When will TAK go open source?
Reply #30 – 2009-12-13 16:47:58
Tom, there seem to be a great many positive and pragmatic contributions in this thread: 1. OPEN SOURCE DECODER ONLY Does open-sourcing a decoder ultimately give away the encoder too? I presume it does. Nope. RAR is an example. It has open source decoder with licence clearly stating that it can't be used to reverse the encoder.You still can open the decoder only for now (maybe without a no-reconstruction-of-the-compressor-restriction known from UNRAR ), you can publish more detailed specs, and you also can contact Xiph if they would adopt it as they did with FLAC .... Does this apply to the decoder too? Having TAK in ffmpeg eventually would be very handy, and would allow for portable/embedded support. 2. MULTI-PLATFORM BINARIES If the Windows binaries (encoder, decoder, plugins) were available natively on all 3 platforms, it's a no brainer, I would switch. Would I care if it was open source? Not really. 3. ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES You can have an open "standard" without going open source on your implementation. You can have a patent, and still open the source. You can do something with the encoder, and something else with the decoder. Rather than worrying about someone taking over your project, you can take over someone else's (e.g. branch FLAC). There are lots of options open to you. ---------------- Tom, I have 2 questions regarding TAK: 1) Is there a problem with (or good reason for not) open sourcing (only) the decoder? 2) Hypothetically if the TAK decoder was open source, and a hardware (e.g. DVD Player) manufacturer was deciding to impliment FLAC and/or TAK compatibility, are there any additional obstacles that would make TAK less attractive to them than FLAC, specifically in regard to the licence and the code? C.