FAAC, LAME, Opensource and Legality Options

[layer3maniac]

Bearing in mind that both MPC and PsyTEL AAC are 'closed' codecs, at least from the encoder standpoint, and that PsyTEL, unless I am mistaken is not even meant to be in 'free' circulation, wouldn't there be some mileage in some of the brains involved in the tuning of Lame diverting the attention to FAAC?

I realise that binary distribution of FAAC is 'verboten' in the patent context, but the source is freely available and compiles very readily with MinGW32 and other free compilers.

Are there any points I am missing here other than the lack of binary distrubtions? Although, that does not seem to preclude other patent/copyright bound codecs finding there way into distribution through the back door!!

Anybody any views on this? I applaud all the efforts in relation to Lame improvements, it would just be nice to see similar efforts being put into emerging technologies. Before anyone asks, I don't have either the degree of programming skills required, nor the knowledge of audio compression techniques, otherwise I'd be there.

I have wondered this as well. Why does NOBODY seem interested in working on tuning FAAC? Even Ivan, for that matter? Obviously, he could lend a GREAT DEAL of expertise in this matter. He relies on FAAD a great deal, perhaps he could contribute something back to Menno's encoder. I've never really been clear on PsyTEL's business plan, but surely FAAC, even if it's well tuned, wouldn't pose a real threat to steal any corporate customers since they would have to scrounge around for binaries and wouldn't really have ANY tech support.

[Ivan Dimkovic]

I advise everyone to take a look at the 1998 snapshot of the FhG IIS website related to AAC:

http://web.archive.org/web/19981206125458/...cfaq/index.html

Q: Will there be a free decoder?   
    A: No. There is a public decoder source code available via MPEG but even when you use this public code, royalties have to be paid to the patent holders. For details on licensing, consult fhg.. Additionally, MPEG provides an encoder source code. This encoder is mainly intended to facilitate decoder development and does not provide AAC-like quality. 

Conclusion: From the very beginning of AAC commercial history (AAC was standardized in 1997) it was IMPOSSIBLE to make free decoder. This is not the case with MP3, because Mr. Brandenburg already stated that FhG has no intention to 'hunt' free, non-for-profit unlicensed MP3 decoders.