Don't forget the main point that Anthropic reported the user to the police but didn't share any of his messages or conversation history with the cops. Because their security policy doesn't allow it.
It’s because those codecs require SDK’s that are expensive to license. That’s not a Linux specific issue - it’s always been that way for the non-studio version of Resolve (with some exceptions on MacOS since the ProRes codecs are already part of the OS).
Primarily because Resolve is meant as a tool for professionals - and as a result it can’t get away with using things like Ffmpeg under the hood.
Ffmpeg (for example) doesn’t use officially licensed codec SDK’s to handle certain codecs - it uses reverse engineered tooling.
If you’re working on a personal project or something that is just getting pushed to YouTube that won’t matter 99% of the time.
However if you are working on a professional color grading pipeline for a project that might go to broadcast or into theaters, there are very specific QA tests that the final rendered product must pass - and these unofficial reverse engineered rendering tools often result in rendering errors that can fail these QA tests (and in a way that is basically impossible to troubleshoot).
It’s already enough of a challenge to manage a color pipeline using the officially licensed tools - they can’t really risk that kind of issue with their pro and semi-pro customers.
That said, it’s important to note that MP4 is a just a container/wrapper, not a codec.
So an mp4 file might contain video (or just audio) that is rendered using one of many possible codecs depending on what was chosen by the person doing the render. That will determine whether Resolve whether the free edition of Resolve will support it or not.
This is one of the the cases where “the language model won't necessarily respect IP law” is really relevant. Individual users may be able to get away with this because they're too scattershot to sue, and users in some jurisdictions may actually be fine regardless, but broadly, the patent licensing around things like H.264 is not something BMD can afford to ignore. AFAIK the biggest reason Google was pushing WebM in the first place was because they, a huge corporation, were balking at being under the thumb of the MPEG LA!
I appreciate that it can be confusing for users that patents can still apply to techniques where implementations exist that are both libre and gratis from a copyright perspective, but this has been an issue for Linux-adjacent software distribution for ages—like, see how Debian used to put certain stuff that was encumbered by patents in the US but not in other jurisdictions in special “non-US” repository sections, that sort of thing. It's not Black Magic's doing that the codec space is like this. I wish people wouldn't make so many mocking assumptions sometimes.
Linux Vivaldi builds use libffmpeg.so from chromium-ffmpeg, which includes decoders for most codecs used on the web (no h265/mpeg2 tho), and VA-API which will handle all hardware accelerated codecs on particular platform.
This looks similar to using Microsoft provided Media Foundation codecs. No idea why Black Magic doesnt do it like Linux Chromium browsers.
Do you have any information on how the actual patent licensing is set up for Vivaldi? I wasn't able to find much on it, though I see the note in https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Vivaldi that it “automatically downloads” the relevant files, which is at least suggestive that they can't just redistribute the binaries normally. The other closest thing I was able to find was https://github.com/chromiumembedded/cef/issues/3559 which describes a specific proprietary_codecs option in CEF, which is not quite the same thing but ought in some sense to be related… the way they describe having to set ffmpeg_brand=Chrome normally for that to be available doesn't sound promising?
I would be moderately surprised if whatever arrangement is going on there allows full use of the codecs for video editing software and not just for consumer decode of Web resources.
That doesn't sound right to me at all. I'm pretty hazy on the specifics of VA-API, but I wasn't under the impression that the graphics hardware carries 100% of the decode implementation nor had codec licenses attached to it, and this Phoronix article from 2022 describing Fedora having to back off from having accidentally shipped H.264 via VA-API without appropriate licensing seems to be evidence in the direction I expected. https://www.phoronix.com/news/Fedora-Disable-Bad-VA-API
If there were definitely no legal encumbrances, surely they'd want to keep shipping the version with the proprietary codecs in, because that would make them a superior option for users who need those? AFAICT someone upstream thought that having the toggle to avoid patent issues was important, which if true nixes the idea that VA-API just gives you an automatic unencumbered route and you don't have to worry about it after that.
I'm not really sure what actual claim you're making regarding the relevance of “pro-patent views”, but I might interpret it as something like “Red Hat is more likely to play it safe, whereas less IBM-enculturated distributions are more likely to bet on interpretations that let the users take on the risk”. Which I think is probably true; for instance, https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/xqn20n/comment/iqbmv... describes how other distributions chose differently and moved to re-enable the proprietary codecs by default. (Some of them seem to be based in friendlier jurisdictions, mind. I'm not completely sure where BMD is, and I'm not sure how much it matters given they want to sell worldwide, but their full corporate name resolves most strongly to Australia: https://opengovau.com/business/30098098287 and Australia doesn't seem to exclude software from patentability: https://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/patents/what-are-patents/what...)
Anyway, if that's what you meant, I don't think that distinction is nearly as applicable to the situation with Resolve. BMD isn't a producer of a Linux distribution containing a broad variety of stuff, where “users happen to do stuff with the open source software we provide that violates some patents” can maybe be waved off as not their responsibility. BMD is very obviously directly operating in the commercially-distributed professional video tooling market, so codec licensing will be something they have to deal with as a keystone part of their business. Adding something to their software to actively enable people to do professional-style encoding for those codecs without the patent licenses would be playing with fire.
Haha yeah was about to post this very comment. I'm glad to see they have their priorities in order instead of checks notes supporting MP4 on Linux, the most common type of goddamn encoding. GoPro footage literally does not work with Resolve outside Windows.
I'm a bit skeptic of the game because it's pushing higher prices in the industry while being totally unjustified.
But I'm not surprised at all? Like, all of these things the game does were/are entirely possible within the FiveM scripting API. Take a look at GTA RP servers like NoPixel, they've been pushing the limits so hard on a 13 year old game.
And the same API exists for Red Dead 2, which has a visual upgrade over the engine used for GTA V.
I don't know, I guess I'm expecting something to be wrong since it's very frequent and common nowadays for AAA games to ship broken and incomplete.
If there's a game that can push higher prices, it's GTA VI. I'm not a fan of the last game, but I never expected a game to be one of the most anticipated entertainment products ever
Even then, being allowed to ship and package in Germany may as well be valid for other EU countries? I mean, you register in a single country (ideally where your business is) and then the other countries can just accept your packaging bureaucracy?
I'm thinking of doing the same. I got a Samsung Watch FE a couple of years ago and the only reason I used it was for the heart rate monitor and sleep tracking. But it's a hassle having to recharge it every day, so I'm willing to move to a OG Casio again.
It's not virtue signalling but it shows that if the author of said software (if there's one) didn't bother to spend time writing things on the website, there's a correlation that they wouldn't bother spending time writing code either.
And that's what I see first thing on the repo. Lots of LLM-style writing in the README, which makes me think if this is a vibecoded app, which looks like it.
I won't let them speak for me though. I think people who let AI speak for them in places other humans read probably couldn't speak for themselves pre-LLM. It's sad.
This is very subjective. You are willing to outsource one core competency (coding), but not another (documentation and other written comms) ?
I think the bigger personal challenge is to not outsource thinking, understanding and judgement as we leverage new tools, and to continue our personal learning journeys. After 20+ years as a software engineer, you can probably coast on past experience for a long time... but if you aren't learning and exercising (one way or another), your skills will stagnate. That would be sad.
I don’t think that’s necessarily true. The author might just dislike (or lack experience) in dealing with frontend.
Especially if it’s free or open source. It’s generous to even pay for a domain, right?
They did bother to do the thing they loved doing - the thing of value - and didn’t bother doing the boring thing. Instead of finding it within yourself to offer some thanks or encouragement you find an unimportant “blemish” to pile on. If that ain’t virtue signalling I don’t know what is.
It’s also an emphatic reminder of the truism that you just can’t please some people.
Long story short, Brazil's First Lady suggested at a security meeting that Discord should be banned because of some obscure servers that promote self-harm and other type of violence, targeted at minors.
The Attorney General took her suggestion and plans to take Discord to court and block it, despite Discord having moderation systems in place and the First Lady and other politicians not knowing this was done in a private server which is almost impossible to moderate.
On the other hand, mainstream social media like WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are used daily by organized crime to post pictures and videos of murders, assassinations and other crimes they commit, and no one's asking these platforms to be banned or the very least that something be done to remove the offending content from there.
This. Project would look a lot more cooler if it was done by a human. It was vibecoded to hell and I can't find a note on the README that says it was vibecoded and/or assisted with LLM.
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