product' which is 'sold to
> an end user'.
> 
> So if you are the final system integrator who turns VIA's chip plus some
> software into something that actually performs operations that are covered by
> the patents held by the MPEG-LA, you need to sign the license agreement with
> MPEG-LA and pay the royalties as per schedule.  In this case VIA can be sure
> that you pay the licenses and everything is fine.
> 
>>> Perhaps we'll see a shift away from this policy (a la Intel) with the
>>>  new open-source releasing that is happening now.
> 
> Well, maybe Intel thinks it has sufficient patents itself so that the MPEG-LA
> would not sue them, or if they did, Intel has the leverage to countersue.
> 
> But as long as you accept that patents are a business reality, and assume that
> at least most or many of the MPEG-LA covered patents are real and enforcible,
> then anyone, including VIA will have to bow to the license agreement for those
> patents.
> 
> What I personally believe is the best way to solve the problem is to disclose
> documentation on the codec acceleration hardware.  This documentation is
> clearly not a consumer product and not sold to an end user.
> 
> Then the FOSS community or anyone else can write their hardware accelerated
> decoder, and decide by themselves if they want to expose themselves to the
> legal risk of violating those patents.
> 
>> I would not expect the new VIA driver to get any mpeg acceleration
>> capacities in the near future. And they will probably not release any
>> documentation on the Unichrome Pro II mpeg engine anytime soon, both
>> because of the MPEG LA license. It is still unclear to me (and VIA) who
>> should be paying this license fee. 
> 
> I think it is pretty clear who should be paying it.  But it just doesn't work
> with software that is freely distributable/copyable, and for which nobody knows
> how many copies are floating around and running on some systems.
> 
>> I do believe the silicon maker should pay, but VIA rather want to have the
>> driver provider pay as it "enables" the feature. 
> 
> It is not so much about what any of us believes, but about what the MPEG-LA
> licensing conditions say.  I would also prefer if all silicon makers would be
> responsible for it.  But the industry standard practise (not only for mpeg
> related patents) is different.   If you buy a GSM chipset and license its
> firmware from TI (like Openmoko does), then you are still responsible of
> licensing all the GSM related patents by yourself from the respective holders.
> 
I did not express myself properly here, I obviously mixed the silicon
maker (VIA) with the end-user product (motherboard) maker (which could
well be VIA too when considering the EPIA boards).
Or do you say the end-user product is the software and not the hardware
? In this case, which software? The driver or the media player ? Or any
other layer of the full software stack running on the hardware ?
It is clear in the case of a standalone dvd player, but it becomes a bit
more complicated when the software is independent from the hardware and
even more complicated when there are different layers in the software
stack.

>> At any rate, I don't think releasing the hardware documentation would
>> infringe any license/patent, but VIA wants to stay on the safest possible
>> side.
> 
> I agree with you, and I'm trying my best to make this change inside VIA.
> 
Thanks, your efforts are appreciated :-)

Regards,
Xavier