Sony (finally) admits mistake

[alklloyd]

I know most people here have seen this on /., but I thought it worth a mention here for all of us sick of their attempts to ram proprietary formats down our throats...

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_...E15306,00.html

Al

[astcell]

Wasn't Mac just as ignorant by not licensing out any of its technology?

[TheCotMan]

Wasn't Mac just as ignorant by not licensing out any of its technology?

Apple started to do that with many things but then they flip-flopped.

Consider the earlier issues with the Laser 128, Franklin, and Apple ][. They started out protecting their rights, then considered costs for licensing, then went back to the lawyers.

They have done this with many thing since then to differing degrees:

Apple Newton
Apple's Network Control Assistant for Mac OS 7, 8 and 9 was licensed to SmartStuff (makers of FoolProof) as a NetWork assistant to remote control lab machines, re-image, install and uninstall software, but then Apple altered their support.
Even later, Apple looked to license their hardware to other computer vendors. Other hardware vendors made clones of Apple Hardware and we saw other operating systems comes to play on this software, but then, once again, Apple change their way and stopped licensing rights for vendors to make compatable hardware. (Power Computing was one of these, but there were others too.)

Apple has tried to "share" but they seem to act like a stingy neurotic child with ADD.

The most recent form of sharing seems to be lasting. This is in the OpenSource work and contributions through Darwin. I wonder if Apple will again do a 180 with it though.

[astcell]

Kind of tough to keep lawyers and a marketing department working together. They both want what's good for the company but have entirely different ways of going about it.

[bascule]

Well, this is coming from the guy behind the PSP, which supports MP3 and MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) in hardware, the latter being pretty much the best open video codec currently available. Sony has certainly changed its ways...