If Adobe was smart, they would be working on a separate plugin that only does video, nothing more. It would require a new download, but with their ubiquitous market presence that shouldn't be hard to accomplish. They would bundle it along with the regular Flash update.
What they need to do is create the lightest weight wrapper for video possible, one that is able to access hardware acceleration for h.264 and can run on mobile devices without draining the battery. It of course would still not be as efficient as native compiled in code but in light of the impending battles among the other big players, Adobe could very easily take over the video market, again, as if they don't already own it.
They simply inherit the market due to the greediness and stubbornness of the the other competitors. Not saying that is a good thing, just that it is a possible scenario.
As far as the iOS is concerned I wouldn't mind seeing it on the home screen replacing the YouTube app. It could search YouTube and other video distribution sites as well.
We need some standardization in video delivery. I don't care where it comes from as long as it puts an end to this stupid video controversy that has been raging on for more than a decade.
Then you really should be very very skeptical of any move supported by RMS and the FSF.
Politicians often manipulate special interest groups using emotional issues.
The single issue FOSS people are exactly the same. They will support something that has the words 'free' and 'open' attached to it, regardless of whether reality bears out that description out or not, and despite the fact that by doing so they essentially abandon all other principles that they purportedly hold.
The only content supplier that really matters here is youtube due to its monopoly on web video. It makes no difference if browsers support it or not.
It's just odd for Google to make these moves against Apple.
By pushing Android they created iAds and the addition of Bing as a search provider on the iPhone.
By pushing WebM on Chrome the only likely outcome will be a better Safari to attempt to crush Chrome on Windows as opposed to its current somewhat neglected state.
If they force WebM on YouTube...well...ask MySpace on how quickly the landscape can change. Vimeo seems like a reasonable alternative if iOS gets locked out of YouTube content.
The thing is that what Google does really well is very interesting to advertisers but not necessarily all that important to users. Where I host or watch video isn't all that important to me. I do not care if the hosting site is supported by hardware sales or adwords as long as it is fast, it works easily and well and has a lot of content I care about.
A mid-term solution that would appease both Apple and open web fanatics is: all browsers commit support to at least one common royalty-free codec (any royalty-free codec, doesn't need to be WebM).
This way, everybody would know that at least a fallback is available, and those that need higher resolutions or have other needs could opt to serve or consume video using different codecs (H.264 or any other that appear in the future).
Also this would ensure that existing and new players could at least support a base video format. Opera for example has stated that they can't afford the $6,5 million year/fees required by H.264. Yes for relatively small companies this may be a big deal. I'm sure there are other cases, and also we can't ignore new, non-established players or developers in poor countries that would be out of the game because of the potential fees.
Providing a base codec would also ensure that any software maker, and specially small ones and those that provide software under permissive licenses, could ship that base codec for embedded devices and other targets where the OS doesn't provide the mainstream codec.
And Apple, Microsoft could continue supporting H.264 as their mainstream codec for the web. Firefox, Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror etc get a plugin to play H.264, and everybody becomes happy.
Doesn't it sound like the perfect solution? Trying to be reasonable here.
Thanks for the reasonable post. At least one of you has something new to say rather than endlessly chasing everyone around in circles.
Given the available choices for a royalty-free codec/wrapper - Theora and WebM - I'm glad it looks like people are moving to WebM because at least it's better than Theora. However, being better than Theora doesn't stop it being much worse than H.264 for a variety of reasons, chiefly:
hardware support
efficiency (i.e. video quality at a given bitrate)
encoding tools
You may contend that hardware support for WebM is "coming", but a move to WebM now immediately obsolesces all mobile handsets currently in use and I find that deeply wasteful. And even when we do get hardware support, that's not going to be able to do anything about WebM's poor video quality.
I think what you've missed is the thing we find most abhorrent about Google's move is not the support of WebM, but the simultaneous removal of H.264. You also seem to not appreciate that Opera's and Mozilla's reasons for not including support for H.264 are blindly ideological and have nothing to do with finances despite what they may say. It is well within the realms of technical feasibility for Opera and Mozilla to support H.264 delivered via HTML5 without either entity having to pay licensing fees: for OS X and Windows they can use those OS's built-in support, for Linux they can require the user download and compile a suitable open-source implementation of which there are many (they could easily provide applications to automate this download and compile process, but when has compilation ever been a barrier to a Linux user?).
It has been shown through many different posts in this thread that there is absolutely zero benefit to the end user if web video moves to WebM. A move to WebM gives you poorer battery life, inability to play back high-res video on mobile devices (due to limited CPU power), worse quality video and it doesn't save you a dime. In terms of hardware and software licensing costs, once the costs have been spread over all the devices a given manufacturer sells, the attributable cost of licensing on each individual product sold is negligible. In other words, if the manufacturer didn't have to pay any licensing fees, your product wouldn't be any cheaper. In terms of licensing for the delivery of content, the MPEG-LA as already stated that, in perpetuity, if a content provider wishes to provide their content with no charge to the end user, the content provider need not pay any licensing fees. Fees are only due if the content provider wishes to charge anyway, and again once you spread the cost over all users it becomes negligibly small from the perspective of said end users. So a royalty-free codec would not save you anything here either.
So, where exactly is the benefit of going WebM instead of H.264? Given that it is currently technically inferior to H.264 and offers no benefit to the end user, it seems to me a massive waste of human effort to go around developing hardware encode/decode solutions and trying to improve the software solutions. I'd rather that effort were expended trying to further improve implementations of H.264.
You bring up some interesting points. This makes more sense, I suppose.
So the technology stack for content (and ad) delivery really doesn't matter to advertisers insofar as they aren't directly consuming the content. They benefit when the content reaches the masses and it results in sales. So I guess Google is an advertising company with it's own technology stack? It doesn't produce technology "for end users". It creates that technology for its advertising customers. Well then. All the more reason for consumers to favor companies that produce technology for them.
And privacy? How much did it cost to have some spy on what you like. This would mean that companies could make more money on their products just bu buying information about how you behave and what your preferences are. And then we have the much worse abuses. The time to pay to google hasnt come yet but I for one have changed all my 7 machines to yahoo searches for now. I Suggest you do the math for your self.
Why cant we get a deasent search engine thats simple and doesnt screw up the results. Oh right that WAS google back in the days
What about google then? Everybody is having its sights on all the other players while google is the good samaritan by GIVING AWAY software??? Is this just me or is this not the classic way google is playing to get the wooden horse inside your computer so they can make even more money on your privacy. What I think is even more disturbing is that the internet doesnt seem to have any laws that govern companies in general. Google is much less disturbed by local laws than other companies that produce hardware/software. Google is to much in the woodworks for my likes. And I will use my power to use as little of googles products as possible. I have no problem in paying for my use, but a lot of people seem to disagree on this. For many everything should be FREE as in beer: music, games and films. Google fills this woid of not wanting to pay for the dinner but remember that there is no free dinner. The taxman WILL collect, trust me on this. Googles next step will be to better its profiling of a specific user. Who knows what they allready do to those whom use ther search, mobile, browser etc. All we have is a "promise" that they wont b evil". Why am not so assured??? Oh they are a BUSINESS that wants to make MORE money than before and they do this by selling infromation to advertisers (yea about you).
Why dont people like OS folks talk about search privacy concerns, sold advertisements that your not searching. The truth is being sold to the highest bidder and the loser is allways the small guy (whos information is being sold).
It's just odd for Google to make these moves against Apple.
By pushing Android they created iAds and the addition of Bing as a search provider on the iPhone.
...
If they force WebM on YouTube...well...ask MySpace on how quickly the landscape can change. Vimeo seems like a reasonable alternative if iOS gets locked out of YouTube content.
While Google has already pushed their deal too far, I really doubt Google is willing to go that far. Right now, they probably nicked a toe, YouTube in WebM only would be shooting their foot clean off.
I would really love it if Apple would plug Vimeo, though it's not really necessary to have an app. The Vimeo site works very well with Safari iOS.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Firefly7475
The problem is that the word "open" is inherently ambiguous. Open standard, open web standard, open source... there are so many conflicting and contextual definitions of the word "open" that it's pointless arguing about a specific meaning.
I think that's the core problem. Neither side is conceding there are meanings to "open" other than the one they've chosen, each organization has chosen to frame it in a definition that works for them. It's like that prank where one person asks another if their refrigerator is running, running doesn't always mean movement. But Apple did something about something that is less open than h.264 - Flash. Google still gives it a relatively free pass, which is a lot more closed than h.264, at least without spinning the argument into a rope and a noose for oneself.
After reading about all this Google controversy on my sites, the thing driven home to me is what you post below. So I finally decided to pay Apple for Mobile Me and get rid of my Gmail accounts, all of them. I had Google Apps for my website mail too (the were the mailserver for my domain email, now it is back in GoDaddy's hands) I agree with what people have said, I would rather knowingly pay for services than to be broadsided with hidden costs and surprises later.
And Mobile Me is actually quite good. Easy to use, no ads, and the file sharing with my iDisk is practically worth the price of admission alone. I was using Godaddy for large file sharing between myself and clients, but it wasn't easy to use and still was expensive for large enough space to be worth anything. I also like all of the syncing with my computers and iPod (and soon iPad). So I am actually quite happy I switched!
I am testing out other search engines. I like Startpage. I got Glim for Safari so now I have lots of choices.
So, yeah, what someone else said about Google shooting themselves in the foot. Piss people off enough and they go some where else.
Quote:
Originally Posted by habi
And privacy? How much did it cost to have some spy on what you like. This would mean that companies could make more money on their products just bu buying information about how you behave and what your preferences are. And then we have the much worse abuses. The time to pay to google hasnt come yet but I for one have changed all my 7 machines to yahoo searches for now. I Suggest you do the math for your self.
Why cant we get a deasent search engine thats simple and doesnt screw up the results. Oh right that WAS google back in the days
What about google then? Everybody is having its sights on all the other players while google is the good samaritan by GIVING AWAY software??? Is this just me or is this not the classic way google is playing to get the wooden horse inside your computer so they can make even more money on your privacy. What I think is even more disturbing is that the internet doesnt seem to have any laws that govern companies in general. Google is much less disturbed by local laws than other companies that produce hardware/software. Google is to much in the woodworks for my likes. And I will use my power to use as little of googles products as possible. I have no problem in paying for my use, but a lot of people seem to disagree on this. For many everything should be FREE as in beer: music, games and films. Google fills this woid of not wanting to pay for the dinner but remember that there is no free dinner. The taxman WILL collect, trust me on this. Googles next step will be to better its profiling of a specific user. Who knows what they allready do to those whom use ther search, mobile, browser etc. All we have is a "promise" that they wont b evil". Why am not so assured??? Oh they are a BUSINESS that wants to make MORE money than before and they do this by selling infromation to advertisers (yea about you).
Why dont people like OS folks talk about search privacy concerns, sold advertisements that your not searching. The truth is being sold to the highest bidder and the loser is allways the small guy (whos information is being sold).
I should have nipped the part of the post about religion & politics sooner, they're both off topic and they're the kind of things that tend to derail a discussion.
You can go to an open air cinema, but you still have to buy a ticket before you go it!
This has got nothing to do with open standards.
Quote:
The problem is that the word "open" is inherently ambiguous.
Not in this case. The definition of an open web standard is extremely clear.
Quote:
The question here is what are the implications to the to the end users of the web of each competing codec becoming standard, and of Google's decision to support WebM?
If h264 wins, the implication is that a closed standard becomes a central part of the web, and that is a huge step back.
A mid-term solution that would appease both Apple and open web fanatics is: all browsers commit support to at least one common royalty-free codec (any royalty-free codec, doesn't need to be WebM).
Quote:
Doesn't it sound like the perfect solution? Trying to be reasonable here.
This was exactly what the W3C wanted to do, but Nokia and Apple refused.
It's actually pretty funny the way you post links, as though they actually prove your statements, when in fact they don't do anything of the sort. Is it that you don't bother to read them or that you hope we won't.
You can't even be bothered to read the W3C patent policy, so clearly you don't give a crap.
Quote:
MPEG-LA isn't a cartel, it's simply an entity that handles the licensing for an open standard.
It is a cartel, and h264 is not an open standard..
Quote:
An open standard that is available for anyone to license
Which means that it isn't open. Did you read the patent policy yet?
Quote:
I think it's kind of interesting that I write an entire post about how Google is a threat to an open web
Your paranoid delusions are quite irrelevant. It is based on your anti-Google fanboyism.
Quote:
Or, are you a shill being paid to come here to post in support of Google.
Are you a shill being paid to come here to post in support of Apple?
Quote:
You're wrong on all counts, of course, but I'm happy we've exposed why you are really here.
Comments
As a programmer by profession, I wholeheartedly agree.
Then you really should be very very skeptical of any move supported by RMS and the FSF.
What they need to do is create the lightest weight wrapper for video possible, one that is able to access hardware acceleration for h.264 and can run on mobile devices without draining the battery. It of course would still not be as efficient as native compiled in code but in light of the impending battles among the other big players, Adobe could very easily take over the video market, again, as if they don't already own it.
They simply inherit the market due to the greediness and stubbornness of the the other competitors. Not saying that is a good thing, just that it is a possible scenario.
As far as the iOS is concerned I wouldn't mind seeing it on the home screen replacing the YouTube app. It could search YouTube and other video distribution sites as well.
We need some standardization in video delivery. I don't care where it comes from as long as it puts an end to this stupid video controversy that has been raging on for more than a decade.
Then you really should be very very skeptical of any move supported by RMS and the FSF.
Politicians often manipulate special interest groups using emotional issues.
The single issue FOSS people are exactly the same. They will support something that has the words 'free' and 'open' attached to it, regardless of whether reality bears out that description out or not, and despite the fact that by doing so they essentially abandon all other principles that they purportedly hold.
The only content supplier that really matters here is youtube due to its monopoly on web video. It makes no difference if browsers support it or not.
It's just odd for Google to make these moves against Apple.
By pushing Android they created iAds and the addition of Bing as a search provider on the iPhone.
By pushing WebM on Chrome the only likely outcome will be a better Safari to attempt to crush Chrome on Windows as opposed to its current somewhat neglected state.
If they force WebM on YouTube...well...ask MySpace on how quickly the landscape can change. Vimeo seems like a reasonable alternative if iOS gets locked out of YouTube content.
The thing is that what Google does really well is very interesting to advertisers but not necessarily all that important to users. Where I host or watch video isn't all that important to me. I do not care if the hosting site is supported by hardware sales or adwords as long as it is fast, it works easily and well and has a lot of content I care about.
Here take it, its free!
Come to the bright side , we've got cookies!
Don't be evil!
No. I think this would be plain wrong.
A mid-term solution that would appease both Apple and open web fanatics is: all browsers commit support to at least one common royalty-free codec (any royalty-free codec, doesn't need to be WebM).
This way, everybody would know that at least a fallback is available, and those that need higher resolutions or have other needs could opt to serve or consume video using different codecs (H.264 or any other that appear in the future).
Also this would ensure that existing and new players could at least support a base video format. Opera for example has stated that they can't afford the $6,5 million year/fees required by H.264. Yes for relatively small companies this may be a big deal. I'm sure there are other cases, and also we can't ignore new, non-established players or developers in poor countries that would be out of the game because of the potential fees.
Providing a base codec would also ensure that any software maker, and specially small ones and those that provide software under permissive licenses, could ship that base codec for embedded devices and other targets where the OS doesn't provide the mainstream codec.
And Apple, Microsoft could continue supporting H.264 as their mainstream codec for the web. Firefox, Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Konqueror etc get a plugin to play H.264, and everybody becomes happy.
Doesn't it sound like the perfect solution? Trying to be reasonable here.
Thanks for the reasonable post. At least one of you has something new to say rather than endlessly chasing everyone around in circles.
Given the available choices for a royalty-free codec/wrapper - Theora and WebM - I'm glad it looks like people are moving to WebM because at least it's better than Theora. However, being better than Theora doesn't stop it being much worse than H.264 for a variety of reasons, chiefly:
- hardware support
- efficiency (i.e. video quality at a given bitrate)
- encoding tools
You may contend that hardware support for WebM is "coming", but a move to WebM now immediately obsolesces all mobile handsets currently in use and I find that deeply wasteful. And even when we do get hardware support, that's not going to be able to do anything about WebM's poor video quality.I think what you've missed is the thing we find most abhorrent about Google's move is not the support of WebM, but the simultaneous removal of H.264. You also seem to not appreciate that Opera's and Mozilla's reasons for not including support for H.264 are blindly ideological and have nothing to do with finances despite what they may say. It is well within the realms of technical feasibility for Opera and Mozilla to support H.264 delivered via HTML5 without either entity having to pay licensing fees: for OS X and Windows they can use those OS's built-in support, for Linux they can require the user download and compile a suitable open-source implementation of which there are many (they could easily provide applications to automate this download and compile process, but when has compilation ever been a barrier to a Linux user?).
It has been shown through many different posts in this thread that there is absolutely zero benefit to the end user if web video moves to WebM. A move to WebM gives you poorer battery life, inability to play back high-res video on mobile devices (due to limited CPU power), worse quality video and it doesn't save you a dime. In terms of hardware and software licensing costs, once the costs have been spread over all the devices a given manufacturer sells, the attributable cost of licensing on each individual product sold is negligible. In other words, if the manufacturer didn't have to pay any licensing fees, your product wouldn't be any cheaper. In terms of licensing for the delivery of content, the MPEG-LA as already stated that, in perpetuity, if a content provider wishes to provide their content with no charge to the end user, the content provider need not pay any licensing fees. Fees are only due if the content provider wishes to charge anyway, and again once you spread the cost over all users it becomes negligibly small from the perspective of said end users. So a royalty-free codec would not save you anything here either.
So, where exactly is the benefit of going WebM instead of H.264? Given that it is currently technically inferior to H.264 and offers no benefit to the end user, it seems to me a massive waste of human effort to go around developing hardware encode/decode solutions and trying to improve the software solutions. I'd rather that effort were expended trying to further improve implementations of H.264.
You bring up some interesting points. This makes more sense, I suppose.
So the technology stack for content (and ad) delivery really doesn't matter to advertisers insofar as they aren't directly consuming the content. They benefit when the content reaches the masses and it results in sales. So I guess Google is an advertising company with it's own technology stack? It doesn't produce technology "for end users". It creates that technology for its advertising customers. Well then. All the more reason for consumers to favor companies that produce technology for them.
And privacy? How much did it cost to have some spy on what you like. This would mean that companies could make more money on their products just bu buying information about how you behave and what your preferences are. And then we have the much worse abuses. The time to pay to google hasnt come yet but I for one have changed all my 7 machines to yahoo searches for now. I Suggest you do the math for your self.
Why cant we get a deasent search engine thats simple and doesnt screw up the results. Oh right that WAS google back in the days
What about google then? Everybody is having its sights on all the other players while google is the good samaritan by GIVING AWAY software??? Is this just me or is this not the classic way google is playing to get the wooden horse inside your computer so they can make even more money on your privacy. What I think is even more disturbing is that the internet doesnt seem to have any laws that govern companies in general. Google is much less disturbed by local laws than other companies that produce hardware/software. Google is to much in the woodworks for my likes. And I will use my power to use as little of googles products as possible. I have no problem in paying for my use, but a lot of people seem to disagree on this. For many everything should be FREE as in beer: music, games and films. Google fills this woid of not wanting to pay for the dinner but remember that there is no free dinner. The taxman WILL collect, trust me on this. Googles next step will be to better its profiling of a specific user. Who knows what they allready do to those whom use ther search, mobile, browser etc. All we have is a "promise" that they wont b evil". Why am not so assured??? Oh they are a BUSINESS that wants to make MORE money than before and they do this by selling infromation to advertisers (yea about you).
Why dont people like OS folks talk about search privacy concerns, sold advertisements that your not searching. The truth is being sold to the highest bidder and the loser is allways the small guy (whos information is being sold).
It's just odd for Google to make these moves against Apple.
By pushing Android they created iAds and the addition of Bing as a search provider on the iPhone.
...
If they force WebM on YouTube...well...ask MySpace on how quickly the landscape can change. Vimeo seems like a reasonable alternative if iOS gets locked out of YouTube content.
While Google has already pushed their deal too far, I really doubt Google is willing to go that far. Right now, they probably nicked a toe, YouTube in WebM only would be shooting their foot clean off.
I would really love it if Apple would plug Vimeo, though it's not really necessary to have an app. The Vimeo site works very well with Safari iOS.
The problem is that the word "open" is inherently ambiguous. Open standard, open web standard, open source... there are so many conflicting and contextual definitions of the word "open" that it's pointless arguing about a specific meaning.
I think that's the core problem. Neither side is conceding there are meanings to "open" other than the one they've chosen, each organization has chosen to frame it in a definition that works for them. It's like that prank where one person asks another if their refrigerator is running, running doesn't always mean movement. But Apple did something about something that is less open than h.264 - Flash. Google still gives it a relatively free pass, which is a lot more closed than h.264, at least without spinning the argument into a rope and a noose for oneself.
Everything the Republican party stands for is diametrically opposed to Christianity
wow. that's a bit overstated, don't you think?
wow. that's a bit overstated, don't you think?
Not at all.
wow. that's a bit overstated, don't you think?
And Mobile Me is actually quite good. Easy to use, no ads, and the file sharing with my iDisk is practically worth the price of admission alone. I was using Godaddy for large file sharing between myself and clients, but it wasn't easy to use and still was expensive for large enough space to be worth anything. I also like all of the syncing with my computers and iPod (and soon iPad). So I am actually quite happy I switched!
I am testing out other search engines. I like Startpage. I got Glim for Safari so now I have lots of choices.
So, yeah, what someone else said about Google shooting themselves in the foot. Piss people off enough and they go some where else.
And privacy? How much did it cost to have some spy on what you like. This would mean that companies could make more money on their products just bu buying information about how you behave and what your preferences are. And then we have the much worse abuses. The time to pay to google hasnt come yet but I for one have changed all my 7 machines to yahoo searches for now. I Suggest you do the math for your self.
Why cant we get a deasent search engine thats simple and doesnt screw up the results. Oh right that WAS google back in the days
What about google then? Everybody is having its sights on all the other players while google is the good samaritan by GIVING AWAY software??? Is this just me or is this not the classic way google is playing to get the wooden horse inside your computer so they can make even more money on your privacy. What I think is even more disturbing is that the internet doesnt seem to have any laws that govern companies in general. Google is much less disturbed by local laws than other companies that produce hardware/software. Google is to much in the woodworks for my likes. And I will use my power to use as little of googles products as possible. I have no problem in paying for my use, but a lot of people seem to disagree on this. For many everything should be FREE as in beer: music, games and films. Google fills this woid of not wanting to pay for the dinner but remember that there is no free dinner. The taxman WILL collect, trust me on this. Googles next step will be to better its profiling of a specific user. Who knows what they allready do to those whom use ther search, mobile, browser etc. All we have is a "promise" that they wont b evil". Why am not so assured??? Oh they are a BUSINESS that wants to make MORE money than before and they do this by selling infromation to advertisers (yea about you).
Why dont people like OS folks talk about search privacy concerns, sold advertisements that your not searching. The truth is being sold to the highest bidder and the loser is allways the small guy (whos information is being sold).
You can go to an open air cinema, but you still have to buy a ticket before you go it!
This has got nothing to do with open standards.
The problem is that the word "open" is inherently ambiguous.
Not in this case. The definition of an open web standard is extremely clear.
The question here is what are the implications to the to the end users of the web of each competing codec becoming standard, and of Google's decision to support WebM?
If h264 wins, the implication is that a closed standard becomes a central part of the web, and that is a huge step back.
A mid-term solution that would appease both Apple and open web fanatics is: all browsers commit support to at least one common royalty-free codec (any royalty-free codec, doesn't need to be WebM).
Doesn't it sound like the perfect solution? Trying to be reasonable here.
This was exactly what the W3C wanted to do, but Nokia and Apple refused.
Who is going to install WebM as a system codec? Seriously?
Simple. YouTube could just go "here, click this link and answer yes to the questions".
It's actually pretty funny the way you post links, as though they actually prove your statements, when in fact they don't do anything of the sort. Is it that you don't bother to read them or that you hope we won't.
You can't even be bothered to read the W3C patent policy, so clearly you don't give a crap.
MPEG-LA isn't a cartel, it's simply an entity that handles the licensing for an open standard.
It is a cartel, and h264 is not an open standard..
An open standard that is available for anyone to license
Which means that it isn't open. Did you read the patent policy yet?
I think it's kind of interesting that I write an entire post about how Google is a threat to an open web
Your paranoid delusions are quite irrelevant. It is based on your anti-Google fanboyism.
Or, are you a shill being paid to come here to post in support of Google.
Are you a shill being paid to come here to post in support of Apple?
You're wrong on all counts, of course, but I'm happy we've exposed why you are really here.
Paranoid delusions are fun, aren't they?