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Per-seat codec licensing for Raspberry Pi

morgaine

I was quite disappointed by the news of additional optional licensing costs for Pi, announced in this  RPF blog article, "New video features! MPEG-2 and VC-1 decode, H.264 encode, CEC support"  -- http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1839 .  The costs are not high, but the principles involved are worrying.

 

These optional codec licenses are being sold tied to an individual Pi's serial number, so this is what's known as "per-seat licensing" in the education and commercial worlds.  Not only does it inflate the effective cost of Pi by some additional amount, but it is not portable from Pi to Pi.  That is especially bad news for hardware enthusiasts who inevitably take risks with their Pi, since it would appear that they will not be able to move this license to another Pi board.

 

The whole idea of adding restricted codec licenses to an educational product seems very misguided to me.  It's not contributing to the Pi's goal of education in the slightest, and it introduces the horrid issue of software patents which have a very chilling effect on innovation, education, and research.

 

Summary view:  the Pi is becoming more closed instead of more open.

 

Morgaine.

Parents

  • And separate from the matters of principle, a note about the matters of cost.

     

    The Pi Model B was launched for $35, its BOM cost being that or less for a production run of 10-30k units.  There are now allegedly more than 350,000 units in the field.  With the rise in production volumes, BOM costs drop like a downwardly mobile elephant, and can now be reasonably expected to be far below their original figures.

     

    Given that there is now a substantial (and probably quite large) headroom between BOM cost and market price, why is the cost of codec licensing not being covered as a built-in cost?  The license prices of  £2.40 and £1.20 for MPEG-2 and VC-1 are presumably way below the expected cost-price headroom, so this balkanization of Pi users into codec haves and have-nots seems entirely unnecessary.

     

    Morgaine.

Reply

  • And separate from the matters of principle, a note about the matters of cost.

     

    The Pi Model B was launched for $35, its BOM cost being that or less for a production run of 10-30k units.  There are now allegedly more than 350,000 units in the field.  With the rise in production volumes, BOM costs drop like a downwardly mobile elephant, and can now be reasonably expected to be far below their original figures.

     

    Given that there is now a substantial (and probably quite large) headroom between BOM cost and market price, why is the cost of codec licensing not being covered as a built-in cost?  The license prices of  £2.40 and £1.20 for MPEG-2 and VC-1 are presumably way below the expected cost-price headroom, so this balkanization of Pi users into codec haves and have-nots seems entirely unnecessary.

     

    Morgaine.

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