[Open-graphics] Re: Patents

[James Richard Tyrer]

luc wrote:
> Le jeudi 07 septembre 2006 à 11:26 -0700, James Richard Tyrer a écrit
> :
>> Lourens Veen wrote:
>>> I don't think anyone but Apple could sell a music player without
>>> mp3 support actually.
>> Currently true.  But, with Apple having a large share of the player
>>  market, AAC is still significant competition to MP3. The question
>> is will people buy non-iPod players that only support MP3 since it
>> is now considered to be an obsolete standard by the MPEG.  MP3 will
>> not decline till other newer systems have significant market
>> penetration.  But, this does not mean that there isn't significant
>> competition to MP3 currently.
> Not exactly, because the iPod plays as well the MP3 file format. It 
> would be more exact to say that Apple has locked the "usage" of the
> AAC file format (understand that a non-iPod AAC player can't read the
> AAC files from iTunes Store) but don't compete against the MP3 file
> format.

You are confusing the Apple iTunes DRM with the AAC codec.  Free and 
commercial software that uses AAC is available as well as licenses to 
use AAC.  If, in fact, it is not possible to play iTunes files on other 
systems, it is not due to the AAC codec.

http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT7150747782.html

The new RealPlayer supports AAC:

http://www.real.com/linux/

-- 
JRT