[jdev] voicechat again

[Tijl Houtbeckers]

On Wed, 3 Mar 2004 18:09:35 -0600, Peter Saint-Andre <stpeter at jabber.org> 
wrote:

> On Wed, Mar 03, 2004 at 11:27:16PM +0100, Carsten Breuer wrote:
>
>> We have also must take care that there are patent on VoIP and
>> that we MUST consider that!
>>
>> See: http://swpat.ffii.org/patents/effects/voip/index.en.html
>
> I agree totally, we must find a solution that that is not encumbered by
> patents.
>
> A link at the end of that page says "Contact the Speex people, ask them
> whether they have really checked the patent situation" -- do we have
> reason to believe that Speex is not patent-free?

No. Nor do you have any reason to believe any of the current jabber 
implementations are patent-free. Patent laywers do not come cheap you 
know! Ogg was created (at least it's one of the reasons) as an alternative 
to MP3, wich was part based on a reference implementation of the Fraunhoff 
patents. (While implementations that do not use the reference 
implementation at all, or at least claim not to, such as LAME, do excist 
today).

So Ogg was made without looking at any patents or techniques used in them. 
As far as I know speex is developed along the same lines. That's why if 
you're gonna work on VoIP in Jabber I urge you to look at as little 
patents as possible. I suspect the landscape is littered with dozens of 
patents covering all but the very most obvious things concerning VoIP. The 
less you look at them the less you can willingly infringe upon them.