User talk:Dgtsyb/Archives/2009/04

Good Faith Edit on AMR

I see that you have removed the term heavily patent encumbered from the description of the AMR-NB codec. While that may be done in the name of NPOV - the message "reverting good faith edit" is not really enough. Examining the situation from an NPOV - it is easy to see that the AMR format is heavily encumbered, more so than MP3, WMA, WAV, OGG or just about any audio format I have in mind, with perhaps the exception of AAC. So I do not think the statement you reverted was inaccurate. Please use Google to read why VLC can not properly support AMR, nor FFMPEG nor many other tools. 213.46.174.149 (talk) 15:30, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

First a matter of English. Heavily is not an adverb that can be applied to encumbered and is a simple usage error. It is also a usage error to apply patent to encumbered (encumbered being "burdened with a legal claim" and a patent being a legal claim as well). Anything that is patented is encumbered from unlicensed use. Patents and legal claims do not have weight as they have no mass: they could have validity or merits; they could be resilient to legal challenge.

Second WP:NPOV. Heavily patent encumbered produces a negative connotation and is certainly taken from the view of one not holding the patent. The patent holder would likely swing the other way and say well protected valuable research investment. Going on to say how this patent restricts open source implementations also is not NPOV. Again the patent holder might take the view that the method is well protected from causal infringement. These points of view are better discussed in an article discussing the views of the impact of patents on open source and are not specific to this patent, nor this algorithm. Even still, this negative connotation would certainly need a citation to a verifiable and reliable source rather than your personal research derived from Google searches and reading open-source forums. Nevertheless, patented codecs do not stop open source implementations: one merely needs a license to use the code or you become an infringer. Also, AMR is not so different in this respect than the other patented popular G.7XX and GSM codecs, nor GIF or LZW compression or other widespread computing standards protected by patents.

Simply saying patented is adequate and neutral in that it conveys the simple fact rather than the outrage of part of the opensource community to the mere existence of a method that is in poplular use but subject to patent. — Dgtsyb (talk) 18:35, 17 April 2009 (UTC)