H.264 is "open" in the sense that the specifications are public, anyone can write their own implementation and a level of backward compatibility is warranted. This is in contrast to flash or real where the specifications are controlled and adobe can change them at any time so that a new version of flash may make all third party players incompatible at any moment (although adobe is opening the flash specs as we speak, so flash may also become "open").

H.264 is not "free" because it is covered by various patents. But those patents have been organized in patent pools with clear and non discriminatory licensing conditions.


So in practice, there are 3 types of specifications:
-"closed", third parties have to reverse engineer the specs, they may be sued at any moment for patent infringement, compatibility may be broken at any moment.
-"open": third parties can get a description of the specs, patent licensing is easy and non-discriminatory, a good level of compatibility is insured.
-"free": same as "open" without the patents and the costs.


As to Apple and youtube: youtube is owned by google. Both Apple and google have interest in the web using "open" standards, so it is not as if it was an exclusive deal for the iPhone. And market share, whatever that means, is not the only criteria. What is best from a business point of view:
-investing money for you site to be viewable by 10 millions people, of which 99% will not bring any revenue or
-investing money for you site to be viewable by 1 million people, of which 50% will bring revenue?

This was always the problem with Linux users: they are not a good market target (they want everything to be free...), unless you sell computer hardware maybe. On the contrary, the iPhone (and Apple computers in general) are bought by people obviously having money and ready to spend a little more for good design and ease of use. They are a very attractive market target.

Why oh WHY did i read this whole thread?

I always thought it was the other way round - open as in open source and free as in not payed for, but still closed.

As for the Youtube - it was available for the iPhone as an internal application from the first update i think. I doubt Google was the only side interested in this deal - face it, iPhone will be a lesser hit if there was no Youtube on it. Don't know who first gave the idea, but i'm sure there is a fat contract to protect the interests of both sides.

'free' in this respect refers to 'free as in "freedom"', not to 'free as in "free beer"'. So Jerome got it right.

well if we are talking gnu free, there is this:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

thing is that with those freedoms intact, the cost of software gravitates towards the cost of distribution. and with the net making that virtually zero, free as in freedom can become free as in beer quite fast. and this is the same problem thats facing the entertainment "industries".

I always hated that 'free as in beer' phrase. What does it mean? Beer isn't free.
It is a very stupid expression

Well, there could be free beer, and there is free speech, but TANSTAAFL, so I guess the reason beer isn't free is because someone would have it for lunch and destroy the universe.

(RMS originally did not say free as in freedom ala TA-T3 & tso above; "free as in speech" means free as in free speech, and likewise WRT beer.)

I agree it is very confusing, shouldn't it be free as in lunch?

Then again, there is free beer

http://www.freebeer.org

I agree about the "free as in beer" phrase. Not only is beer not (normally) free, but "free beer" has all sorts of connotations (drunken frat boys, etc) that are completely incongruous with any discussion of free software.

How about, "free as in water," since there is still (some) free water? "Free as in air" has the same double-meaning problem as "free software".

EDIT: Bundyo, cut it out You're just muddying the water! Or beer. That "Free Beer" is free, as in speech!