WebM project changes to standard Open Source license

Google has finally changed the license on its open-source WebM (VP8) video codec after complaints that it wasn’t open enough.

As it was originally written, if a patent action was brought against Google, the patent license terminated. This provision itself is not unusual in an OSS license, and similar provisions exist in the 2nd Apache License and in version 3 of the GPL. The twist was that ours terminated “any” rights and not just rights to the patents, which made our license GPLv3 and GPLv2 incompatible. Also, in doing this, we effectively created a potentially new open source copyright license, something we are loath to do.

Changes to the WebM Open Source License

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Miro 3.0 adds Subtitles and Video Converter

The open source cross-platform Internet TV, Miro, has been updated to version 3.0 – with many new entry features like subtitles, that users can select from the drop down menu or load their own external subtitle files, higher max volume 2x/3x, play-externally right-click menu. Miro 3.0 is also faster than previous version, its said to be over 150% faster. More»

Posted in Multimedia, Open-Source, Ubuntu, Video, Windows | 2 Comments »

Blazing fast Opera 10.50 Alpha for Unix

The Opera development team has released another development snapshot of Opera 10.50 browser for Unix/Linux. Opera “10.5 alpha showcases the latest technologies that will be available in” the “next major release”. This build contains many improvements, bug fixes and several known issues too; font problems, command line option problems, compiz issues, language input issues and many more. More»

Posted in Browsers, Ubuntu, Video | 4 Comments »

Symbian has been completely Open-Sourced

The mobile Operating System, Symbian goes completely open source – all the Symbian source code that comprises 108 packages is now available for free to all under the Eclipse license (EPL) version 1.0. The Symbian Foundation considers this transition from proprietary to open source as the biggest of its kind in software history. The Symbian Foundation is a non-profit organization “guided” by Nokia and other manufacturers like Sony Ericsson. More on Symbian Wiki – Platform Opening.

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New tab and Tab Tear Off animations for Firefox 4

Mozilla’s Stephen Horlander that showed us some iterations of Windows design mock-ups for Firefox 4 has posted again on his personal blog a couple of animations showing what might be tab-tasks in still-to-come Firefox 4.

The goals of these animations as Stephen puts it, is to give a visual clue to the functions of Tabs. The animation posted here simply shows how adding a new tab is will be an animated task.

For more details and Tab tearing animations with affordance move to Stephen blog.

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OpenShot Video Editor 1.0 now Processes HD 720p Videos

The first stable version of OpenShot Video Editor has been released. OpenShot is a free and open source application for Linux distributions that makes video editing quite easy. OpenShot 1.0 comes with several bug fixes, a shiny new graphics and many new features that add to the many previous features like; Video encoding based on FFmpeg, Gnome integration (drag and drop support), drag and drop timeline, support for many video, audio, and image formats (based on FFmpeg) – just to mention a few. More»

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Ubuntu Release Schedule Video

A short video that explains the Ubuntu release schedule and life cycle;

- The Ubuntu Desktop and Server are released every six months and each release is supported for 18 months.
- An LTS (Long Term Support) version of the Ubuntu Desktop and Server is produced every 2 years, the Ubuntu Desktop gets a 3 years support while the LTS Server release gets a five years support.
- The official name of an Ubuntu release uses the year and month of the release as the version number.
- Ubuntu code names use an adjective and animal with the same first letter – codes names are in alphabetical order.

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VEVO is a YouTube Powered Video Site Devoted Exclusively to Music

If you are one of the millions of people who visit YouTube each day to watch clips of your favourite music stars like Jay Z or Norah Jones or to discover new ones, then Google has you in mind – it has created a new website called VEVO dot com that is devoted exclusively to music. More»

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YouTube to get 1080p HD Videos Next Week

The notice that YouTube will get support for watching 1080p HD videos next week comes straight from the horse’s mouth. As of now YouTube’s HD mode for viewing videos was max 720p, those who have submitted Full HD videos will have their videos re-encoded to the better mode.
YouTube also intends to put awesome videos uploaded by you to its homepage – in a future spotlight. via [YouTube Blog] ~ 1080p HD Is Coming to YouTube

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