5 ms·

Video, Freedom And Mozilla

55 points by felixmar 17y ago

thristian 17y ago
There was a recent HN post on this topic that garnered a lot of discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1070780 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1070780 This new blog-post from Robert O'Callahan (one of the Mozilla developers who worked on the <video> element) explains Mozilla's position much better than anyone in the HN thread did, touching on things like patent licensing, using GStreamer, and idealism.
- axod 17y ago
  Idealism is an excellent way to loose users to Chrome.
  - leftnode 17y ago
    Or a way to make users even more die-hard Firefox users. I don't understand how this is extremely idealistic. This is an excellent way to show how software patents are bad.
    - axod 17y ago
      Sure, I'm agreed software patents are bad. But average users just want stuff to work. Remember those music players that didn't play mp3 files so they didn't have to pay a few cent royalty? No me either, but they existed for a time. Everyone wanted to play mp3 files, so the players that could play them won out.
      - halo 17y ago
        >Sure, I'm agreed software patents are bad. But average users just want stuff to work. Right. Yet you've said before that you'll get rid of your iPhone if "they put Flash on it". How do you reconcile your position that "average users just want stuff to work" against being so vehemontly against Flash on the iPhone?
        axod 17y ago
        ? Flash is amongst the worst examples of 'stuff that works'. Flash doesn't work. It pegs your CPU at 100%, crashes, and generally ends up in mess. IF they can get flash to work, and not crash, and not eat battery, and not peg CPU, then I'd probably welcome it. But they haven't managed to do that in the last 10 years with the standard versions of flash, so I think it's extremely unlikely they'd manage it on slimmed down hardware like the iPhone.
    - bad_user 17y ago
      And how is that working in other areas? How many Linux desktop-users do you know? And out of those, how many use "pure" distributions, like gNewSense?
alextgordon 17y ago
Mozilla's decision to push for Ogg seems like a classic programmer's response. They're attempting to solve the problem with an engineering solution. Unfortunately, this won't be enough. If Mozilla want to usurp H.264, they'll either need a huge market share or budget (which they don't have) or technological superiority over H.264 (I don't think this is the case either). They're also fighting against Apple, who want H.264 to succeed.
- ugh 17y ago
  They do have a huge market share when it comes to HTML5 browsers, though. (Hm, the moment I’m writing this I’m starting to think about the iPhone and Android. So maybe not :)
- windsurfer 17y ago
  Mozilla isn't making any choices. supporting theora is their only option due to patents surrounding H.264. It has nothing to do with engineering, and everything to do with copyright and patents.
  - briansmith 17y ago
    They're not supporting H.264 because they don't want to promote Windows 7 (or Mac OS X) over Linux. They could easily implement H.264 support for all operating systems that license H.264, and then let websites dynamically choose what to send based on what the operating system supports. However, that means Firefox would work better on Windows 7 and Mac OS X than it would on 100% legit Linux distros.
    - DrJokepu 17y ago
      I think this is an incredibly silly decision. Basically it boils down to "operating systems A and B support feature X while C doesn't, but we don't want operating system C to be at disadvantage so we will just disable access to feature X on A and B too."
    - psadauskas 17y ago
      That's already the case, though. JS performance and flash is far superior on windows than Linux already. So saying they don't want to make the windows experience better is not the case. Something like 80% of firefox users are on windows, and that's their primary target platform.
jwr 17y ago
Other issues aside, I don’t understand why supporting a proprietary Flash plugin from a single vendor is better than opening support for a standardized (albeit similarly patent-encumbered) video format with open-source implementations.
- ugh 17y ago
  I (as an end user) don’t care so much about freaking patents. I only see that my MBP sounds like a fighter jet when playing flash videos, not when playing h.264 videos.
jwr 17y ago
He touched a very important point. Many people do not realize that GPL and LPGL are fundamentally incompatible with patents (intentionally) and that in many cases it is a ticking bomb. When he writes "The software license permits you to redistribute and use the code, but the MPEG-LA can still stop you", he means section 7 of the GPL (2.0). I think many people who use the GPL for their software do not realize that later on a single company (patent holder) can stop the redistribution of that software.
- bad_user 17y ago
  Any patent holder with relevant patents can stop redistribution of a software, regardless of license ... GPL or not.
Skriticos 17y ago
With all the discussion going on, I was looking for a comparison of the codecs and found this website: http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html If you ask me, the h264 vs ogv versions were not that different at the same bit-rates (sure, maybe a little). My point is, I'd really like to see more actual data before we enter endless discussions and most of us don't know what's actually talked about.
- NikkiA 17y ago
  I'm not accusing greg of anything, however, I personally would feel a little uneasy trusting someone that works for one of the entities involved, to be making unbiased comparisons. I'd distrust a comparison page hosted by an Apple employee for the same reason.
  - Skriticos 17y ago
    That was just the first comparison that I came around at it sounded reasonable. I would actually prefer if someone else would show more of these. But not a lot of folks do that. Everyone is just bitching around. Also, maybe there are problems with theora, but then again, it's better to push it to more attention and fix the problems now than settle with a halfassed, non-sustainable solution and having the same discussion same time next year again. Seems to be very ineffective.
- zokier 17y ago
  Problem is not that Theora isn't capable enough now that MozCo has poured money on it. The problem is that Google and every other video service has already their videos in h264, which is playable in Flash. So if YouTube were to support Theora they'd need to re-encode all their videos, and store them as duplicates. Another problem with Theora is hardware. There is a lot of hardware h264 encoders and decoders, allowing even cellphones to play HD h264. AFAIK there is absolute no Theora hardware currently.
  - Skriticos 17y ago
ComputerGuru 17y ago
If one were to create an open-source "proxy extension" for Firefox to shim H264 support via proprietary binary blobs dynamically loaded into the proxy, how do you think that would go?
- zokier 17y ago
  why proprietary binary blobs and not FOSS ffmpeg/libavcodec? edit: but I like that idea... Would it be possible to create an Fx extension/plugin to enable h264 playback? I mean, QT and Flash plugins do already play h264 video with Firefox in <object>/<embed> -tags.
  - ComputerGuru 17y ago
    That's exactly what I'm trying to ask. Not if it were technically possible, but if it would be worth the while. Why bother using a FOSS implementation of a patent-encumbered technology? FOSS for EMCA standards (.NET, Java) is great, but FOSS for h264 is kinda pointless (which is part of the argument in TFA)
    - zokier 17y ago
      Because most of the world is not under US jurisdiction.
  - blasdel 17y ago
    No, it's not possible to do it via XUL and NPAPI. You would have to fork both Gecko and XULRunner.
arnorhs 17y ago
Sorry for being very off-topic, but that three-column layout (or more in higher res?) of the text makes it hard for me to read. Resizing also makes me lose where I was reading. Sorry, again.
- briansmith 17y ago
  It looks great in IE--its all one column. Sometimes lacking a "feature" can be a feature in itself.
cookiecaper 17y ago
Well, if Bilski goes our way, then this whole issue is mute, right? Or are there some other restrictions on the codec? I agree that OGV is pretty much Mozilla's only option for now.
- msg 17y ago
  Not mute. No. It's called a moo point. You know, like a cow's opinion.
  - cookiecaper 17y ago
    Heh, sorry, it's early. *moot
Hexstream 17y ago
"- But I could just download gst-plugins-ugly and I'd be OK. - That's a selfish attitude. Everyone should be able to browse the Web with a free software stack without having to jump through arcane hoops to download and install software (whose use is legally questionable)." I'll tell you what's selfish: going out of your way to cripple the experience of your users just so your extremist ideological views can prevail (and they won't anyway). I don't think the deliberate weakening of the #1 open-source browser over such trivial matters is a win either, ideological or otherwise. I love Firefox and I hope this sorry state of affairs will be quickly resolved sensibly before irrecoverable damage has been done. </opiniated>
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- halo 17y ago
  It's interesting to draw an analogy between this and Apple's lack of support for Flash, especially given the lack of support for the prior but the large amount of support for the latter on here. I can only conclude you think it's equally selfish for Apple to cripple the experience of their users so their ideological views can prevail (and that they won't anyway). I can also conclude that you don't think that the deliberate weakening of the #1 smartphone browser over such trivial matters is a win either, ideological or otherwise.
  - alextgordon 17y ago
    That's not quite a fair analogy. If Apple allowed Flash on the iPhone, it would have real consequences: lower battery life, higher RAM usage. I don't doubt for a minute that there's an ideological component as well - Apple want to see Flash gone. But at least that decision is based on technological problems with Flash. On the other hand, if Firefox were to support OS H.264 decoders, it would harm nothing but Mozilla's ideologies.
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
    - 17y ago
DannoHung 17y ago
This is idotic. By not supporting h.264 and not getting in trouble if and when MPEG-LA decides to cease and desist, they are making it much easier for h.264 to become completely ingrained because h.264 is what works NOW and it is what is widely supported NOW. Why? Who among the vast majority of blithering idiots in the world knows or cares about the patent issues with h.264? Outside of Hacker News and the Mozilla corporation, I'd put that number at just about nil. Yo, has anyone started work on a Mozilla fork that does support h.264 either through native support or plugins? edit: Also, if no one does sue, then the whole thing will have been simply an exercise in idiocy.
freetard 17y ago
Once google completes its merger with On2 (February), we'll get free and open video codec for free on youtube. Firefox and chrome will include it. This is why I think we'll never get Theora on youtube, but all hope is not lost thanks to vp7 or whatever they end up calling it.
bonaldi 17y ago
From the article: It pushes the software freedom issues from the browser (where we have leverage to possibly change the codec situation) This is what it's all really about: trying to use Mozilla's leverage to foist an unpopular and inferior technology on an unwilling web. Remind you of the antics of any other company with a popular browser? Power corrupts. Thank god Firefox doesn't have the same market share as IE did. Webkit ftw, here.
lmkg 17y ago
The discussion I've seen surrounding the issue is mostly centered around the user (browser) and video quality. The thing that most stuck out to me from the post, buried in the end, was the (potential) restrictions that could be placed on creating h.264 content and publishing it on the web. I think that this is the biggest relevant issue I've seen yet with h.264. Apparently these issues are still potential and still under wraps, but I would not be in favor of effective restrictions on including the <video> tag in a website.
blasdel 17y ago
Since 2004, Mozilla has had baked-in support for automatically installing Flash on the first encounter if the plugin is not found. A nice little yellow infobar pops down (a brilliant UI innovation), prompting you to install it with a few clicks, even without root access on both Windows and Linux. They've also recently implemented automatic update checking for Flash. Since it's their biggest security hole, they throw up a big nasty "update now" warning on launch if you're using a known-vulnerable version. Mozilla initially distributed the Flash binaries under license themselves via addons.mozilla.org -- I'm not sure if they still do so. Flash is shitty, nonredistributable, closed-source, restricted-platform, proprietary, and patented but they're willing to go to great lengths to help their users use it. Why not do the same thing for ffmpeg, which is merely patented?

55 points by felixmar 17y ago

There was a recent HN post on this topic that garnered a lot of discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1070780 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1070780 This new blog-post from Robert O'Callahan (one of the Mozilla developers who worked on the <video> element) explains Mozilla's position much better than anyone in the HN thread did, touching on things like patent licensing, using GStreamer, and idealism.

axod 17y ago
Idealism is an excellent way to loose users to Chrome.
- leftnode 17y ago
  Or a way to make users even more die-hard Firefox users. I don't understand how this is extremely idealistic. This is an excellent way to show how software patents are bad.
  - axod 17y ago
    Sure, I'm agreed software patents are bad. But average users just want stuff to work. Remember those music players that didn't play mp3 files so they didn't have to pay a few cent royalty? No me either, but they existed for a time. Everyone wanted to play mp3 files, so the players that could play them won out.
    - halo 17y ago
      >Sure, I'm agreed software patents are bad. But average users just want stuff to work. Right. Yet you've said before that you'll get rid of your iPhone if "they put Flash on it". How do you reconcile your position that "average users just want stuff to work" against being so vehemontly against Flash on the iPhone?
      - axod 17y ago
        ? Flash is amongst the worst examples of 'stuff that works'. Flash doesn't work. It pegs your CPU at 100%, crashes, and generally ends up in mess. IF they can get flash to work, and not crash, and not eat battery, and not peg CPU, then I'd probably welcome it. But they haven't managed to do that in the last 10 years with the standard versions of flash, so I think it's extremely unlikely they'd manage it on slimmed down hardware like the iPhone.
  - bad_user 17y ago
    And how is that working in other areas? How many Linux desktop-users do you know? And out of those, how many use "pure" distributions, like gNewSense?

alextgordon 17y ago

Mozilla's decision to push for Ogg seems like a classic programmer's response. They're attempting to solve the problem with an engineering solution. Unfortunately, this won't be enough. If Mozilla want to usurp H.264, they'll either need a huge market share or budget (which they don't have) or technological superiority over H.264 (I don't think this is the case either). They're also fighting against Apple, who want H.264 to succeed.

ugh 17y ago
They do have a huge market share when it comes to HTML5 browsers, though. (Hm, the moment I’m writing this I’m starting to think about the iPhone and Android. So maybe not :)
windsurfer 17y ago
Mozilla isn't making any choices. supporting theora is their only option due to patents surrounding H.264. It has nothing to do with engineering, and everything to do with copyright and patents.
- briansmith 17y ago
  They're not supporting H.264 because they don't want to promote Windows 7 (or Mac OS X) over Linux. They could easily implement H.264 support for all operating systems that license H.264, and then let websites dynamically choose what to send based on what the operating system supports. However, that means Firefox would work better on Windows 7 and Mac OS X than it would on 100% legit Linux distros.
  - DrJokepu 17y ago
    I think this is an incredibly silly decision. Basically it boils down to "operating systems A and B support feature X while C doesn't, but we don't want operating system C to be at disadvantage so we will just disable access to feature X on A and B too."
  - psadauskas 17y ago
    That's already the case, though. JS performance and flash is far superior on windows than Linux already. So saying they don't want to make the windows experience better is not the case. Something like 80% of firefox users are on windows, and that's their primary target platform.

jwr 17y ago

Other issues aside, I don’t understand why supporting a proprietary Flash plugin from a single vendor is better than opening support for a standardized (albeit similarly patent-encumbered) video format with open-source implementations.

ugh 17y ago
I (as an end user) don’t care so much about freaking patents. I only see that my MBP sounds like a fighter jet when playing flash videos, not when playing h.264 videos.

jwr 17y ago

He touched a very important point. Many people do not realize that GPL and LPGL are fundamentally incompatible with patents (intentionally) and that in many cases it is a ticking bomb. When he writes "The software license permits you to redistribute and use the code, but the MPEG-LA can still stop you", he means section 7 of the GPL (2.0). I think many people who use the GPL for their software do not realize that later on a single company (patent holder) can stop the redistribution of that software.

bad_user 17y ago
Any patent holder with relevant patents can stop redistribution of a software, regardless of license ... GPL or not.

Skriticos 17y ago

With all the discussion going on, I was looking for a comparison of the codecs and found this website: http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html http://people.xiph.org/~greg/video/ytcompare/comparison.html If you ask me, the h264 vs ogv versions were not that different at the same bit-rates (sure, maybe a little). My point is, I'd really like to see more actual data before we enter endless discussions and most of us don't know what's actually talked about.

NikkiA 17y ago
I'm not accusing greg of anything, however, I personally would feel a little uneasy trusting someone that works for one of the entities involved, to be making unbiased comparisons. I'd distrust a comparison page hosted by an Apple employee for the same reason.
- Skriticos 17y ago
  That was just the first comparison that I came around at it sounded reasonable. I would actually prefer if someone else would show more of these. But not a lot of folks do that. Everyone is just bitching around. Also, maybe there are problems with theora, but then again, it's better to push it to more attention and fix the problems now than settle with a halfassed, non-sustainable solution and having the same discussion same time next year again. Seems to be very ineffective.
zokier 17y ago
Problem is not that Theora isn't capable enough now that MozCo has poured money on it. The problem is that Google and every other video service has already their videos in h264, which is playable in Flash. So if YouTube were to support Theora they'd need to re-encode all their videos, and store them as duplicates. Another problem with Theora is hardware. There is a lot of hardware h264 encoders and decoders, allowing even cellphones to play HD h264. AFAIK there is absolute no Theora hardware currently.
- Skriticos 17y ago

ComputerGuru 17y ago

If one were to create an open-source "proxy extension" for Firefox to shim H264 support via proprietary binary blobs dynamically loaded into the proxy, how do you think that would go?

zokier 17y ago
why proprietary binary blobs and not FOSS ffmpeg/libavcodec? edit: but I like that idea... Would it be possible to create an Fx extension/plugin to enable h264 playback? I mean, QT and Flash plugins do already play h264 video with Firefox in <object>/<embed> -tags.
- ComputerGuru 17y ago
  That's exactly what I'm trying to ask. Not if it were technically possible, but if it would be worth the while. Why bother using a FOSS implementation of a patent-encumbered technology? FOSS for EMCA standards (.NET, Java) is great, but FOSS for h264 is kinda pointless (which is part of the argument in TFA)
  - zokier 17y ago
    Because most of the world is not under US jurisdiction.
- blasdel 17y ago
  No, it's not possible to do it via XUL and NPAPI. You would have to fork both Gecko and XULRunner.

arnorhs 17y ago

Sorry for being very off-topic, but that three-column layout (or more in higher res?) of the text makes it hard for me to read. Resizing also makes me lose where I was reading. Sorry, again.

briansmith 17y ago
It looks great in IE--its all one column. Sometimes lacking a "feature" can be a feature in itself.

cookiecaper 17y ago

Well, if Bilski goes our way, then this whole issue is mute, right? Or are there some other restrictions on the codec? I agree that OGV is pretty much Mozilla's only option for now.

msg 17y ago
Not mute. No. It's called a moo point. You know, like a cow's opinion.
- cookiecaper 17y ago
  Heh, sorry, it's early. *moot

Hexstream 17y ago

"- But I could just download gst-plugins-ugly and I'd be OK. - That's a selfish attitude. Everyone should be able to browse the Web with a free software stack without having to jump through arcane hoops to download and install software (whose use is legally questionable)." I'll tell you what's selfish: going out of your way to cripple the experience of your users just so your extremist ideological views can prevail (and they won't anyway). I don't think the deliberate weakening of the #1 open-source browser over such trivial matters is a win either, ideological or otherwise. I love Firefox and I hope this sorry state of affairs will be quickly resolved sensibly before irrecoverable damage has been done. </opiniated>

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
halo 17y ago
It's interesting to draw an analogy between this and Apple's lack of support for Flash, especially given the lack of support for the prior but the large amount of support for the latter on here. I can only conclude you think it's equally selfish for Apple to cripple the experience of their users so their ideological views can prevail (and that they won't anyway). I can also conclude that you don't think that the deliberate weakening of the #1 smartphone browser over such trivial matters is a win either, ideological or otherwise.
- alextgordon 17y ago
  That's not quite a fair analogy. If Apple allowed Flash on the iPhone, it would have real consequences: lower battery life, higher RAM usage. I don't doubt for a minute that there's an ideological component as well - Apple want to see Flash gone. But at least that decision is based on technological problems with Flash. On the other hand, if Firefox were to support OS H.264 decoders, it would harm nothing but Mozilla's ideologies.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - 17y ago

DannoHung 17y ago

This is idotic. By not supporting h.264 and not getting in trouble if and when MPEG-LA decides to cease and desist, they are making it much easier for h.264 to become completely ingrained because h.264 is what works NOW and it is what is widely supported NOW. Why? Who among the vast majority of blithering idiots in the world knows or cares about the patent issues with h.264? Outside of Hacker News and the Mozilla corporation, I'd put that number at just about nil. Yo, has anyone started work on a Mozilla fork that does support h.264 either through native support or plugins? edit: Also, if no one does sue, then the whole thing will have been simply an exercise in idiocy.

freetard 17y ago

Once google completes its merger with On2 (February), we'll get free and open video codec for free on youtube. Firefox and chrome will include it. This is why I think we'll never get Theora on youtube, but all hope is not lost thanks to vp7 or whatever they end up calling it.

bonaldi 17y ago

From the article: It pushes the software freedom issues from the browser (where we have leverage to possibly change the codec situation) This is what it's all really about: trying to use Mozilla's leverage to foist an unpopular and inferior technology on an unwilling web. Remind you of the antics of any other company with a popular browser? Power corrupts. Thank god Firefox doesn't have the same market share as IE did. Webkit ftw, here.

lmkg 17y ago

The discussion I've seen surrounding the issue is mostly centered around the user (browser) and video quality. The thing that most stuck out to me from the post, buried in the end, was the (potential) restrictions that could be placed on creating h.264 content and publishing it on the web. I think that this is the biggest relevant issue I've seen yet with h.264. Apparently these issues are still potential and still under wraps, but I would not be in favor of effective restrictions on including the <video> tag in a website.

blasdel 17y ago

Since 2004, Mozilla has had baked-in support for automatically installing Flash on the first encounter if the plugin is not found. A nice little yellow infobar pops down (a brilliant UI innovation), prompting you to install it with a few clicks, even without root access on both Windows and Linux. They've also recently implemented automatic update checking for Flash. Since it's their biggest security hole, they throw up a big nasty "update now" warning on launch if you're using a known-vulnerable version. Mozilla initially distributed the Flash binaries under license themselves via addons.mozilla.org -- I'm not sure if they still do so. Flash is shitty, nonredistributable, closed-source, restricted-platform, proprietary, and patented but they're willing to go to great lengths to help their users use it. Why not do the same thing for ffmpeg, which is merely patented?