In working state. To be released soon.
Dang! :)
Multichannel also?
A second, independent implementation is always good to have. Many thanks in advance! I'll surely be following up on this development.
Cool :)
Well done. You are taking away the last thing that was keeping me up in my life dealing with severe chronic desease.
May sound pathetic but only until you are caught in a similar situation.
Til yesterday i was working on TAK 3.0. Can't do it anymore. I am done.
Too shocked to write a deliberate statement.
Whatever you are struggling with behind this (and sincerely, I hope it is not as serious as it appears) -
have a few big hugs, TBeck.
Whatever you are struggling with behind this (and sincerely, I hope it is not as serious as it appears) -
have a few big hugs, TBeck.
Amen to that.
They're taking away nothing. An alternative implementation actually brings a lot to the table. Competition breeds innovation, whether it's different codecs competing on various merits or within a codec to determine areas implementations can improve. The open source aspect only accelerates the speed at which improvements can propagate.
Good luck with your health.
They're taking away nothing. An alternative implementation actually brings a lot to the table. Competition breeds innovation, whether it's different codecs competing on various merits or within a codec to determine areas implementations can improve. The open source aspect only accelerates the speed at which improvements can propagate.
I don't have a noteworthy problem with a truely alternative implementation but with a reverse-engineered copy of my algorithms. I have good reasons to believe that such a copy exists since 2016. How likely is it, that this announcement is independent from it?
Well done. You are taking away the last thing that was keeping me up in my life dealing with severe chronic desease.
That is sad to hear. I wish you all the best.
May sound pathetic but only until you are caught in a similar situation.
I picked up working on FLAC to keep me occupied when my life took a turn. Of course I don't know whether that is any 'similar', but I think I understand what you mean.
How likely is it, that this announcement is independent from it?
It's open source, so it will be easy to check, no?
How likely is it, that this announcement is independent from it?
It's open source, so it will be easy to check, no?
Yeah. Another good point for open source: It might be easier to identify the source of reverse-engineering theft.
It's not, that i couldn't understand the interest in an open source encoder. But why not simply ask me for a cooperation on the work on it? Best option for good quality and would also show some respect for the creator. Is it so difficult to send a mail? But hey, no, that would mean less fame.
Obviously TAK was an active project with releaseses last year and also published plans for the next releases. In no way abandoned. But then: Open source leeches incoming.
What you will not get: TAK 3.0 with significantly stronger compression efficiency at maybe 20 percent slower encoding and 10 percent slower decoding.
@mycroft: Now show what you can do besides copying others work.
MOD edit: Fix mention
Its typical , foss zealots feel entitled to everything.
What context am I missing from these opinions which frankly are so alien to my way of thinking that they come across as obvious bait? I'm sure you actually hold these opinions but the logic behind them isn't present.
I actually had contacted author of TAK via email back in 2016 regarding bug in decoder that since I have fixed.
Guess what, up to today I never received any reply email, so I at that point completely lost interest in sending any more mails to author of TAK.
What context am I missing from these opinions
When used to dealing with open-source software, one can forget that open-source
is a choice and copyright laws grant a lot of protections that you waive when putting an open-source license on your work. In the EU, reverse engineering is only allowed to achieve compatibility, in the US even this is no longer certain.
I get that FOSS is a choice. I don't get to choose for others, neither does
@TBeck . He's speculating that he has somehow been wronged which is unknowable for now and I'm not a lawyer.
My post was directed at the general vitriol towards open source which must be fuelled by something.
Part of the problem is that people, myself included (https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,122639.msg1012231.html#msg1012231), have been asking
@TBeck about open-sourcing TAK to the point one could consider it harassment...
I'd hardly call people politely making their opinion known over the course of more than a decade (16+ years?) harassment.
What you will not get: TAK 3.0 with significantly stronger compression efficiency at maybe 20 percent slower encoding and 10 percent slower decoding.
Why not? It seems you've done all of the work towards the new release already, why not release it, along with a blog post explaining what you changed/how you managed to improve the compression with little increase in runtime? I'm sure that many people, myself included, are interested in what you, as the "father of TAK", do and have to say.
Alles Gute,
Chris
Thomas always told his point, about opening source. So why you do that?
What context am I missing from these opinions which frankly are so alien to my way of thinking that they come across as obvious bait? I'm sure you actually hold these opinions but the logic behind them isn't present.
A little more empathy would go a long way in understanding that it is right not to wrest away a person's sense of perceived control/ownership/possession regarding private property. I am no expert in the laws and principles of code, but am familiar with basic human decency and the necessity of cordial private communication, seeking the man's blessing/permission, making sure to give proper and visible credit than to rob it off him etc.
I have empathy and am using it. Note the lack of contest and simply asking for more detail on an opinion. Lacking empathy would involve counterpointing when it's clear they don't really want a discussion, or playing therapist, or being silent which can be interpreted as either tacit approval or lack of interest both of which are incorrect.
Dear HA community,
I was always vocal about TAK staying closed source and it gained me the resentment and stalking by at least one other member who kept trying to flag me falsely. I tried to appeal the false flagging to admins here but I felt like the issue was improperly dealt with. As a result my involvement with HA tanked that I was no longer nearly as active with the forum.
I already saw another project get bullied into open sourcing and when the author caved there was little to no outside contribution, but more complaints about the license.
@TBeck: I always believed in your project and was always of the opinion that you should do what is comfortable for you. Obviously there is no one else's contribution to TAK that gives them any right to make demands. And I am very sorry you are dealing with your health issue and I feel sad to know about the effect it has on you. Please take care and feel better.
With regards.
Well, of course the best strategy is to get the author to release its own original source code under a "proper" open license.
That's exactly has been recently done for Monkey's Audio...
Please keep in mind that:
Not everyone begging for source release is a FOSS zealot.
Availability of source code determines what software can support the codec (and I'm not even talking about GPL vs closed source issues here).
Many projects out there really can't interop with a Windows DLL decoder. Fortunately there's a TAK decoder in FFmpeg now, that's how I've been playing TAK on my Android TV.
Many projects out there really can't interop with a Windows EXE encoder. Those projects will not be able to support TAK even if the maintainer really wants to.
I want to apologize for my use of the word "leeches". Even in my aroused state it was not my intention to call anyone a worm like beeing. The word appealed to me because i felt as if someone was sucking my blood.
Actually i did not want to reply anymore before i have a plan how i can proceed. But my inappropriate choice of words has distressed me. Again: Sorry.
Thanks for all the supportive posts and mails! Forgive me, if i can't reply yet.
I can hardly think clearly and need some distance. In due course, I will make a statement as to whether and, if so, how I can imagine continuing my work on Tak. (Partly DeepL was my friend).
Please keep in mind that:
Not everyone begging for source release is a FOSS zealot.
Availability of source code determines what software can support the codec (and I'm not even talking about GPL vs closed source issues here).
Many projects out there really can't interop with a Windows DLL decoder. Fortunately there's a TAK decoder in FFmpeg now, that's how I've been playing TAK on my Android TV.
Many projects out there really can't interop with a Windows EXE encoder. Those projects will not be able to support TAK even if the maintainer really wants to.
Just thought I'd toss in, going to a source-available model (not necessarily full-blown open source) helps ensure that, in some way shape or form, your software can outlive yourself.
It's not the only way to accomplish that by any means. You could bequeath your code to somebody in a will, or whatever. But getting the code online is a pretty easy way to go about it.
That's one pragmatic reason for it.
@Peter: Android TV is nothing I have heard of before. Why would TAK be a part of it? But it sounds cool (no pun intended).
@Peter: Android TV is nothing I have heard of before.
A lot of smart TV platforms are either Android or in another way based on the Linux kernel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_smart_TV_platforms
You shouldn't be surprised that <format X> users might want to play their files on whatever devices they use to play audio/video ...?
@Peter: Android TV is nothing I have heard of before. Why would TAK be a part of it? But it sounds cool (no pun intended).
It's just an example of real life TAK use (play lossless audio on living room TV). TAK isn't a part of the Android operating system, but any player software based on FFmpeg can play TAK on it, there's quite a few of them.
This would not be possible without public source code. I don't think there's even a sensible option of supporting such without source code release? Maintaining Android binary dynamic libraries for all CPU architectures sounds tedious.
Repeat above for: Linux, all Apple systems, etc.
A little more empathy would go a long way
Empathy is always in order, however...
... in understanding that it is right not to wrest away a person's sense of perceived control/ownership/possession regarding private property.
Nobody other than the owner is responsible for their feelings, their reaction to, a benign act.
I am no expert in the laws and principles of code, but am familiar with basic human decency and the necessity of cordial private communication, seeking the man's blessing/permission, making sure to give proper and visible credit than to rob it off him etc.
Unless you are alleging literal theft, then there is no room to call the work of writing benign software "indecent" or "[not] cordial". If anything the sour grapes reaction was the response lacking decency or civility.
Unless you are alleging literal theft, then there is no room to call the work of writing benign software "indecent" or "[not] cordial".
Do you reject the concept of intellectual property? If somebody releases software for free but doesn't share the source code, he has a right to do that, and if somebody else reverse engineers that software against the author's wishes, that's hardly a benign act, unless you assert that the author had no right to withhold the source code in the first place, which would require you to reject the author's right to control his own work.
I'm with TBeck here. If it's not zealotry it's plain piracy and theft. If you're so inclined with open source go develop your own open, competitive, innovative alternative to accelerate the speed at which improvements propagate ::)
Even though I don't use TAK (while it's damn good, I care about compatibility and FLAC is good enough) I hope that TBeck will keep releasing, even under strict licensing. Although it indeed would be good to somehow secure the algorithm in case if something bad happens, so the knowledge isn't lost.
And hey, there were numerous demands for fb2k to go foss, and it doesn't. And I'm glad.
Does the open-source encoder contain any stolen intellectual property? It's entirely possible to craft a TAK encoder without looking at any of TBeck's code (and without looking at any of libavcodec's code, if you're worried it may be based on stolen code).
I'm not familiar with the laws in every country, but at least in the United States, that type of reverse engineering is not considered theft of intellectual property. And, based on my not-a-lawyer understanding, that type of reverse engineering is not prohibited by the TAK license either.
I'm with TBeck here. If it's not zealotry it's plain piracy and theft. If you're so inclined with open source go develop your own open, competitive, innovative alternative to accelerate the speed at which improvements propagate ::)
Even though I don't use TAK (while it's damn good, I care about compatibility and FLAC is good enough) I hope that TBeck will keep releasing, even under strict licensing. Although it indeed would be good to somehow secure the algorithm in case if something bad happens, so the knowledge isn't lost.
And hey, there were numerous demands for fb2k to go foss, and it doesn't. And I'm glad.
If it's clean room design (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_wall#Reverse_engineering), it's neither theft, nor piracy.
It may be legal, but it's still [vulgar slang] to disrespect the author's wishes, so you can't really blame him for being upset about it.
I call authors of any codecs that support only Windows platform [vulgar slang].
.... and they are free to note your particular opinion and disregard it as irrelevant, should they so choose to.
The "it *must* be multi-platform or bust" attitude is, at its core, one of unearned entitlement. Sure, it'd be nice to have - but we don't always get what we want, for free in this case.
Most of people here are [vulgar slang] and nothing more. Time to move on and forget about this stinky place.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't LAME and other MP3 encoders in a similar situation as this for years and years? The license didn't allow an encoder using copyrighted algorithms to be released without paying a fee, but that didn't stop the LAME team.
I'm with TBeck here. If it's not zealotry it's plain piracy and theft.
TAK is based on an idea. Someone implementing an alternative way of accomplishing an idea is neither piracy nor theft. There is no evidence presented that this is anything other than a clean room implementation.
Do you reject the concept of intellectual property?
The concept of intellectual property does not protect ideas. If we're going to accuse someone of theft, then at least point towards some evidence. Nobody has the moral, much less legal, right to concepts. "Theft" would involve the duplication of protected code, not simply implementing a parallel path to the same destination.
I don't have a noteworthy problem with a truely alternative implementation but with a reverse-engineered copy of my algorithms. I have good reasons to believe that such a copy exists since 2016. How likely is it, that this announcement is independent from it?
If speculation that implementation B is not independent of implementation A, and that implementation A is speculated to be "reverse-engineered" from TAK is what passes as "evidence" then go ahead and fuel up my Embraer Legacy for me, as there's no hope for a reconciliation towards reasonable discourse.
We won't even get into the fact that "reverse-engineered" covers everything from a clean room implementation to the disassembly of binaries.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't LAME and other MP3 encoders in a similar situation as this for years and years?
MP3 encoders were dealing with patents, not copyrights. Before the MP3 patents all expired, it was difficult or impossible for MP3 encoders to avoid every MP3 patent.
We won't even get into the fact that "reverse-engineered" covers everything from a clean room implementation to the disassembly of binaries.
Right, that's why I specified reverse-engineering without looking at any code.
This thread isn't much fun ...
Honestly, after the 2.3.1 release where TBeck declared that "Practical goals are Linux binaries and open source releases" (quoting the README since then), I actually thought that an open source implementation would be welcome. I still thought that when I posted Reply #1 above. Obviously I didn't quite hit bullseye on that.
It wouldn't hurt to ask, I guess. And, come new situation, it wouldn't hurt to ask again.
Which kinda is more important than the legalese discussion, where - IANAL! - there seems to be no restrictions in the license on using the software to reverse-engineer the format. There are even a couple of buzzwords that, not unlikely, will be taken to specifically allow for it - even if the following is not quite the same:
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't LAME and other MP3 encoders in a similar situation as this for years and years? The license didn't allow an encoder using copyrighted algorithms to be released without paying a fee, but that didn't stop the LAME team.
Some differences, some similarities. One big difference is how MP3 had
patents, at least in countries where algorithms could at all be considered patentable inventions, rather than
discoveries of logico-mathematical formulae. LAME was then distributed as source, not as executable. Source code is speech - again IANAL, but the AL's certainly could not stop it - and could be distributed simply because under free speech you do not really have to justify why you "want to tell anyone who wants to listen that an MP3 encoder could work the following way".
Hence LAME was published as an educational project - how to make MP3 better and document it. And so, if after the LAME story you do license away your codec for free use for educational purposes, then well, what can you expect ...
Maybe something better than the reference - like in case of LAME - maybe something that compresses notably worse and apparently serves only the purpose of bringing the format to the users - like in case of ffmpeg's ALAC encoder, which isn't much good (https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,123511.0.html).
Though ... frankly, ALAC is not a good thing.
TAK is. Too good not to be supported.
Still it wouldn't hurt to ask, though.
Well, technically you can do a lot, is there any boundary of value ?
Well, some frames in some sort of shape, evaporating some chunks down some bits..wow.
Nevertheless there are still some different lossless codecs around with all having their history and reason being available, and with some outstanding individual features. This is probably also due to individual concepts and strategies, and some are not being made available, creators choice.
Without the real TAK there won't be any clone, basically, TAK is actively developed and as far as I remember Thomas decided to stay with closed source for the moment.
Might be an adult with reasons.
Question left open is to what set of rules you bind yourself to.
So...I suggest to let me use your faces..I got this idea, you accidentally laughed into my camera, and nooo, c'mon, not really, noo, I tell you, this worn peace of skin is of no value... *skrewing hammering flashes*
In the EU, reverse engineering is only allowed to achieve compatibility,
This is incorrect. In the EU (assuming you mean 2009/24/EC)
decompilation (without permission) is effectively the
only form of RE restricted with the compatibility clause. In general, RE is fully legal.
I'm not going to debate the legality of RE here anymore, as it's plainly legal in both the US and EU, short of some very specific situations for which no evidence has been presented. If anyone wants to take this off-line I'll happily share an email address or phone # to continue.
[editing away comment on something that was edited away]
At https://www.mwe.com/insights/new-german-law-protection-trade-secrets/ , a more recent change in German law (this piece of software is released in Germany) is discussed, and reverse engineering in particular in the second bullet item.
IANAL, as always.
This is incorrect. In the EU (assuming you mean 2009/24/EC)
I have little knowledge on this subject. I based my comment on this discussion: https://reverseengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/60/is-reverse-engineering-and-using-parts-of-a-closed-source-application-legal
If it's not zealotry it's plain piracy and theft.
If this refers to reverse-engineering, then that statement is just plain wrong. In major jurisdictions, reverse-engineering is allowed to achieve interoperability:
For the US, the Digitial Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) should apply:
REVERSE ENGINEERING .—(1) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained
the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title.
In the European Union, Directive 2009/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 on the legal protection of computer programs should apply:
Article 6
Decompilation
1. The authorisation of the rightholder shall not be required where reproduction of the code and translation of its form within the meaning of points (a) and (b) of Article 4(1) are indispensable to obtain the information necessary to achieve the interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, provided that the following conditions are met:
(a) those acts are performed by the licensee or by another person having a right to use a copy of a program, or on their behalf by a person authorised to do so;
(b) the information necessary to achieve interoperability has not previously been readily available to the persons referred to in point (a); and
(c) those acts are confined to the parts of the original program which are necessary in order to achieve interoperability.
The general spirit seems to be that as long as you aim at interoperability, obtained the software legally and there's no other source of information, it's usually fine to analyze closed software to be able to develop your own implementation (it's obviously
not okay to decompile, reconstruct the original source and then re-release that).
And, IMO, that's a very good thing for users. I very much think that users should have the right to observe what instructions 3rd-party software executes on their computers. It also has clear benefits to be allowed to reverse-engineer data formats - after all, while the format might be proprietary, the data (hopefully) belongs to the user.
In short:
- Of course Thomas can keep his source code closed. That's 100% his decision.
- For interoperability, copyright law usually allows analyzing how any given data format and/or programs works. The process of learning how things work might even involve decompilation steps if the information cannot be obtained otherwise.
- 3rd-party implementations of the TAK bitstream format are most likely perfectly fine, as long they are original implementations and not reconstructed from the original source.
As a side note, I'm surprised by some of the strong wording in this thread - talking about "OSS zealots", "theft" etc. without a hint of actual wrongdoing makes this thread an irritating read. Foul-mouthing open source in a forum hosted with open source forum software, depending on open technology such as IP, discussing a lot of open source audio software and most likely displayed in an open source browser rendering software doesn't make immediate sense to me.
I still think "Don't be evil" (I mean, literally so - not as in "be Google") deserves more consideration and legalese less, but anyway:
I have little knowledge on this subject. I based my comment on this discussion: https://reverseengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/60/is-reverse-engineering-and-using-parts-of-a-closed-source-application-legal
FWIW or not, the posting that referred to an EU directive, specifically mentioned one that - at the time of that discussion - was already repealed.
In the English version of the current directive (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32009L0024), Article 6 provides for
decompilation without author's authorization, for interoperability purposes.
I don't know whether or not this particular directive text will be applied directly (directives are in principle directed towards member states, "make a law in accordance with this!", but sometimes they turn out as much more). I do not know whether a relevant court will recognize any definition between decompilation and [other means of] reverse engineering. I do not know to what extent a relevant court will take absence of outright permission to imply "unauthorized", or absence of outright restriction to be permission - IA still NAL.
Anyway, I have linked to some considerations on German law from someone who apparently is.
And again ....
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=rsRXZ1afhLw
Argh.
definition between
"distinction" between.
It has been three weeks now, I think it would be OK to hear from OP what he has to say about all this.
Hence LAME was published as an educational project - how to make MP3 better and document it.
Would there be any licensing issues if this TAK encoder were released in a similar fashion?
Would there be any licensing issues if this TAK encoder were released in a similar fashion?
Maybe.
The licensing issues with MP3 were patents, not copyright. The MP3 encoders were not based on any copyrighted code, so the code itself was free to distribute, but a compiled binary would most likely infringe on one or more MP3 patents and therefore be illegal to distribute.
The potential issue with TAK is copyright, not patents. If the open-source TAK encoder is based on disassembling TBeck's TAK encoder, it may contain sequences of code copied from TBeck's encoder. There are nearly infinite possibilities for choosing how to compress audio into a valid TAK file, so an open-source TAK encoder that happens to use exactly the same algorithms as TBeck's TAK encoder would be a very unlikely coincidence.
For comparison, there's only one correct way to decode a TAK file. It's hard to argue copyright infringement has occurred when it's not possible for any other code to work.
The concept of intellectual property does not protect ideas.
If it doesn't protect ideas, then what does it protect?
Why not leave the man alone? It's his creation... just let him be.
If he achieved the best compression in a lossless codec, it's his merit.
I recognize it, but a few MBs less won't halt my life from using FLAC or WavPack or Monkey's Audio.
I don't use TAK, but I think we should respect what the creator feels about it.
We have so many other lossless codecs. Sorry, I had to say this here because I never imagined TBeck so upset in this forum.
It has been three weeks now, I think it would be OK to hear from OP what he has to say about all this.
I'm pretty sure I saw the OP reply, but I think a mod has removed that reply since.
The concept of intellectual property does not protect ideas.
If it doesn't protect ideas, then what does it protect?
A work of art. So, you are free to copy the idea, not the work of art. If you want to protect an idea, you need a patent.
I'm pretty sure I saw the OP reply, but I think a mod has removed that reply since.
I also think I saw something, but it was in fighting tone. Three weeks had passed, and we are presumably grownup people. I'd really like to know how this open source version was made.
But as the silence continues, I am thinking that mr. Beck is right, and that it was made from (somehow) stolen code.
I'm pretty sure I saw the OP reply, but I think a mod has removed that reply since.
They did - and a reply of mine to their post was removed (as it lacked context after the removal of their post).
People on unsupported platforms are free to express their desire for their platform to be supported - just as the developers are free to note peoples' particular opinions and disregard them as irrelevant, should they so choose to.
The "it *must* be multi-platform or bust" attitude is, at its core, one of unearned entitlement. Sure, it'd be nice to have - but we don't always get what we want, for free in this case.
Same applies to Open source.
I can live without tak, but if there's a FOSS implementation I can also live with it. Point to the entitlement.
I'm pretty sure I saw the OP reply, but I think a mod has removed that reply since.
I'm pretty sure I saw the OP reply, but I think a mod has removed that reply since.
I also think I saw something, but it was in fighting tone. Three weeks had passed, and we are presumably grownup people. I'd really like to know how this open source version was made.
But as the silence continues, I am thinking that mr. Beck is right, and that it was made from (somehow) stolen code.
I also think I saw something, but it was in fighting tone. Three weeks had passed, and we are presumably grownup people. I'd really like to know how this open source version was made.
But as the silence continues, I am thinking that mr. Beck is right, and that it was made from (somehow) stolen code.
I applaud you, you are extraordinary real conspiracy theorist.
I have all data with me of Mr. Beck TAK full history of changes with me and also full leaks of computer files.
What a dump.
Gonna use it for my Open Source TAK encoder.
I have all data with me of Mr. Beck TAK full history of changes with me and also full leaks of computer files.
What a dump.
Gonna use it for my Open Source TAK encoder.
Under what terms did you acquire the "data" and "leaks of computer files"?
do I understand correctly, that this encoder does not exist in reality?
do I understand correctly, that this encoder does not exist in reality?
The first post reads as follows:
In working state. To be released soon.
Says nothing about whether it just produces some kind of TAK file with whatever performance, or disassembles the official binaries.
It
might be an idea to hold back the release for a while ...
I actually had contacted author of TAK via email back in 2016 regarding bug in decoder that since I have fixed.
Guess what, up to today I never received any reply email, so I at that point completely lost interest in sending any more mails to author of TAK.
You contacted him by e-mail once and gave up after that? Sounds like you did to me. TBeck has frequently been visiting this forum for years. If you really wanted to get in touch with him I'm quite sure he would have replied to your request(s) here. Why not try to communicate a bit better and try to cooperate with him? This is so unnecessary. The way you presented this is disrespectful to his work to say the least. You popped out from the sky with no warning. I understand TBeck's reaction since he didn't seem to know about your plans. Why not work to achieve something great TOGETHER instead of doing it behind his back like this? I'm sure he would cooperate with you if you just behave better.
An open source implementation of TAK would be great, but it's not great without the author's permission. For most people it's not a big deal that the encoder is Windows only. It also works flawlessy under WINE. If you have made the decoding engine better by fixing bugs it's great, but it would be even greater if you let the author know what you're doing first. TAK is HIS baby not yours, you know. ;)
Let's hope you haven't destroyed Mr. Beck's motivation to release further updates to TAK completely now. :'( His upcoming v3.0 release sounds very interesting, by the way. 8)
A work of art. So, you are free to copy the idea, not the work of art. If you want to protect an idea, you need a patent.
To clarify, I was not asserting that copying TAK would be illegal. As you said, TBeck would have needed to get a patent in order to enjoy legal protections for his work.
I was asserting that if you believe in intellectual property as a concept, then you should also believe in an author's right to control his work, even if he hasn't sought official legal protections for that work. As such, you should frown upon people trying to replicate that work without the author's permission, even if it's technically legal for them to so do.
A work of art. So, you are free to copy the idea, not the work of art. If you want to protect an idea, you need a patent.
To clarify, I was not asserting that copying TAK would be illegal.
Sorry, I misread and completely misunderstood what you where saying.
I was asserting that if you believe in intellectual property as a concept, then you should also believe in an author's right to control his work, even if he hasn't sought official legal protections for that work. As such, you should frown upon people trying to replicate that work without the author's permission, even if it's technically legal for them to so do.
I think it is very hard to draw a line on what can be protected and what cannot be protected without having a fairly expensive system in place like patents are. The problem is that you protect ideas without such a system, then progress is impossible. The writer of the first song with a structure with verses and a chorus would could claim that structure as an idea, and nobody would be able to write songs with that structure anymore. Or perhaps even simpler ideas. You would have to draw a line somewhere. Complex and inventive algorithms like what TAK uses would be protected, and very simple ideas like 'the wheel' should not be. But where to draw the line?
I applaud you, you are extraordinary real conspiracy theorist.
I have all data with me of Mr. Beck TAK full history of changes with me and also full leaks of computer files.
What a dump.
Gonna use it for my Open Source TAK encoder.
Trying to figure out if it's a joke or something else. I don't dabble in these conspiracy (hey, there's piracy in there, interesting) theories.
Also, you didn't answer on how encoder was made. Could you give some more explanation on how did you do it?
I think it is very hard to draw a line on what can be protected and what cannot be protected without having a fairly expensive system in place like patents are.
I certainly agree. I'm talking about intellectual property as a moral concept, not a legal one. We allow people to patent their ideas, because we believe that inventors should be able to control their inventions, just as artists should be able to control their art.
If you believe in the base concept that undergirds the intellectual property system, then you would refrain from using somebody else's work without permission, even if the law allows you to do so. Just because something is legal doesn't make it right.
You would have to draw a line somewhere. Complex and inventive algorithms like what TAK uses would be protected, and very simple ideas like 'the wheel' should not be. But where to draw the line?
The place to draw the line seems to be pretty clear when it comes to computer software: if the author did not release the source code, then you don't have the author's permission to copy the invention. Can you legally reverse engineer the software as long as you don't use stolen source code? Yes. Is it morally permissible to do so? If you believe that authors have the right to control their work, then probably not, at least if the author is still working on the project. Once an author abandons a project, he's much less likely to be displeased if somebody creates an unsanctioned implementation.
Remember there is also copyright law, not only patent law. Also, I just found a EU directive (applying to my limited knowledge since TBeck, as TAK's rightholder, is a EU citizen):
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32009L0024&qid=1694249550777
I'm not a lawyer, but reading Article 6 - specially Section 2 - of that directive, I would, in mycroft's place, thoroughly reconsider releasing to the public (GitHub, Gitlab, or whatever) the source code obtained/developed as a result of reverse engineering. The keyword seems to be "achieving interoperability", leading to - as I understand it - the key question: "Does the discussed open-source TAK encoder fix an interoperability issue - and nothing else! and is there even such an issue? - which cannot be fixed by any other means (e.g., asking TBeck to fix said issue himself, or writing one's own TAK encoder from scratch without reverse engineering TBeck's "reference" encoder, ...), given that TBeck, up to last month, was still actively developing/improving his work?
Chris
YOU CAN NOT STOP ME!!!
ARRR!
YOU CAN NOT STOP ME!!!
That's as may be - however respect is earned, and releasing an open source version (very likely, from what's been said in the thread before now) based on a code leak (i.e. not a clean-room version), does not earn respect, IMO at least.
Whether HA would be happy to provide a platform for (likely) plagiarism remains to be seen.
YOU CAN NOT STOP ME!!!
When so few words seem to reveal so much about a person....
YOU CAN NOT STOP ME!!!
Time to grow up? Why this bad attitude? What are you trying to achieve? Are you a drama queen? :o
@TBeck Please ignore this guy. He's probably just a troll having a bad day. His behavior is not normal.
YOU CAN NOT STOP ME!!!
Sure
we cannot, but would you allow
reason to slow you down for a little? Reason, and maybe a slice of human empathy/sensitivity?
Even for your own sake? TAK's claim to fame isn't that it is a big player, it is that it achieved performance we (or at least many of us) didn't even think of as feasible.
I wouldn't want to be the guy who killed that work through some kind of
medvjeđa usluga (did I get
Bärendienst (https://m.dict.cc/kroatisch-deutsch/medvje%C4%91a+usluga.html) right in your language?)
It isn't unlikely that HA is where TAK has most of its fanbase, which you are by now about to alienate completely with what will be perceived a hostile takeover.
Not only may you kill the
project, but also the user base, if they get enough of a foul taste over this.
Instead, what if you were willing to hold it and communicate a bit different than you have done here - maybe for example by offering your source to TBeck for review, before letting it loose on the internet?
Then maybe - I am not speaking for others, but it wouldn't hurt to suggest it - you might have contributed constructively to TAK. For one thing, it could use a Matroska profile too, considering how it out-performs the competition on 5.1 material (http://audiograaf.nl/losslesstest/revision%206/Average%20of%205.1%20surround%20sources.pdf) (which often comes with video) - so sure, there would be more constructive ways.
And if TBeck would/did consider compatibility-breaking changes: ffmpeg might contribute to giving a TAK3 a push it could use to supersede TAK2.
Hypothetically, at least.
That ship may have already have sailed (and sunk) - but in case it even after your posts of today has not,
and you are willing to let
common sense stop you for long enough ...?
Take it from someone who definitely thinks (cf. Reply #1) that a FOSS TAK is a good thing.
But not this way.
I'm BEING 100% censored here. So time to leave.
Reply #39 (https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,124633.msg1032210.html#msg1032210) over again. No, you are not "100%" censored - if so, the thread would have gone already.
I have called on you to reconsider your position in view of new information. I mean, the moment you get to know more, you act on that, right? Most of us here are nerds enough to understand the value of that concept, so ... are you?
I am sure you will get the microphone to explain, as long as you keep to the matter at hand rather than looking up swear words over mere disagreement.
Disagreement is now equivalent to censorship, apparently. ::)
The tantrum that is generated when perceived glory is slowly turning into infamy.
The FFmpeg project has a Code of Conduct (https://www.ffmpeg.org/community.html#Code-of-Conduct). Obviously it is not about patents, licenses and copyright, but about ...
conduct.
Quoting the whole thing, all
(de-)emphasis mine:
Be friendly and respectful towards others and third parties. Treat others the way you yourself want to be treated.
Be considerate. Not everyone shares the same viewpoint and priorities as you do. Different opinions and interpretations help the project. Looking at issues from a different perspective assists development.
Do not assume malice for things that can be attributed to incompetence. Even if it is malice, it’s rarely good to start with that as initial assumption.
Stay friendly even if someone acts contrarily. Everyone has a bad day once in a while. If you yourself have a bad day or are angry then try to take a break and reply once you are calm and without anger if you have to.
Try to help other team members and cooperate if you can.
The goal of software development is to create technical excellence, not for any individual to be better and "win" against the others. Large software projects are only possible and successful through teamwork.
If someone struggles do not put them down. Give them a helping hand instead and point them in the right direction.
Finally, keep in mind the immortal words of Bill and Ted, "Be excellent to each other."
The Code of Conduct is governed by a Community Committee which can, in the course of enforcing it, remove privileges.
I'm BEING 100% censored here. So time to leave.
I would suggest that, if you return, you refamiliarise yourself with this forum's ToS (https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,3974.html).
Which exact rules in ToS did I break?
Given the deletion of (at least) two posts it's pretty obvious, when reading the rules, which rule was broken.
This entire discussion is surreal.
It is a major boon to any format to have two independent implementations, especially of the decoder. Having at least a mostly-working proof-of-concept second decoder implementation is often seen as a must before any kind of real adoption of a format.
Attempting to write a second implementation of an existing format is not theft, it is not harassment, it is not abuse, it is not rude, it is not illegal, it is simply a reasonable technical goal for someone to set themselves.
There's no legal, moral, or even "social convention-al" reason why someone writing a second implementation would be required to prostrate themselves at the feet of the writer of the original implementation, contacting them repeatedly over the course of years to humbly beg for their pontifical blessing.
Some kind of contact could be nice, to cultivate a sense of community, but not required. Sounds like mycroft made some kind of attempt at one point many years ago.
Almost all of us rely daily on things that would not exist without reverse engineering. If you've ever run DOS or Windows on something that wasn't an IBM PC actually sold by IBM Corporation, you were only able to do so because people reverse engineered the PC BIOS. If you've ever opened a Microsoft .DOC in any program other than MS Word, or any other word processing, spreadsheet, or presentation file in any program besides the originator of the format, that worked due to reverse engineering. If you've ever used shared files on a network drive, at least one machine in the network was running Windows, and at least one wasn't, you almost certainly relied on the years of reverse engineering of the SMB protocol done by the SAMBA team.
None of those groups obtained permission from the originators before working on their clean-room implementations.
If it weren't for people who reverse engineer relatively obscure media and document formats, a lot of content from the last seventy years would simply be lost.
I appreciate TBeck's achievements. I understand he is going through a hard time and has legitimate fears about people abusing leaked versions of his copyrighted code. That doesn't seem like a sufficient reason for the histrionics on display here. Jeano and Porcus, I'm going to call you in particular out for unreasonable reactions here as well.
For all I know, it's possible that mycroft doesn't have the promised working implementation and was merely trolling, or that he does have one and it's illegally based on leaked code, or that there's some other reason this would never be the boon one would hope for from a second implementation.
But the only thing there's any actual evidence of in this thread is this: someone came to HydrogenAudio with what he thought was good news about something he had to offer, immediately faced all kinds of unreasonable accusations about driving the poor author of TAK to suicide by his awful, horrible, inhuman, inexcusable deed of trying to write a piece of interoperable software, understandably got upset at the reaction he was getting, wrote a couple bad replies, and has decided that HydrogenAudio is a hostile community he should not contribute to.
This is not a moment for anyone here to be proud of.
I have to agree in part now (wrote my post while this new one came in). I have to say, after reading the beginning of this thread again, which is concerned with reverse engineering, code theft, and copyright at many (most?) places: no evidence of any of that has been presented yet. And correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't FFmpeg contain source code for TAK decoding, i.e., a description - in source code form - of TAK's bitstream syntax (of the current version, of course) is publicly available, and maybe even a textual description on TBeck's web page?
So mycroft, sorry if that has been asked before, but: what kind of encoder are you planning to release exactly? One which you wrote from scratch based on the current FFmpeg decoder source? And how is its compression performance and speed when compared against TBeck's reference encoder?
Chris
I have to agree in part now (wrote my post while this new one came in). I have to say, after reading the beginning of this thread again, which is concerned with reverse engineering, code theft, and copyright at many (most?) places: no evidence of any of that has been presented yet. And correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't FFmpeg contain source code for TAK decoding, i.e., a description - in source code form - of TAK's bitstream syntax (of the current version, of course) is publicly available, and maybe even a textual description on TBeck's web page?
Most of the time i try to stay away from this thread but now I need to clarify something:
I have not published any source code or description regarding TAKs codec format, only about it's container format. Therefore the FFmpeg decoder could not have been written without knowledge obtained through reverse engineering. And who wrote the FFmpeg decoder?
That's not to say I'm not glad about the existence of the FFmpeg decoder. But that's a different case.
...
This is not a moment for anyone here to be proud of.
Well, I hope those who didn't first feign understanding and then decry me and my situation, who don't believe that anyone who gets rich (in sense of fame) of the work of others and then gives gifts to others is a Robin Hood, will continue to find that they acted appropriately.
It is cringey to watch this spectacle. You protect this source code of yours as some gem and stopping short for almost suing, or at least, accusing of anyone daring to "inverse engineer" you irrelevant format. I give a monkeys of your format to be honest, but just painful to see this thread and the folks dancing around you as if you invented a perpetuum mobile. I do not even understand why people bother. You compress 1% better than FLAC, but your stuff is not compatible with anything... If I were ffmpeg I would drop the support right now and just see you get stuffed. You should have be thankful that some people cared about you irrelevant format.
Pathetic.
Triza
Well, I hope those who didn't first feign understanding and then decry me and my situation, who don't believe that anyone who gets rich (in sense of fame) of the work of others and then gives gifts to others is a Robin Hood, will continue to find that they acted appropriately.
I didn't
feign anything. I didn't decry your
situation but rather your
behavior. You insulting me in this fashion for no reason
directly confirms what I just said about your behavior.
The OpenOffice people who worked on import filters for uncommon document and graphics formats (https://www.documentliberation.org/projects/) are not thieves "getting rich off the work of others." The people behind libavformat are not thieves "getting rich off the work of others." I see zero evidence thus far to suggest this situation is some kind of unique atrocity.
If you have any evidence to support a claim that this is grounded in a breach of your copyright, please bring it forward. Other than that insinuation, what exactly are you upset about?
I too have dealt with chronic disease, and have had projects and goals that helped me keep going when life was not going at all according to plan. But someone trying to make something interoperable with your software is not some terrible insult, and lashing out at others for imagined offenses is not going to make you feel better.
Triza, you're not helping by calling TAK irrelevant (just because it may never be mainstream doesn't preclude its being of real value) or by amping up incivil personal attacks. We need people to start acting like rational adults here.
Well, I hope those who didn't first feign understanding and then decry me and my situation, who don't believe that anyone who gets rich (in sense of fame) of the work of others and then gives gifts to others is a Robin Hood, will continue to find that they acted appropriately.
I didn't feign anything. I didn't decry your situation but rather your behavior. You insulting me in this fashion for no reason directly confirms what I just said about your behavior.
What behavior exactly?
I have not published any source code or description regarding TAKs codec format, only about it's container format. Therefore the FFmpeg decoder could not have been written without knowledge obtained through reverse engineering. And who wrote the FFmpeg decoder?
Thanks for the clarification. According to https://ffmpeg.org/doxygen/trunk/tak_8h_source.html, a "Paul Mahol", in 2012. Don' know if that's mycroft, though. If not, what's he to blame for? So, that's one more question mycroft could answer in addition to those I asked previously, to shed some light on the "issue".
Chris
Triza if something is irrelevant why you bother? Just leave it alone. Aggressive attitude including yours is the most pathetic and cringey here.
TAK has one thing no other lossless codecs have - best efficiency. It's irrelevant as in obscurity that only a tiny community uses it. That also makes comparison to widespread, de-facto standard Word/DOC or MP3 pointless.
It's nobodys business whats on TBeck mind. Maybe he finds TAK incomplete, wants to finish it and then go FOSS? Or go commercial? He made it and its none of your business. If there's something you don't like, ask, or just don't bother and go with something relevant like FLAC. It's not perpetuum mobile that you have to give it to the world.
And if you find it relevant why call it irrelevant? Respect the author.
a "Paul Mahol", in 2012. Don' know if that's mycroft, though.
Self-identifies as the author here: https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,121770.msg1011594.html#msg1011594
I identify as Porcus above. I am Porcus's alter ego.
And I'm Porcus' father!
This entire discussion is surreal.
Perhaps it is.
It is a major boon to any format to have two independent implementations, especially of the decoder. Having at least a mostly-working proof-of-concept second decoder implementation is often seen as a must before any kind of real adoption of a format.
That might be true and I'm not against having two independent implementations of something like TAK personally.
Attempting to write a second implementation of an existing format is not theft, it is not harassment, it is not abuse, it is not rude, it is not illegal, it is simply a reasonable technical goal for someone to set themselves.
This might be true, as long as it's done from scratch I guess?
There's no legal, moral, or even "social convention-al" reason why someone writing a second implementation would be required to prostrate themselves at the feet of the writer of the original implementation, contacting them repeatedly over the course of years to humbly beg for their pontifical blessing.
Might be true, too. I assume this is actually what these inconsistencies are all about?
Some kind of contact could be nice, to cultivate a sense of community, but not required. Sounds like mycroft made some kind of attempt at one point many years ago.
I agree to the first sentence. I wonder how many attempts? Just one attempt and then he gave up? What language did he use when communicating with TBeck for the first time do you think? Did he have any patience at all? Only Mycroft and TBeck know. If he used the same language as we've witnessed here then I understand why things have become so difficult.
Almost all of us rely daily on things that would not exist without reverse engineering. If you've ever run DOS or Windows on something that wasn't an IBM PC actually sold by IBM Corporation, you were only able to do so because people reverse engineered the PC BIOS. If you've ever opened a Microsoft .DOC in any program other than MS Word, or any other word processing, spreadsheet, or presentation file in any program besides the originator of the format, that worked due to reverse engineering. If you've ever used shared files on a network drive, at least one machine in the network was running Windows, and at least one wasn't, you almost certainly relied on the years of reverse engineering of the SMB protocol done by the SAMBA team.
I don't think anybody here is against reverse engineering as a concept.
None of those groups obtained permission from the originators before working on their clean-room implementations.
In many cases that's probably true.
If it weren't for people who reverse engineer relatively obscure media and document formats, a lot of content from the last seventy years would simply be lost.
Good point.
I appreciate TBeck's achievements. I understand he is going through a hard time and has legitimate fears about people abusing leaked versions of his copyrighted code. That doesn't seem like a sufficient reason for the histrionics on display here. Jeano and Porcus, I'm going to call you in particular out for unreasonable reactions here as well.
People were positive to Mycroft's announcement in this thread until TBeck told us he was shocked. He apparantly didn't know about Mycroft's plans. After that, things went out of control. In the meantime the moderators removed some of Mycroft's posts. The whole discussion got at one point heated up and then we reacted. Because these posts now are gone you and others are not able to get/to see the whole picture (unfortunately).
For all I know, it's possible that mycroft doesn't have the promised working implementation and was merely trolling, or that he does have one and it's illegally based on leaked code, or that there's some other reason this would never be the boon one would hope for from a second implementation.
Then he should tell us instead of playing silly games with us.
But the only thing there's any actual evidence of in this thread is this: someone came to HydrogenAudio with what he thought was good news about something he had to offer, immediately faced all kinds of unreasonable accusations about driving the poor author of TAK to suicide by his awful, horrible, inhuman, inexcusable deed of trying to write a piece of interoperable software, understandably got upset at the reaction he was getting, wrote a couple bad replies, and has decided that HydrogenAudio is a hostile community he should not contribute to.
It's not like that at all. I think Mycroft is welcome here like anybody else. We're not hostile. He must just show some moderation and calm down a little. There is no need to use harsh words and try to use force. If he's working on something cool then it's of course valuable and great. Everybody likes open source software, compatibility etc. This thread began with a "throw in the face" for TBeck. The name of the thread says it all. It might have turned out differently from the very beginning if the name of the thread was "Open Source TAK encoder - would that be possible/feasible?" or "I would like to contribute to create an Open Source TAK encoder". Like I said: People were positive from the start until TBeck expressed his concerns. I think everybody should respect what he feels about it and discuss the whole issue like adults. We should help him improve upon TAK. That has to happen on his terms - at least for now. Personally I think it's a good thing if Mycroft and TBeck could work together to get TAK to become more wide spread as a format. If TBeck could let Mycroft create an open source TAK encoder that would in my view be awesome, but at the same time I believe it's wrong to "force" TBeck to think it's a good idea. He must believe in this path forward himself.
This is not a moment for anyone here to be proud of.
Well, it doesn't have to be that bad if only Mycroft and TBeck could "sit down" and talk. :)
TAK has one thing no other lossless codecs have - best efficiency. It's irrelevant as in obscurity that only a tiny community uses it. That also makes comparison to widespread, de-facto standard Word/DOC or MP3 pointless.
I agree completely. TAK is uniqe in its own way and there are people who love it for what it is. I hope TBeck continues his work on improving it. 8)
I think it's mostly about respect. Thomas had the unfortunate thing about YALAC being a beta (or alpha) release on April 1st, and members dismissed it as a joke.
But it delivered- MAC compression with FLAC decompression qualities.
When I got PM's to share the beta binaries, I just ignored them. It was out of respect for Thomas's work.
Now all this drama isn't helping.
All the dissertation of what defines this and that- it isn't helping.
Please give Thomas credit and let him continue to do something he obviously likes doing and had the courage to share. Personally, I'm honored he let me be involved in the early public releases.
As for me, I continue to support TAK as an obscure but considerably formidable lossless codec, much like the lossy codec MPC. (That means Musepack just in case of new members.)
Thanks for Thomas good feedback I will not release TAK encoder at all.
I wish this codec remain obscure and unpopular forever ever.
Also wishes that circle jerk around TAK remain obscure as it really is and should be always just that - circle jerk.
In the meantime the moderators removed some of Mycroft's posts. The whole discussion got at one point heated up and then we reacted. Because these posts now are gone you and others are not able to get/to see the whole picture (unfortunately).
Indeed they did, and as you say -
someone reading the thread now cannot see the entirety of the discussion as some of it was moderated. I saw two of the OP's posts that were removed and am in no way surprised that they were removed, especially given the claim and threat contained in the later of the two.[edit] ... and I've just noticed that the posts I thought were deleted are still there, apart from one of the posts which is in the Recycle Bin forum.[/edit]
Also wishes that circle jerk around TAK remain obscure as it really is and should be always just that - circle jerk.
And that's a fantastic hardcore punk band, still kicking butt on stage more than 40 years down the road so thank you!
BTW, I still didn't get if the code you claim to have comes from a leak of TBeck's or from reverse engineering, but I'm too busy circling and jerking so I might've missed that piece of crucial information.
I actually take Reply #107 to mean that
@mycroft is indeed willing to think twice, something that is - unironically! - a good thing.
(Throwing some insults on the way - taking care of his evil image I guess - but still.)
((Go on everyone, make whatever conspiracy ideas you want out of Reply #96.))
Awaiting a TAK3 with impossible performance figures, release date set for 2024-04-01.
Thanks for Thomas good feedback I will not release TAK encoder at all.
You really know how to surprise someone. I rarely meet someone I find so hard to judge. That's not meant in a negative way, but it makes it so hard to trust.
I think some things would have gone very differently if you had emailed me first. Even if I -as you write- have not answered a mail 7 years ago. Maybe I was sick again, sometimes I can hardly read more than one line for days or weeks. Ok, I didn't make this public in the past, so you couldn't know that maybe that's why there was no answer.
Ironically, I had already planned to contact you later to ask for cooperation on the decoder for TAK 3.0. I am glad that you wrote a decoder for TAK 1/2 (even if I saw it differently many years ago...) and would not want to release V3.0 without an open source decoder being available. I wanted to at least provide you with the source code of the new elements as well as some test files.
I would be happy if this possibility would still exist.
But the work on TAK 3 will take quite a while. For this I will open a separate thread to discuss some features. Maybe I should split the work into two steps.
To make a first step, maybe I could send you the source code of the TAK 1 decoder, which is different from V2. I got some messages that your decoder is not working completely correct there. But maybe it is already fixed.
Somehow I had the feeling that I'd better answer quickly here. As if it's a moment when you can still give everything a positive twist.
I didn't think it all through and trusted DeepL 100 percent...
You can send me decoder for 1.X version if you want. Real specifications are much better. So I do not need to reverse Pascal code.
Although it is just codec with FIR coefficients for LPC with custom entropy coder and decorrelation for stereo.
I waited to see others' replies, and felt like communicating that these latest posts are positive for all involved :)
This entire discussion is surreal.
It is a major boon to any format to have two independent implementations, especially of the decoder. Having at least a mostly-working proof-of-concept second decoder implementation is often seen as a must before any kind of real adoption of a format.
Attempting to write a second implementation of an existing format is not theft, it is not harassment, it is not abuse, it is not rude, it is not illegal, it is simply a reasonable technical goal for someone to set themselves.
There's no legal, moral, or even "social convention-al" reason why someone writing a second implementation would be required to prostrate themselves at the feet of the writer of the original implementation, contacting them repeatedly over the course of years to humbly beg for their pontifical blessing.
Some kind of contact could be nice, to cultivate a sense of community, but not required. Sounds like mycroft made some kind of attempt at one point many years ago.
Almost all of us rely daily on things that would not exist without reverse engineering. If you've ever run DOS or Windows on something that wasn't an IBM PC actually sold by IBM Corporation, you were only able to do so because people reverse engineered the PC BIOS. If you've ever opened a Microsoft .DOC in any program other than MS Word, or any other word processing, spreadsheet, or presentation file in any program besides the originator of the format, that worked due to reverse engineering. If you've ever used shared files on a network drive, at least one machine in the network was running Windows, and at least one wasn't, you almost certainly relied on the years of reverse engineering of the SMB protocol done by the SAMBA team.
None of those groups obtained permission from the originators before working on their clean-room implementations.
If it weren't for people who reverse engineer relatively obscure media and document formats, a lot of content from the last seventy years would simply be lost.
I appreciate TBeck's achievements. I understand he is going through a hard time and has legitimate fears about people abusing leaked versions of his copyrighted code. That doesn't seem like a sufficient reason for the histrionics on display here. Jeano and Porcus, I'm going to call you in particular out for unreasonable reactions here as well.
For all I know, it's possible that mycroft doesn't have the promised working implementation and was merely trolling, or that he does have one and it's illegally based on leaked code, or that there's some other reason this would never be the boon one would hope for from a second implementation.
But the only thing there's any actual evidence of in this thread is this: someone came to HydrogenAudio with what he thought was good news about something he had to offer, immediately faced all kinds of unreasonable accusations about driving the poor author of TAK to suicide by his awful, horrible, inhuman, inexcusable deed of trying to write a piece of interoperable software, understandably got upset at the reaction he was getting, wrote a couple bad replies, and has decided that HydrogenAudio is a hostile community he should not contribute to.
This is not a moment for anyone here to be proud of.
Could not be said better.
True enough, there is always the calculated risk of going public and backfiring. I was personally grateful to be involved, and, I suppose fortunate to be running that platform. I think Thomas is better at English than myself, too.
Ironically, I had already planned to contact you later to ask for cooperation on the decoder for TAK 3.0. I am glad that you wrote a decoder for TAK 1/2 (even if I saw it differently many years ago...) and would not want to release V3.0 without an open source decoder being available. I wanted to at least provide you with the source code of the new elements as well as some test files.
I would be happy if this possibility would still exist.
You can send me decoder for 1.X version if you want. Real specifications are much better. So I do not need to reverse Pascal code.
Although it is just codec with FIR coefficients for LPC with custom entropy coder and decorrelation for stereo.
So nice that both could leave your differences and start working on TAK.
Although I use mostly Windows, I never migrated to it because of the lack of an open source decoder, so this will be great if it happens.
In this world at war, is always good to see the good in people.
In this world at war, is always good to see the good in people.
Quite the best comment I've seen in many a long day. The current situation is way beyond sad!
So, honest question: why not release TAK as open-source/source-available?
Going back to a comment I made way, way earlier in the thread - none of us live forever. Most of us don't make great plans around that basic fact, so software tends to die with the author and is lost forever.
Unless there's a business component to all this that I'm missing (selling support contracts, etc), TAK is freeware, no? Going open-source/source-available makes it easier to get volunteers to assist with things like, porting to other platforms, adding features, and so forth.
No person is an island. If you want to go fast: go alone. If you wanna go far: go together.
Not that it's impossible to get assistance in a closed-source project. I'll put my money where my mouth is, and volunteer right now to help port TAK to Linux, regardless of license. It's just easier since somebody could find the code and send back fixes without you having to seek them out first.
Also it's not like going to an open-source model means you have to say, use Github or GitLab, provide an online git repo, issue tracking, and so forth. Could be as simple as uploading the source code alongside the binary releases on your existing website. Plenty of open-source projects operate that way.
So, just throwing that out there. Food for thought, hopefully.
So, honest question: why not release TAK as open-source/source-available?
Going back to a comment I made way, way earlier in the thread - none of us live forever. Most of us don't make great plans around that basic fact, so software tends to die with the author and is lost forever.
Unless there's a business component to all this that I'm missing (selling support contracts, etc), TAK is freeware, no? Going open-source/source-available makes it easier to get volunteers to assist with things like, porting to other platforms, adding features, and so forth.
No person is an island. If you want to go fast: go alone. If you wanna go far: go together.
Not that it's impossible to get assistance in a closed-source project. I'll put my money where my mouth is, and volunteer right now to help port TAK to Linux, regardless of license. It's just easier since somebody could find the code and send back fixes without you having to seek them out first.
Also it's not like going to an open-source model means you have to say, use Github or GitLab, provide an online git repo, issue tracking, and so forth. Could be as simple as uploading the source code alongside the binary releases on your existing website. Plenty of open-source projects operate that way.
So, just throwing that out there. Food for thought, hopefully.
I think you got a point here. In this thread, we have observed that we can be very persnickety about something, while the world is on the verge of breaking down with wars. Could it be possible for TBeck to release part of the code that is "sufficient" to surpass all codecs, but still hold the pieces for a proprietary implementation? I guess users would have best of both worlds, and this coming from the right source (not a "nobody" from the internet that has some ace upon his sleeve that gets to threaten with ridiculous posts I've seen here). Doing such thing, would deem this ridiculous "suspect" developer to ostracism for eternity. So, I thought this now.
For example, TBeck could release part of the code that does sufficient efficiency and help other projects to incorporate TAK as a growing project to reach mainstream attention over the years. TBeck would be recognized for that. We all know this. But also, TBeck could "hold the golden eggs", some secret part of TAK, that would prevent the open source release to reach the full potential of TAK and maintain it as it's main proprietary code with SDKs for decoding, etc. If I were TBeck, I would think about this strategy, it would drop many naysayers. So, this is something to consider. TBeck can still be motivated and implement the improvements only on the proprietary part, in a SDK. I don't know if I am talking with no understanding of these consequences - just an idea. I know that if some part of the code gets indeed released, one could work it up even better. But I don't see it as a problem... It's just a thought. Don't know whether this would work or not. But, perhaps... this could end this whole speculation and people could use more TAK.
I hope these sayings complement what the
@jprjr just said. No one will live forever, and we die, we will be remembered for our deeds - not the guy who is threatening and holding some code he could overcrow or get credits for it.
Just my two cents and I hope everything is sorted out. We don't want TAK to be "obscure" and abandoned. It's a great project, excellent codec, and hell, it's really damn good.
Cheers.
Depending on circumstance, that "release parts of TAK as open source and keep other parts proprietary" may be overcomplicating it.
The current release is freeware, with some usage restrictions (no commercial use, for example). So, it could be TBeck has sold custom licenses to commercial entities, and that would certainly complicate releasing TAK source code. That's a case where I would totally understand wanting to keep some parts (or even the whole thing) proprietary.
If there aren't any existing contracts that would restrict a license change - it could be as straightforward as taking the existing code, changing the license document, and releasing it as-is. No need to keep some parts private - that would likely require more work - because then you have to go through and figure out what's private, what's not, probably reorganize some code and refactor things. I'm not sure what the real benefit of all that work would be.
Going open-source usually means removing any and all usage restrictions, I've tried to be careful and use the term "source available" as well - it's possible to release code and place restrictions on usage. Though, once you're releasing code I'd recommend going with one of the well-known, standard licenses. It makes it easier for projects to evaluate whether they can integrate the code, easier for Linux distros to determine if they can distribute the app, and so on. Those standard licenses usually allow using the code for any purpose - personally, I've always figured if I'm OK with putting code/apps online and not profiting off of them myself, I don't really care if a business decides to use it (just don't expect any support from me to be free). I understand not everybody has this same view, though.
The only person with the full, complete picture is TBeck. I just hope this provides things to think about from a longevity/pragmatic point of view.