The threat of future lawsuits has helped persuade some companies to forsake VP8. Apple’s chief executive, Steve Jobs, explained in an email to the Free Software Foundation Europe last year that a patent pool was assembled to « go after » a previous open-source format. « All video codecs are covered by patents, » Mr. Jobs wrote. « Unfortunately, just because something is open-source, it doesn’t mean or guarantee that it doesn’t infringe on others patents. »