XViD Development stopped

[Cryect]

Hmmm.... well isn't this interesting.
Definately looks like Sigma Designs stole the code.

http://www.xvid.org/ (http://www.xvid.org)

EDIT by Koepi: made the URL RFC conformant, trailing slash... ;)

[Koepi]

I hope you now understand why I closed those threads and asked you to keep conversation about that "codec" down.

Sorry,
Koepi

[cofferscuffs]

[ 19:40:27 ] _· · Topic : set by c_Cuffs : www.doom9.org | read www.xvid.org and and help then email Simga Designs for REALmagic sourcecode as it is ur right!

nuff said... email them, and that doesnt mean everyone send 1000 emails per second ;) oh and, spread the word!

[Cryect]

Hehe it was interesting when I was viewing the XVID forums over there and all the sudden I was getting 404's with the title saying something about development stopped that I kinda ignored. Eventually I realized hmm maybe I should reload the front page and definately was surprised. I hope everything works out.

[vlad59]

Whahooo what a shock !!!

It's a sad day for Xvid and all the free software addict.

I really hope it won't turn bad, finger cross....

Gonna ask for some source code ..........

[neo_sapien]

Here's what I emailed them:

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please provide to me at your earliest convenience a copy of the source code for your derivative of the XviD codec, the Sigma Designs’ REALmagic® MPEG-4 Video Codec. I wish to exercise my right to change the free software, as stipulated in the GNU General Public License which Sigma Designs’ accepted by distributing and/or modifying the XviD Program or works based on it.

I thank you for your time and consideration,

and then my name.

[aharden]

I submitted a blurb about this to Slashdot (http://slashdot.org) and they accepted it. It should be published there soon. There are plenty of GPL-loving Slashdot readers that are sure to make noise about this.

[cofferscuffs]

http://slashdot.org/articles/02/08/22/193237.shtml?tid=117 :>

good work!

[MaTTeR]

grhh...

Just to make it easier for everyone to email, here's the web site with all email addresses of Sigma

http://www.sigmadesigns.com/contact.htm

[aharden]

Originally posted by cofferscuffs
http://slashdot.org/articles/02/08/22/193237.shtml?tid=117 :>

good work!
:D
I'm just glad it didn't get rejected!

[wotef]

w**kers! can they be sued? what is the legal implication of breaking the license agreement?

[-h]

I spoke to a manager at Sigma Designs over the phone a couple weeks ago, and he basically verified the accusation - a programmer "mistakenly" based their MPEG-4 codec around XviD, added a few patches, changed the interface (but not by much), then released it as their own. We were informed that they were replacing all GPL'ed code with their own, to avoid a licensing problem (even though copyright infringement had already occurred, of course).

After that, version 1.1 came out, which was a complete slap in the face. Supposedly "rewritten", it was nothing but a different checkout of XviD with a few registers changed and some code reordered.

Should be an interesting few days.

-h

[cofferscuffs]

if i ever get their source code im gonna release my own codec!... wait that would be a double violation of the gpl then!

[Swede]

Ouch... This really pisses me off... But, at least, it tells us something: The effort that is put in XVID development by non-profiting persons (I won't mention anyone since they are too many) is appreciated and obviously valuable since they're stealing the code!

I just wish that everyone contributing to XVID has the strength to go on and that the Sigma guys get what they deserve.!.

If nothing else, there is a lot of us that *knows* who wrote what!

[iago]

Originally posted by Swede
If nothing else, there is a lot of us that *knows* who wrote what! Absolutely! I believe, many people from all over the world know that...

[ZerzaDha]

Originally posted by MaTTeR
grhh...

Just to make it easier for everyone to email, here's the web site with all email addresses of Sigma

http://www.sigmadesigns.com/contact.htm

This one could also be good: RMP4@sdesigns.com

http://www.sigmadesigns.com/products/MPEG4_video_encoder.htm

[nikthebak]

Actually this is frustrating, enfuriating, depressing and expected.

I'm kind of afraid that Sigma will pull a Microsoft and sue the XviD development team for stealing their code :devil:

Under normal conditions in computer software world, only major corporations are able to sue minor ones for abstract "crimes" they didn't even commit ("You can't make a program that shows images understandable to humans! We have a patent on that! We also have patented Fourier transform! You can't use it!"). Never the vice versa.

I'm hoping at least FSF will take some actions or else the whole GPL license will be ridiculed. If Sigma can get away with this, any GPL'd code is basically a free breakfast for software corporations ever after.

Sigma will get some serious heat however, at least from me :angry:

[kilg0r3]

o.k.

go out and make NOISE. generate large amounts of data related to this issue where ever you go.






by the way does anyone have a good connection to the press, e.g. the german c't?


just mailed them to their general news submission address

i suggest you do similar things. lokk for informational multipliers, forum with possible costumers of sigma and inform sigma about your actions.

[temporance]

I hope the xvid guys are sure of what they are doing.

Now, if Sigma does release the sourcecode, then they are precluded by GPL from licensing patents for their own use. So they have only two undesireable choices if they wish to (alledgedly) continue using xvid code:
- continue violating GPL, or
- open-source their codec under GPL but infringe MPEG-4 patents.

Someone once told me that they have amazing lawyers who helped them avoid paying a penny of patent royalties for their MPEG-2 products. [if anyone knows more about this, please reply here or on /.]

Interesting stuff!

[-h]

Someone once told me that they have amazing lawyers who helped them avoid paying a penny of patent royalties for their MPEG-2 products. [if anyone knows more about this, please reply here or on /.]

I doubt they do for MPEG-4 either - I seem to recall someone noted that in their end-user-license-agreement, there are a few lines detailing:

"Note that blah implements a number of algorithms that have been patented. If you plan to use this software, you must contact the MPEG-LA and purchase a license to use said patented algorithms."

So I doubt they're paying a cent of royalties on their software, unless the EULA has changed.

-h

[uManiac]

@-h

Your right, paragraph 3 in thir EULA says

Infringement. You are hereby advised and you understand that your use of the Software may infringe existing patents. You understand that you are solely responsible for obtaining the necessary licenses from such patent owners and for paying all applicable fees and royalties. You agree that Sigma shall have no liability for use of this Software or any derivation thereof.

I wonder if those parner companies (www.ivast.com (http://www.ivast.com) and www.envivio.com (http://www.envivio.com) ) are using XviD as well.

I just hope this gets sorted out. I'd hate to see such a good thing come to and abrupt end.

[temporance]

I see SIGM share price is as yet unmoved. Is there still time to sell short?

[int 21h]

From Slashdot

Comment from the FSF (Score:2)
by prizog (`gro.silavon' `ta' `todhsals-silavon') on Thursday August 22, @04:37PM (#4121857)
(User #42097 Info | http://web.novalis.org/)
We at the FSF are saddened by this GPL violation. Because we do not hold copyright on Xvid, we can't act directly. We support the Xvid developers' effort to get full GPL compliance from Sigma. If you're interested in how we enforce the GPL when we hold copyright, please see our attorney Eben Moglen's essay, Enforcing the GPL http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.html.

[GreatLord]

I have post to my concat person at Sigma Designs and have ask if hi can comment anything of these.

I know Sigma are working on a comnpete new version of RMP4.
it will be call RMP4 V2.0.

I really like Xvid and RMP4 codecc.

I hope this matter be solv sone.

Thanks for a great codecc.

[kempodragon]

It is a sad day indeed when something like this happens. I have been impressed with xvid's quality and for someone to use the developer's hard work and claim it as their own is a slap in the teeth. I truly hope that situation is resolved, because if Sigma gets away with this then other companies will think they too can use the GPL for their own playground. How much innovation and creativity will be stifled when developers see their work stolen and their protests ignored or worse. Avery Lee, the creator of VirtualDub, had a similar problem IIRC, but I'm not sure if this was a commercial outfit that tried to claim his work. :angry:
My prayers are with you guys and kudos for such great work.

[trbarry]

These things are usually settled in the court of public opinion, not of law.

If everyone mentions this whenever Sigma or th Xcard comes up it will serve to keep the pressure on. And I'll state that I personnaly will not do business with Sigma Designs or their licensees until this is resolved.

- Tom

[int 21h]

http://forums.divx.com/viewtopic.php?topic=40040&forum=5

And, Slashdot comment that contributes alot to this entire 'sue' them argument.


Did the authors register their copyright? They need to do that to get statutory damages. If they did, the statutory damages could be extremely high, and so you would have a case for Sigma to fear.

If not, they should register it right away, while Sigma is still distributing the alleged infringement.

If not registered, you can only get actual damages. And it's easy to see a court saying that actual damages -- which are financial, not personal -- are zero in a case like this. How much money did the team lose? You might do better arguing how much Sigma made from the infringing code but they would of course make the argument that the money came from their proprietary additions, not the GPLd code which of course anybody can get for free.

To compel them to comply with GPL, you will have to get the court to agree with the implied licence. That's harder, though if they really have documents from Sigma admitting that they were aware of the GPL terms you might have a shot.

Otherwise, I don't think anybody has had a court rule that you would be bound by the GPL contract if you used GPLd code. They would rule you violated copyright, but will they rule more?

Think about it. If I put a licence in my code saying "Use this code without my permission and you must give me your whole corporation" no court would consider that enforceable.

Will they consider it enforceable if the licence says "use this code without my permission and you must give away all the source code to everything you bundled with it"? Also in doubt.

Could be. Could not be.

[SirDavidGuy]

/me is busy typing up a story about it to send to the local newspaper...

[int 21h]

This is funny really because after it hit Slashdot, every zealot on there is emailing every public outlet to get everyone to hear about it.

[GreatLord]

I am in Sigmas News Group.
We just start speak about this.

One msg every min, I hope SD will wake up and dare answer all our question there.

When we get a answers from SD I will report it here.
Hoply from one of the manger.

[Teegedeck]

At the moment, I think it's best to spread the news around as much as possible (just mailed it to c't, too). Give'm a REAL bad press.

[avih]

i've informed 'the register' and 'newsforge'

[twistee]

this is really bad news. dont worry, i will be telling every man and his dog about this....


its all kinda cool looking at the asm output in the comparisons (as i have just started to learn assembler...and i kinda understand what its on about)...

[wotef]

i posted to the wall street journal and the financial times

[pt7]

First post after a couple weeks of reading. XVID is great and I appreciate the efforts of its developers and those developing related programs and sharing information here.

The Inquirer has an article up here (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=5089).

The article is a little guarded but I already thanked the editor by e-mail. Hopefully the story will reach the mainstream press wires and though unlikely it would be nice for the question to be posed at Sigma's qrtly CC.

-PT

[sillKotscha]

Originally posted by Teegedeck
At the moment, I think it's best to spread the news around as much as possible (just mailed it to c't, too). Give'm a REAL bad press.


me too, just dropped a line to Christian Persson (Chefredakteur und verantwortlich für den Textteil (editor-in-chief and responsible for the press))

lets hope every mail is helping to succeed against Sigma's impudence

[Hiro2k]

Sorry Avih for posting again in the New AV Format Forum. I didn't see all this going on over here. But my original statement was correct. Everyone here that cares is doing something about this crime.
Now time for me to hide.

[avih]

@Hiro2k
no damage done. u can stop hiding ;)

[cofferscuffs]

i just submitted the news to warp2search... frenchzed (from #doom9 chan) said he will submit to french sites... spread the word! i feel a major shitstorm coming someones way... hehehe :devil:

[ACClarke]

I will post on the french video forums to.

This story is disgusting....:angry:

[gldblade]

Wow.

Jeesh, I never realized the extent of the problem until now. Sure, I thought it was taking a while to get this problem resolved and we had a total news blackout for so long (not that I blame you though).

Full power to you guys. Go XviD. Go give them hell.

Of course, the online news press has been doing a great job of that so far. :) I wonder how many e-mails Sigma Designs have so far received.

And if this ever does go to court, I'm sure there will be many of us who would back you up all the way and would be willing to contribute to the cause.

Wow. I just couldn't believe the thread title when I first saw it.

*Edit*
Heh, when I started calling the codec XviD so long ago, I never realized how far the name would spread...

[jhboricua]

MILPITAS, CA, (August 12, 2002) - Sigma Designs (NASDAQ: SIGM), a leader in digital decoder solutions, announced today that the Company will be discussing second quarter results during a conference call on Tuesday, August 27, 2002, at 4:45 p.m. Eastern time. The dial-in number is (612) 332-0226. A question and answer period will take place at the end of the discussion.

So how about we send this info to the financial houses and heck, maybe even join the call and ask directly. I'm sure it will be interesting to see what they have to say.

[ACClarke]

I think SD has to dismiss the "developpers" of their mpeg-4 codec.
I don't know any company which pays people just to copy and paste.....

[MfA]

Originally posted by temporance
Now, if Sigma does release the sourcecode, then they are precluded by GPL from licensing patents for their own use. So they have only two undesireable choices if they wish to (alledgedly) continue using xvid code:
- continue violating GPL, or
- open-source their codec under GPL but infringe MPEG-4 patents.

Its more like
- continue violating GPL, or
- continue violating GPL

They, and everyone else for that matter, are not allowed to distribute XviD under the GPL PERIOD either in source or binary form ... wether they license the patents or not would be inconsequential. The GPL is a particularely poor license for patent encumbered code, especially if there is no single copyright owner who can amend the license with country restrictions.

I better back that up a little, clause 7 from the GPL :

7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.

That goes for everyone, at the moment noone is distributing XviD legally under the GPL assuming the MPEG-4 patents are valid (that does not mean they are distributing it illegally, but they are distributing it partly as copyright owners and partly under an implicit agreement ... we all know what the XviD authors intend with their licensing, but it is kind of unfortunate that is not what the license they put on the project actually says). Clause 8 gives a way to avoid making a project undistributable under the GPL in this way by allowing the programs distribution being restricted to countries where the patents dont apply though.

Sigma might be more inclined to contribute their source if they were given a license to XviD they could do something with legally (which is to say an alternate license, the GPL is useless even with clause 8 since they want to distribute it in the US where the MPEG-4 patents are almost certainly valid). Not to say I find that at all likely ...

[SirDavidGuy]

Since I didn't work on this project, I can't claim damages, but I will ask a lawyer-friend of mine about the possible legal implications.

But looking through the GNU liscense myself, I see at least one loophole to, at the very least, keep Sigma from getting in any serious legal trouble (Good Faith, if they say they didn't know at the time they were violating the law. But, Good Faith only applies to Fraud cases, and I don't know if this could be considered one),also, anyone who submitted any code to the XviD CVS at any time could arguably be an "author", with full permission to give Sigma the right to release XviD under their own liscensing terms.

However, the thought of going to court may scare Sigma (Investors don't like lawsuits) into giving in.

[JohnV]

Check out this message by FAAD2 (Free AAC Decoder) developer, menno.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=30465#post30465
OMG!
A few months ago I got the request from some persons at Sigma Designs if they could use FAAD2. I said that that was only possible if they paid me, so that I could offer them a different license than GPL.
They said that that was not an option for them because they just wanted to offer the source code to their customers as an AAC decoding example.

Now I start to wonder how trustworthy these people are.
How did the people from XViD discover that their code was used? Is it in that public available MPEG-4 Video decoder software? I haven't seen any AAC software from them yet. But I'm not sure if their hardware based cards use hardware audio decoding or software, I would almost assume software decoding since it supports so many formats. Does anyone here have a Sigmadesigns card that supports AAC, I'd like to have some more info on this.

This really sucks!

Menno

[int 21h]

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/020822/220286_1.html

From Yahoo News
Thursday August 22, 9:33 pm Eastern Time
Press Release
SOURCE: Sigma Designs, Inc.
Sigma Makes Source Code Available for Its MPEG-4 Video CODEC
MILPITAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 22, 2002--Sigma Designs, Inc. (Nasdaq:SIGM - News), a leader in IP video streaming solutions, today announced the release of the source code behind its free MPEG-4 video CODEC that works as a plug-in under Windows® and encodes digitized video content into fully compatible ISO MPEG-4 video files. The complete source code will be available for download starting August 23, free of charge, through Sigma's website (www.sigmadesigns.com), to support developers wishing to enhance the MPEG-4 encoding.

"We are pleased to provide the development community with an open source MPEG-4 CODEC, and anticipate that this will accelerate technical improvements and enhance the proliferation of MPEG-4 content," stated Ken Lowe, Sigma Designs' vice president of business development.

[Neo Neko]

Sounds like a partial victory. Still I don't think it is time to let up just yet. It is a concession. But they still refuse to give credit where credit is due. They are still claming it in it's entirety as their own right? And that is the real crux of the situation. I for one will do my damnedest to keep this in the forefront. Lets not settle for table scraps from a meal stolen from us.

The response from the Divx.com forums has been encouraging. The C.E.O. and several of the project members have expressed their support for Xvid and distain for Sigma Designs. Even if their support ammounts to little more than lip service it is still something.

[avih]

as u said neo, partially good news in:

1. ppl can benefot from the sources
2. it demonstrates the POWER we ppl have over such corporations (damn it WAS fast, less than 12 hours after the initial xvid.org announcement).

again, as u said, we should NOT be satisfied, untill xvid devs get the credit.

avi

[ookzDVD]

@Forum,

It's a bad news, it really shame SIGMA stole the XviD code :(

but_
there is a good news, as the news will spread, the XviD will be more
famous ;) Some people will be realize that there is a good free code
...which lead SIGMA to stole it, if XviD is not good, I'll bet SIGMA
will not stole it ;)

SIGMA.... you are son of a bit*h! fu*king sh*t!!

PS. Ookz is preparing mailbomber... ready to launch! ;)