11 ms·

Google Chrome's H.264 support not true "free" software

54 points by cpearce 17y ago

GHFigs 17y ago
Mozilla has taken on the responsibility of providing a free-software solution for browsing the web ..and in so doing they have intentionally crippled their browser's ability to play one of the most widely used video formats. To some of us, this sounds like a dumb move. Hence "get with the program", that program being the one where you attempt to build the best software for browsing the web.
- Sanguinez 17y ago
  It just depends how much you value your freedom.
  - pohl 17y ago
    I understand the issue, but in practice I worry about the patents that cover H.264 about as much as I do those that cover the PDF spec...which is to say: not at all.
    - metajack 17y ago
      How are these comprable? Adobe has a patent agreement that says it won't sue you if you are implementing PDF or PostScript. Sure, it's maybe not absolute freedom, but it is markedly better than the situation with any of the encumbered audio codecs. I'm not an adobe defender by any means, but the practical consequence of this is that there exists a lot of Free Software that supports PDF and PostScript (like Ghostscript) and ships with all distros. The situation for H.264 is hardly similar.
    - Sanguinez 17y ago
      Ah so if YOU don't worry about, I guess everything is going to be fine :)
    - metajack 17y ago
      A second point I forgot to mention is that I do not know of Adobe suing anyone over standard PDF/PostScript features, but there is a long history of Thompson and all the other audio/video patent holders being very litigious and threatening. Perhaps no one remembers 8hz-enc or why the LAME project doesn't distribute binaries (or at least didn't for a long time; I've not looked lately). The story for MP3 players wasn't a super happy one either at one time.
  - jws 17y ago
    I value watching non-crappy video enough to pay $0.20 for an H.264 license. I value the runtime on my battery operated devices enough to pay $0.20 for an efficiently decoded format. (Maybe that is more than $0.20. Depending on volume the H.264 is $0.00, $0.20, or $0.10, but I think there is a base license also required that I can't find. In any event, adding H.264 to a computer probably costs less than half a can of beer.) http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Documents/AVC_TermsSummary.pdf http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Documents/AVC_TermsS... And remember, I am still allowed to do anything I want with the code. I just have to give MPEG-LA half a can of beer do it.
    - Sanguinez 17y ago
      So it looks like your value your freedom to $0.20. "And remember, I am still allowed to do anything I want with the code. I just have to give MPEG-LA half a can of beer do it." Then free software would'nt be ablo to be free software. You cannot preserve freedom this way.
      - ez77 17y ago
        You mean software freedom, I guess. Personal freedom is greater with BSD than GPL, and with public-domain software than with any of them. Personal freedom includes the right to sell software at $0.20 or $200, and the customer's right to buy it or not. For the record, I'm against software patents, but also against being forced to publish one's code, which incidentally maximizes personal freedom.
        Sanguinez 17y ago
        Yes I mean software freedom. Well, free software (whether it is GNU/GPL or BSD-like) allow you to sell it. But how could it remain free (as in freedom) if redistribution has strings attached?
        ubernostrum 17y ago
        But how could it remain free (as in freedom) if redistribution has strings attached? This is the problem right here; you used a term without bothering to mention that you're using a very specific definition of that term. In your view "freedom" does not mean maximizing my rights to do things with the software; instead, it involves deliberately limiting my rights in order to force me to pass along (your definition of) "freedom" to others. There are definitions of freedom, many surprisingly common, which do not include that little quirk, and you'll find that "give up some of your freedom for someone else's sake" is, to many people, like saying "pay higher taxes so someone else can benefit".
  - GHFigs 17y ago
    Except that's bullshit and you're attempting to paint critics of ham-fisted attempts to promote an ideology through user punishment as not valuing freedom, rather than actually explaining why the dumb move should not be called a dumb move. Let me be clear: I welcome your rebuttal, and I will read it with an open mind. What I will not do, for you, for Mozilla, or any of the multitude in the Free Software movement and elsewhere that use this tactic is sit and wring my hands about how I'm no longer in the freedom-valuer's club or try to claw my way back into proper thought by hemming and hawing and qualifying my opinion until it is meaningless.
    - Sanguinez 17y ago
      Why is it bullshit? I never implied anything about you/ How using H.264 would be beneficial to free software and open standards? This is really about how much you value your freedom. About at what point you will abandon your freedom for any other advantage, such as hardware support (proprietary drivers in the linux kernel for instance) or performance (h.264 vs theora in this case). So this more about being willing to sacrifice a little bit of performance for your freedom than looking for best performances at all costs. Theora is getting continuously improved and is catching up little by little. They may also be some other company releasing some other codecs under free software-friendly licenses, who knows? But in the mean time, what is more important to you (as a user, in general): performance or freedom? So if you don't care about your freedom, it is understandable you wouldn't care less about theora vs h.264. If you would care a little bit more, you would be ready to compromise on some parts, and if you have a long beard, you wouldn't compromise at all. And I am also wondering, if mozilla starts accepting patented or proprietary technologies, where would you draw the line? How would you ensure Mozilla's products remain free (as in freedom)
      - GHFigs 17y ago
        You're still doing exactly what I just said ("attempting to paint critics of [of what Mozilla is doing] as not valuing freedom") with lines like "what is more important to you: performance or freedom?"--as if any dumb move can be absolved by saying you did it for the sake of freedom. I don't know what to make of most of your second paragraph, as I've made no argument about performance. I'm talking about the simple fact that Firefox users cannot view certain content that is being deployed on the web today (h.264 in <video>) because Mozilla has chosen to use the size of its user base to "encourage" the adoption of Theora. This is not freedom. This is stupid. if mozilla starts accepting patented or proprietary technologies Nobody is saying they have to. There are a half dozen other comments in this thread explaining better than I could that Mozilla could support other codecs without tainting their own products if they chose to. The problem is that they are choosing not to and that hurts users to no good end.
- mortenjorck 17y ago
  There's a relatively simple solution to this that another heavy hitter in the FOSS world has been using for years: Prompt for a "restricted package" install when the user first encounters an h.264 video, similar to how Ubuntu deals with non-FOSS drivers, plugins, and codecs. It's the best of both worlds; you stay free and you get to be compatible.
  - metajack 17y ago
    RedHat did this, and I was very happy about it at the time, being involved with the Xiph.org projects. The users hated it, but I don't see how to educate users about this any other way.
  - wmf 17y ago
    Mozilla doesn't want to give users the ability to choose proprietary codecs. You're getting "freedom" whether you want it or not.
  - GHFigs 17y ago
    Even simpler would be to just expose the native capabilities of the platform. Mac OS X and Windows 7 both support h.264 natively, and to my knowledge Mozilla has actively chosen not to use that support.
    - btucker 17y ago
      This is what I was wondering. If this is true that what we're talking about is linking against proprietary libraries that already exist on the user's machine, then I don't understand the argument against it. By the article's logic they should pull the plug on firefox for windows & mac since they are more "non-free" than h.264.
      - wmf 17y ago
        http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roc/archives/2009/06/directshow_and.html http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roc/archives/2009/06/directsh... Firefox won't use system codecs because they might be insecure, they might be buggy, and Mozilla wants to encourage Web authors to use Theora.
- novas0x2a 17y ago
  I'm not sure you understand the problem here. They do not have a license to use h264, and even if they did, they could not afford to share it with you. Distributing patent-encumbered GPL code violates the spirit of GPL-2 and the letter of GPL-3. If you don't like it, campaign against software patents. Chromium's approach to this is slightly better, but it's not all there yet. (Speculating here) Google can afford to distribute Chrome binaries with license protection, but they most likely track the total downloads in order to pay the fees. They cannot easily track the source, which is why Chromium doesn't ship with h.264 either. However, it uses ffmpeg, so if your system ffmpeg has h.264, you'll be able to use that (after this is fixed: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=21318 http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=21318) Ideally, that's the approach Mozilla would take, too. If not, as other posts mentioned, the distros that are willing to distribute non-free will eventually solve the problem. As they say: Patches Welcome.
  - GHFigs 17y ago
    I'm not sure you understand the problem here. I do, which is why I am so critical of Mozilla's "solution" to it, which has confused the issue of not being able to ship h.264 support for the reasons you mention with trying to promote a format that (whatever its merits) nobody wants. Ideally, that's the approach Mozilla would take, too. Indeed, it would be, but my understanding is that they are unwilling to do so or unable with their current code, due to the dumb (IMHO) decision to pressure people into using Ogg.
    - kevingadd 17y ago
      Suggesting nobody wants Theora/Vorbis is absurd. Clearly someone wants it, as it was created. The important questions are whether it is useful enough to merit inclusion in a browser, and whether it's useful enough to outweigh the downsides. The same questions should be asked about H264.
      - blasdel 17y ago
        But it wasn't created for this purpose. It was originally created by On2 to be sold commercially, but nobody bought it because it sucked. They dumped it as royalty-free abandonware, and some free-software partisans picked it up, changed some strings, and released it as Theora. Nobody wanted it then, nobody wants it now. The dumping could even be seen as a brilliant strategic move to troll the hell out of the market for codecs by building a community of earnest activists yelling at everyone.
zokier 17y ago
I began to wonder how long it will take for someone to begin working on a fork of Firefox which would include support for h264. I have already seen patches for both DirectShow and GStreamer backends, so I'd guess it's not that hard technically. What we need is a catchy domain name, some marketing and a few devs and the spice shall flow again.
- wmf 17y ago
  Who's going to pay the licensing fees? If you fork, you probably don't get access to the Google money spigot.
  - blasdel 17y ago
    Apple (QT) and Microsoft (DirectShow) pay the license fees when they distribute their Operating Systems. Nobody gives a shit about distributing the x264 source code, and only the fosstards even have a hiccup about distributing binaries, especially from hosts outside the US. Ubuntu may not ship with the gstreamer plugin, but it does prompt you to download it the first time it's asked for by an application.
    - wmf 17y ago
      Sorry, my US bias is showing. I totally forgot about the "screw patents and just ship it from Europe" solution.
    - notauser 17y ago
      - The 'fosstards' built and shared a good deal of the ecosystem on which the Internet you are using runs. - A large chunk of the rest is directly or indirectly enabled, possible or cheaper thanks to them. - Every one I have met in person has been polite about their goals, and while they base them on fundamental principles I don't quite agree with, their reasoning as based on those principles is rock solid. As such I think they deserve a little more respect than being called names, especially here. When was the last time you saw a start-up that used no FOSS software?
jsz0 17y ago
What about x264? I know there is speculation that x264 wouldn't have much chance to withstand a software patent fight but OGG Theora isn't 100% safe either. If Mozilla is already going down that road they should just adopt x264 and see what happens. Challenge the patent holders to outrage the public and cripple the Internet. That's going to do more for software freedom than sticking their head in the sand.
- zokier 17y ago
  x264 is a h264 encoder implementation. Mozilla couldn't "just adopt" it, mostly because they have little use of an encoder. Its the decoder what they need.
  - jsz0 17y ago
    Ah I see. I must be thinking of something else. I know I've definitely played back h264 video using OSS software with no commercial hackery.
    - DarkShikari 17y ago
      Of course--ffmpeg's decoder library, libavcodec, supports every format under the sun, including H.264.
icefox 17y ago
better than flash
mieses 17y ago
The number of comments trashing the FOSS position towards video codecs is strange given that it's equally popular to trash the proprietary flash player. Maybe this thread is a statistical anomaly or people are just inconsistent.
- DarkShikari 17y ago
  What "FOSS position"? The vast majority of people I know in FOSS, both users and developers, could care less about patents. The apparent "FOSS position" comes from a vocal minority, not the majority of FOSS users and developers.
  - mieses 17y ago
    They should care because the H264 patent expires in 2025. If we were looking at a few years then you might be right not to worry. It's odd that MPEG LA supporters are coming out of the woodwork on this issue, seemingly to prevent HTML5 from starting out on the right foot.
    - DarkShikari 17y ago
      the H264 patent "The" H.264 patent? I have, sadly enough, the MPEG-LA agreement here, and there have got to be 25 pages at least simply listing patent numbers, with expiry dates ranging from very soon to a long time from now. MPEG LA supporters So everyone who is against Mozilla's attempt to force crappy software on us using the excuse of patents is an "MPEG LA supporter"? Some of us simply don't care about patents, as hard as it might be to believe for some.
      - mieses 17y ago
        I understand. But you could have a replay of the Unisys GIF situation except that it will last a very long time. Most developers and web services (vimeo, youtube, etc) are only thinking about how to improve their product in the short term. The best short term move is to choose H264. They're free to do what they want. So is Mozilla. Those same web services will screw themselves if they make Mozilla irrelevant. But again, short term thinking.
natmaster 17y ago
I still don't understand why Mozilla doesn't just use the codecs already installed in the Operating System. Then you don't have to ship any codecs. Separation of concerns.
- wmf 17y ago
  See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1070979 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1070979
elblanco 17y ago
So?
heresy 17y ago
Excuse me while I take 5 minutes to not give a shit..

54 points by cpearce 17y ago

Mozilla has taken on the responsibility of providing a free-software solution for browsing the web ..and in so doing they have intentionally crippled their browser's ability to play one of the most widely used video formats. To some of us, this sounds like a dumb move. Hence "get with the program", that program being the one where you attempt to build the best software for browsing the web.

Sanguinez 17y ago
It just depends how much you value your freedom.
- pohl 17y ago
  I understand the issue, but in practice I worry about the patents that cover H.264 about as much as I do those that cover the PDF spec...which is to say: not at all.
  - metajack 17y ago
    How are these comprable? Adobe has a patent agreement that says it won't sue you if you are implementing PDF or PostScript. Sure, it's maybe not absolute freedom, but it is markedly better than the situation with any of the encumbered audio codecs. I'm not an adobe defender by any means, but the practical consequence of this is that there exists a lot of Free Software that supports PDF and PostScript (like Ghostscript) and ships with all distros. The situation for H.264 is hardly similar.
  - Sanguinez 17y ago
    Ah so if YOU don't worry about, I guess everything is going to be fine :)
  - metajack 17y ago
    A second point I forgot to mention is that I do not know of Adobe suing anyone over standard PDF/PostScript features, but there is a long history of Thompson and all the other audio/video patent holders being very litigious and threatening. Perhaps no one remembers 8hz-enc or why the LAME project doesn't distribute binaries (or at least didn't for a long time; I've not looked lately). The story for MP3 players wasn't a super happy one either at one time.
- jws 17y ago
  I value watching non-crappy video enough to pay $0.20 for an H.264 license. I value the runtime on my battery operated devices enough to pay $0.20 for an efficiently decoded format. (Maybe that is more than $0.20. Depending on volume the H.264 is $0.00, $0.20, or $0.10, but I think there is a base license also required that I can't find. In any event, adding H.264 to a computer probably costs less than half a can of beer.) http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Documents/AVC_TermsSummary.pdf http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Documents/AVC_TermsS... And remember, I am still allowed to do anything I want with the code. I just have to give MPEG-LA half a can of beer do it.
  - Sanguinez 17y ago
    So it looks like your value your freedom to $0.20. "And remember, I am still allowed to do anything I want with the code. I just have to give MPEG-LA half a can of beer do it." Then free software would'nt be ablo to be free software. You cannot preserve freedom this way.
    - ez77 17y ago
      You mean software freedom, I guess. Personal freedom is greater with BSD than GPL, and with public-domain software than with any of them. Personal freedom includes the right to sell software at $0.20 or $200, and the customer's right to buy it or not. For the record, I'm against software patents, but also against being forced to publish one's code, which incidentally maximizes personal freedom.
      - Sanguinez 17y ago
        Yes I mean software freedom. Well, free software (whether it is GNU/GPL or BSD-like) allow you to sell it. But how could it remain free (as in freedom) if redistribution has strings attached?
        ubernostrum 17y ago
        But how could it remain free (as in freedom) if redistribution has strings attached? This is the problem right here; you used a term without bothering to mention that you're using a very specific definition of that term. In your view "freedom" does not mean maximizing my rights to do things with the software; instead, it involves deliberately limiting my rights in order to force me to pass along (your definition of) "freedom" to others. There are definitions of freedom, many surprisingly common, which do not include that little quirk, and you'll find that "give up some of your freedom for someone else's sake" is, to many people, like saying "pay higher taxes so someone else can benefit".
- GHFigs 17y ago
  Except that's bullshit and you're attempting to paint critics of ham-fisted attempts to promote an ideology through user punishment as not valuing freedom, rather than actually explaining why the dumb move should not be called a dumb move. Let me be clear: I welcome your rebuttal, and I will read it with an open mind. What I will not do, for you, for Mozilla, or any of the multitude in the Free Software movement and elsewhere that use this tactic is sit and wring my hands about how I'm no longer in the freedom-valuer's club or try to claw my way back into proper thought by hemming and hawing and qualifying my opinion until it is meaningless.
  - Sanguinez 17y ago
    Why is it bullshit? I never implied anything about you/ How using H.264 would be beneficial to free software and open standards? This is really about how much you value your freedom. About at what point you will abandon your freedom for any other advantage, such as hardware support (proprietary drivers in the linux kernel for instance) or performance (h.264 vs theora in this case). So this more about being willing to sacrifice a little bit of performance for your freedom than looking for best performances at all costs. Theora is getting continuously improved and is catching up little by little. They may also be some other company releasing some other codecs under free software-friendly licenses, who knows? But in the mean time, what is more important to you (as a user, in general): performance or freedom? So if you don't care about your freedom, it is understandable you wouldn't care less about theora vs h.264. If you would care a little bit more, you would be ready to compromise on some parts, and if you have a long beard, you wouldn't compromise at all. And I am also wondering, if mozilla starts accepting patented or proprietary technologies, where would you draw the line? How would you ensure Mozilla's products remain free (as in freedom)
    - GHFigs 17y ago
      You're still doing exactly what I just said ("attempting to paint critics of [of what Mozilla is doing] as not valuing freedom") with lines like "what is more important to you: performance or freedom?"--as if any dumb move can be absolved by saying you did it for the sake of freedom. I don't know what to make of most of your second paragraph, as I've made no argument about performance. I'm talking about the simple fact that Firefox users cannot view certain content that is being deployed on the web today (h.264 in <video>) because Mozilla has chosen to use the size of its user base to "encourage" the adoption of Theora. This is not freedom. This is stupid. if mozilla starts accepting patented or proprietary technologies Nobody is saying they have to. There are a half dozen other comments in this thread explaining better than I could that Mozilla could support other codecs without tainting their own products if they chose to. The problem is that they are choosing not to and that hurts users to no good end.
mortenjorck 17y ago
There's a relatively simple solution to this that another heavy hitter in the FOSS world has been using for years: Prompt for a "restricted package" install when the user first encounters an h.264 video, similar to how Ubuntu deals with non-FOSS drivers, plugins, and codecs. It's the best of both worlds; you stay free and you get to be compatible.
- metajack 17y ago
  RedHat did this, and I was very happy about it at the time, being involved with the Xiph.org projects. The users hated it, but I don't see how to educate users about this any other way.
- wmf 17y ago
  Mozilla doesn't want to give users the ability to choose proprietary codecs. You're getting "freedom" whether you want it or not.
- GHFigs 17y ago
  Even simpler would be to just expose the native capabilities of the platform. Mac OS X and Windows 7 both support h.264 natively, and to my knowledge Mozilla has actively chosen not to use that support.
  - btucker 17y ago
    This is what I was wondering. If this is true that what we're talking about is linking against proprietary libraries that already exist on the user's machine, then I don't understand the argument against it. By the article's logic they should pull the plug on firefox for windows & mac since they are more "non-free" than h.264.
    - wmf 17y ago
      http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roc/archives/2009/06/directshow_and.html http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roc/archives/2009/06/directsh... Firefox won't use system codecs because they might be insecure, they might be buggy, and Mozilla wants to encourage Web authors to use Theora.
novas0x2a 17y ago
I'm not sure you understand the problem here. They do not have a license to use h264, and even if they did, they could not afford to share it with you. Distributing patent-encumbered GPL code violates the spirit of GPL-2 and the letter of GPL-3. If you don't like it, campaign against software patents. Chromium's approach to this is slightly better, but it's not all there yet. (Speculating here) Google can afford to distribute Chrome binaries with license protection, but they most likely track the total downloads in order to pay the fees. They cannot easily track the source, which is why Chromium doesn't ship with h.264 either. However, it uses ffmpeg, so if your system ffmpeg has h.264, you'll be able to use that (after this is fixed: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=21318 http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=21318) Ideally, that's the approach Mozilla would take, too. If not, as other posts mentioned, the distros that are willing to distribute non-free will eventually solve the problem. As they say: Patches Welcome.
- GHFigs 17y ago
  I'm not sure you understand the problem here. I do, which is why I am so critical of Mozilla's "solution" to it, which has confused the issue of not being able to ship h.264 support for the reasons you mention with trying to promote a format that (whatever its merits) nobody wants. Ideally, that's the approach Mozilla would take, too. Indeed, it would be, but my understanding is that they are unwilling to do so or unable with their current code, due to the dumb (IMHO) decision to pressure people into using Ogg.
  - kevingadd 17y ago
    Suggesting nobody wants Theora/Vorbis is absurd. Clearly someone wants it, as it was created. The important questions are whether it is useful enough to merit inclusion in a browser, and whether it's useful enough to outweigh the downsides. The same questions should be asked about H264.
    - blasdel 17y ago
      But it wasn't created for this purpose. It was originally created by On2 to be sold commercially, but nobody bought it because it sucked. They dumped it as royalty-free abandonware, and some free-software partisans picked it up, changed some strings, and released it as Theora. Nobody wanted it then, nobody wants it now. The dumping could even be seen as a brilliant strategic move to troll the hell out of the market for codecs by building a community of earnest activists yelling at everyone.

zokier 17y ago

I began to wonder how long it will take for someone to begin working on a fork of Firefox which would include support for h264. I have already seen patches for both DirectShow and GStreamer backends, so I'd guess it's not that hard technically. What we need is a catchy domain name, some marketing and a few devs and the spice shall flow again.

wmf 17y ago
Who's going to pay the licensing fees? If you fork, you probably don't get access to the Google money spigot.
- blasdel 17y ago
  Apple (QT) and Microsoft (DirectShow) pay the license fees when they distribute their Operating Systems. Nobody gives a shit about distributing the x264 source code, and only the fosstards even have a hiccup about distributing binaries, especially from hosts outside the US. Ubuntu may not ship with the gstreamer plugin, but it does prompt you to download it the first time it's asked for by an application.
  - wmf 17y ago
    Sorry, my US bias is showing. I totally forgot about the "screw patents and just ship it from Europe" solution.
  - notauser 17y ago
    - The 'fosstards' built and shared a good deal of the ecosystem on which the Internet you are using runs. - A large chunk of the rest is directly or indirectly enabled, possible or cheaper thanks to them. - Every one I have met in person has been polite about their goals, and while they base them on fundamental principles I don't quite agree with, their reasoning as based on those principles is rock solid. As such I think they deserve a little more respect than being called names, especially here. When was the last time you saw a start-up that used no FOSS software?

jsz0 17y ago

What about x264? I know there is speculation that x264 wouldn't have much chance to withstand a software patent fight but OGG Theora isn't 100% safe either. If Mozilla is already going down that road they should just adopt x264 and see what happens. Challenge the patent holders to outrage the public and cripple the Internet. That's going to do more for software freedom than sticking their head in the sand.

zokier 17y ago
x264 is a h264 encoder implementation. Mozilla couldn't "just adopt" it, mostly because they have little use of an encoder. Its the decoder what they need.
- jsz0 17y ago
  Ah I see. I must be thinking of something else. I know I've definitely played back h264 video using OSS software with no commercial hackery.
  - DarkShikari 17y ago
    Of course--ffmpeg's decoder library, libavcodec, supports every format under the sun, including H.264.

icefox 17y ago

better than flash

mieses 17y ago

The number of comments trashing the FOSS position towards video codecs is strange given that it's equally popular to trash the proprietary flash player. Maybe this thread is a statistical anomaly or people are just inconsistent.

DarkShikari 17y ago
What "FOSS position"? The vast majority of people I know in FOSS, both users and developers, could care less about patents. The apparent "FOSS position" comes from a vocal minority, not the majority of FOSS users and developers.
- mieses 17y ago
  They should care because the H264 patent expires in 2025. If we were looking at a few years then you might be right not to worry. It's odd that MPEG LA supporters are coming out of the woodwork on this issue, seemingly to prevent HTML5 from starting out on the right foot.
  - DarkShikari 17y ago
    the H264 patent "The" H.264 patent? I have, sadly enough, the MPEG-LA agreement here, and there have got to be 25 pages at least simply listing patent numbers, with expiry dates ranging from very soon to a long time from now. MPEG LA supporters So everyone who is against Mozilla's attempt to force crappy software on us using the excuse of patents is an "MPEG LA supporter"? Some of us simply don't care about patents, as hard as it might be to believe for some.
    - mieses 17y ago
      I understand. But you could have a replay of the Unisys GIF situation except that it will last a very long time. Most developers and web services (vimeo, youtube, etc) are only thinking about how to improve their product in the short term. The best short term move is to choose H264. They're free to do what they want. So is Mozilla. Those same web services will screw themselves if they make Mozilla irrelevant. But again, short term thinking.

natmaster 17y ago

I still don't understand why Mozilla doesn't just use the codecs already installed in the Operating System. Then you don't have to ship any codecs. Separation of concerns.

wmf 17y ago
See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1070979 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1070979

elblanco 17y ago

So?

heresy 17y ago

Excuse me while I take 5 minutes to not give a shit..