[Asterisk-Users] Open G.729A codec

[Matthew Hardeman]

If I had to venture a guess, I would say that the protection scheme is in
place in the hopes that everyone will use their implementation rather than
reinvent the wheel.  If this is indeed the case, their protection scheme is
useful in helping to protect the patent license as well as their code.  So
far, it would seem, no one has bothered to reinvent the wheel, and as such
we're stuck using their implementation.

Matt Hardeman
PaperSoft

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Underwood" <steveu at coppice.org>
To: <asterisk-users at lists.digium.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 8:30 PM
Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Open G.729A codec


> Eric Wieling wrote:
>
> >On Tue, 2003-08-12 at 15:37, Mark Spencer wrote:
> >
> >
> >>>Couldn't agree more. The G.729 codec is so unDigium-like... don't buy
> >>>it is my recommendation.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>I don't think anybody buys G.729 just to have it.  They buy it because
> >>they *have* to have it.  And we sell it because they *have* to have it.
I
> >>think eventually we'll be able to come up with a better (but not, for
the
> >>near future, open) G.729 solution from us.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >What is the "license" for?  The actual binary module or for the patented
> >codec?  If it's for the codec, then why can't you get a license from
> >voiceage and then use your own code.  As you said it's available from
> >the ITU.
> >
> I have no idea why VoiceAge want to protect the code as they do. The
> code isn't interesting to licence. Its the pool of patents you really
> need to licence, and that is bundled with the VoiceAge codec. I don't
> know if they indemnify their licencees with regard to other patent
> holders crawling out of the woodwork with fresh claims on G.729, but
> they do include a licence for the known patents. Believe VoiceAge have
> some kind of exclusive pool licencing rights. I'm not clear how this
> works, though.
>
> The ITU G.729 code is pretty much useless for real world use. It is very
> slow. It gets the right answers, but not by efficient means. All the
> voice codec reference code I have seen is like this. The people who
> develop these things *have* to write an efficient version, as standards
> bodies demand to know the approximate MIPS a good implementation will
> require. The implementors do not release this version as the reference
> model. I've been through this from the codec developer's side. The
> reference model may be 10 or more times slower than a commercial grade
> implementation. I've no idea what the ratio might be for G.729.
>
> If someone produced a good open implementation of G.729, then it might
> be interesting to see how much the patents could be licenced for. The
> usual problem with these pooling things is they offer you two deals: One
> is US$many per port for one port up. The other is US$little per port for
> larger volumes, but you need to pay a one off fee of US$100,000 (or
> something on that scale) up front.
>
> Regards,
> Steve
>
>
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