Thanks for the links. They might not convince me to change my views on patents but it's always nice to get the facts straight. Video codecs certainly have had

Thanks for the links. They might not convince me to change my views on patents but it's always nice to get the facts straight. Video codecs certainly have had the low hanging fruit picked, but if you look at the situation with video on the web today (ie. consumer level tech, not state of the art), the situation is not much better than in 1998 (to exaggerate a little): we're still using badly implemented browser plugins. We use Flash video because Adobe et al have the patent issue covered. Yes, HTML5 video exists but the actual codecs are such an IP and patent minefield that out-of-the-box support for video (esp. in open source browsers) isn't really ready for prime time.