Things I'd like to hear discussed with Rob Savoye...

[greggh]

I don't know how much he knows about Theora, but I would like to hear his views on how important he thinks it is to develop Theora further to the point where it will do everything Adobe's proprietary Flash does, and do it as well or better. I think it's great that we have Gnash as a free Flash player, but I think we should be most concerned with getting a completely free streaming video codec so we don't have to be slaves to Adobe. And since video is becoming so much more pervasive and important on the web it's becoming more and more important every day. Like I said, I don't know how familiar he is with the ins and outs of Theora, but maybe you can ask him if he thinks there any possible until now unknown patent problems with Theora, and what he thinks about Nokia recently lobbying against Theora as a W3C standard. Looking forward to tomorrow's show.

Edit: I'm embarrassed that I left out Xvid as another free and open alternative to Flash. I had it in my mind that Xvid was not free and open, or at least less free than Theora.

[allix]

From a technical point theora is not ready, the article below written by a theora developer points it out very clearly
http://web.mit.edu/xiphmont/Public/theora/demo.html

[greggh]

Absolutely agree that Theora isn't ready. But it's the best thing out there so far for the community to build on and develop. It's important to clear up definitively though, once and for all, if there is any possibility of patent encumbrances with Theora, or whether that speculation is just FUD. Once we can all be sure that Theora is completely free and open, then the community can bring it to where it needs to be to replace Flash, hopefully in the not to distant future. Thanks for posting that link, reading it now, very informative, definitely shows that Theora has lots of room for improvement, but there's no reason it can't get there in reasonable time.

[dann]

But here-in lies the problem - is Xvid, which is based on the mpeg-4 standards, encumbered technology? You need to secure a license for mpeg-4 technology. Therefore, would it not be a violation of their license to distribute any technology that makes use of xvid?

Unless someone can prove to me otherwise, it is a misconception that Xvid and h.264 are open and free. The standard for mpeg4 may be published but it is by no means open nor is it free (both as in cost and speech).

[Tsuroerusu]

But here-in lies the problem - is Xvid, which is based on the mpeg-4 standards, encumbered technology? You need to secure a license for mpeg-4 technology. Therefore, would it not be a violation of their license to distribute any technology that makes use of xvid?

Unless someone can prove to me otherwise, it is a misconception that Xvid and h.264 are open and free. The standard for mpeg4 may be published but it is by no means open nor is it free (both as in cost and speech).

This is very true, XviD is basically a free software version of DivX (It was originally based on OpenDivx) which then is an MPEG-4 hack. The XviD source code is free software, but it cannot be used freely in the US, Japan or any country that has software patents.

[mowestusa]

I checked out his website, and I saw very little information about Gnash and no information about Theora.

Other topics that you could touch on which he has a lot on his website about, is alternative energy and how he relates that to power consumption of computers, energy waste, being more environmentally friendly as computer users and producing computer waste. He is all about low impact on the environment, using renewable energy. I found his computer set up interesting because he seemed to have three towers, three CRTs, and I didn't see any little 5 watt boxes in his pictures. Also sounds like he has kept old computers going well beyond what most people do.

Anyway, he looks like an interesting person from his website, so I hope some of his unique interests come out in the interview tonight. I know they will, because no one does a better job interviewing than TLLTS!

Have fun tonight, guys, I'll catch the podcast tomorrow.

[greggh]

It's nice to have a picture of the guy in your head when you're listening...



I'm pretty sure that's him... or maybe it's Dennis Hopper from Easy Rider

[snarkout]

Looks like Ritchie "The Baumer" Tenenbaum to me.

[mowestusa]

Did I miss something?

Was it discussed on IRC, just not mentioned what happened with the interview with Rob Savoye?

I think the interview would have been great, but it ended up being a great show once again, without the interview. Great job, guys!!! It is amazing that you can still put together a great show when the guest isn't able to make it.

I really enjoyed the number of computers discussion at the end. On my network I have 8 computers that are in use from time to time, and two WRT-54G's with DD-WRT on them which are on all of the time, and one laptop not is use regularly any more (166mhz with 32megs of RAM), and three desktops not doing much of anything right now (133mhz with 48megs of RAM, 166mhz with 128megs of RAM, and a 667mhz with 384megs of RAM). I probably have the parts to build two more desktops if I had the cases and power supplies to do it. Fun stuff, being a Linux geek.

[dann]

It was a very short interview. You probably missed it. Go back to 33:04 and listen until 33:05 and there you go. You have to be quick.

Unfortuneately our guest was unable to make it. I hope we can reschedule in the future.

[Patrick]

Did I miss something?
Was it discussed on IRC, just not mentioned what happened with the interview with Rob Savoye?

Guests occasionally bail. I'd like to reschedule if possible. I haven't heard back from him yet. Hopefully he's o.k..