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

[John Stile]

On Thu, 2008-09-11 at 23:18 +0200, Xavier Bachelot wrote:
> 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 :-)
> 
Has there been any movement on this?
For 1 year has openchrome support for XVMC on CX700 been frozen over the
MPEG-2 PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSE?
This seems like a crime.  
How many years before the license run out?