Much of the debate is centered around the quasi-ubiquity of h264 and accepting the royalties involved and it's proprietary nature as a compromise that we are willing to make, which is very short sighted and dangerous.
Also the typical patent FUD in this article suggesting that WebM might violate patents without naming them is somewhat indicative of the author's motives.
I keep hearing the Flash analogy, which is nonsense, flash doesn't just do video playback, the technology is ubiquitously used in a variety of ways and is not comparable to a video codec, and does not have any of the patent licencing issues h264 has.
This move is a step forward towards openness as it will force publishers and users to consider the non-proprietary alternative.
The problematic word here is force. I don't enjoy being forced to "consider" using something by being prevented from using anything else, and when the people doing the forcing claim it's for "freedom" and "openness" I just scratch my head.
I mean, isn't it strange that browsers that only support certain vendor-chosen codecs are described as more open than the browsers that allow the user to install any codec they like?
Google is putting its foot down to ensure that web video isn't hijacked by a codec that is owned by a notorious organisation, and they're doing it at great cost to themselves- in terms of the blowback from this, and the amount of money they spent on On2, and the patent litigation that is almost certainly coming if webm gains any significant adoption. Mozilla and Google are fighting for your and my right to produce fully compliant browsers without having to pay somebody else. They're fighting for your right to fork.
Google is putting its foot down to ensure that web video isn't hijacked by [h.264]
What on earth do you mean by "hijacked"? Web video has been dominated by h.264 since it was added to Flash, and Google itself is among the most prominent pushers. It didn't sneak in through the back door, it reached it's current status the same way anything else on the web has: by being useful.
Mozilla and Google are fighting for your and my right to produce fully compliant browsers without having to pay somebody else.
This is what gets me scratching my head, because it's Mozilla and Google who are the ones trying to make browsers, not me. Mozilla and Google are acting in their own interests (which is fine, don't get me wrong) but they keep telling me that it's for my sake even though, if asked, I would tell them not to do what they're doing. It feels more like an ideological bludgeoning than a favor.
Also, I take issue with your saying "fully compliant". Codec support hasn't been a standards compliance issue since Ogg was (rightfully) pulled from the spec.
If anything, the fact that the spec is codec-agnostic suggests that the most "spiritually" compliant position would be for the implementation to be, as well. But that's not what we get from Mozilla or Google. For that kind of openness we have to turn to...Microsoft and Apple? Weird.
You're right, that was a poor choice of words. I meant dominated.
>Mozilla and Google who are the ones trying to make browsers, not me.
The point is that you shouldn't have to pay royalties to someone to ship a competitive browser which has support for the most widely used codec. Think of Rockmelt or Flock. If they had to pay millions to stay competitive, isn't that a net loss for the internet?
>Also, I take issue with your saying "fully compliant".
You're right again, I meant a competitive browser.
>If anything, the fact that the spec is codec-agnostic suggests that the most "spiritually" compliant position would be for the implementation to be, as well
I don't understand exactly what you mean here. I thought the whole point of HTML5 was that video becomes a first class citizen, so if I had to install a plugin for each codec, wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose? Or are you saying that every browser should include support for the widest range of codecs that it possibly can? I think its unfair to ask a non-profit organisation like Mozilla to license a codec for many millions of dollars. Could you elaborate?
Or are you saying that every browser should include support for the widest range of codecs that it possibly can?
No. Quite the opposite, actually.
I am saying that a reasonable approach would have been for the browsers to defer support to the operating system. Apple does this. Microsoft does this. Mozilla, Google, and Opera have instead chosen to limit support to only the codecs they implement in-browser. (I say "would have been" because there's practically zero chance of this happening now.)
One effect of this is that even on a system with h.264 already present you can't view it in those browsers. This is not a requirement of the HTML5 spec, an h.264 licensing issue or a technically intractable problem, but a choice made by those browser vendors to favor certain codecs.
The point is that while the debate is frequently framed as a standards issue it's really more about the ideology of implementing things on top of those standards.
Is it really at a great cost to themselves? How do we know that total cost of license fees per copy of Chrome plus license fees per copy of Android is less than the cost of buying On2?
Well, H.264 licenses top out at 6 million, I think. On2 was acquired for 133 million(check Wikipedia). And they've only removed H.264 from Chrome, it would be disastrous for them to do the same with Android. So even if they were to license H.264 for its patent lifetime, they've lost more money than they've saved.
I guess I don't understand the "force" aspect. As a distributor wouldn't you already be implementing WebM or Theora to satisfy Firefox/Opera? If so, how does Chrome all of a sudden force you to change?
As a Chrome use, what changes? All three codecs can be watched, H.264 however is through a sandboxed Flash player.
>Also the typical patent FUD in this article suggesting that WebM might violate patents without naming them is somewhat indicative of the author's motives.
Stating that Webm might turn into a patent minefield is FUD now? What happened to journalistic freedom and rational discourse?
If I say "with additional research, it may be discovered that there's a correlation between eating corn and various degenerative diseases, and therefor you should not eat corn" with no evidence to support that assertion, it is FUD. Similarly, if I say "with additional research, it may be discovered that WebM infringes on patents, and therefor you should not use it" with no evidence to support that assertion, it is FUD. If a claim is unsupported but used as a criticism of something - especially a reason not to use a product - then it is FUD.
I keep hearing the Flash analogy, which is nonsense, flash doesn't just do video playback, the technology is ubiquitously used in a variety of ways and is not comparable to a video codec, and does not have any of the patent licencing issues h264 has.
This move is a step forward towards openness as it will force publishers and users to consider the non-proprietary alternative.