[FFmpeg-soc] AAC Encoding - Where we stand, what's left

[Robert Swain]

2009/7/9 Kostya <kostya.shishkov at gmail.com>:
> On Wed, Jul 08, 2009 at 10:03:10PM +0200, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
>> On Wed, Jul 08, 2009 at 09:05:41PM +0200, Diego Biurrun wrote:
> [...]
>> > > Libfaac has two incompatible licenses.
>> >
>> > Yes, that's why it is crap and needs to be replaced.  The 3GPP AAC
>> > encoder has just one license: prohibitively nonfree.  There is really
>> > nothing more to say about it...
>>
>> i agree, anyway, the idea that free software starts out of propriatary
>> code in which one function after the other is rewritten to make it "free"
>> really isnt all that impresive. If i may make some analogy, it feels like
>>
>> someone building a car by taking one of a competitor and replacing one part
>> after the other by his own vs. an engeneer designing a car from scratch
>> optimizing each part as well as the overal design and testing prototypes
>> to make sure its all perfect.
>>
>> Another thing this reminds me are the leica cameras, they where also copied
>> by pretty much everyone from europe over russia to japan, still, tell me
>> a single one of them who managed to build an equal let alone better camera
>> that way?
>
> I happen to live in a city where USSR Leika clones (aka FED) were
> produced. The funny situation here is that copying usually produced
> better results than design from scratch.
>
> But here's a counterexample - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-2_rocket

And I read a lengthy article about Chinese reverse engineering of
electronic products where they swapped out some parts for better
performing parts to improve the product. I doubt this happens in all
cases but I certainly don't think the two (using and improving
something existing versus starting something from scratch to achieve a
good implementation) are mutually exclusive.

Regards,
Rob