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I would point to the current HTML5 video element debacle: http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-June/020620.html http://lists.whatwg.org/htd

by mrshoe 17y ago

I would point to the current HTML5 video element debacle: http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-June/020620.html http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-Jun... Patents are playing a large role in ensuring that what could be a wonderful thing for the web will almost certainly not be.

GHFigs 17y ago
June 2009 is not "current". That issue (of making one or another codec mandatory in the HTML5 spec) is dead with decision you linked, for the reason that "if a browser refuses to implement something, then we can't require it". I'm being pedantic here, but I think it's very misleading to connect the spec issue with your conclusion that <video> could have been nice but somehow isn't. Had one or the other codec been made mandatory in the spec, the reality today would be exactly the same.
fragmede 17y ago
I'd say that HTML5 is the tip of that particular iceberg. I mean, what was HTML 5 supposed to change? The fact that video (and audio) is broken on the web, leaving to flash as the closed de-facto standard. The whole situation that HTML5 was supposed to fix is, itself, a result of codec licensing/patent issues. I'd venture that without those issues, the <object> and <embed> tags would have had a bigger impact.
- GHFigs 17y ago
  I mean, what was HTML 5 supposed to change? Nothing. It was supposed to be, and is, a description of what browsers actually implement in common, just like every other HTML spec before it.