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Is Microsoft's non-support for WebM any different than Mozilla's refusal to let me play H264 videos in their browser? You can't just look the other way cos you
by bphogan 16y ago
Is Microsoft's non-support for WebM any different than Mozilla's refusal to let me play H264 videos in their browser? You can't just look the other way cos you like the underdog. To my mind it's the same thing. My mac can play h264 videos, but not in Firefox. Cos they're having a standards tantrum.
- nitrogen 16y agoOne word: patents. This is why I believe schools should require more rigorous legal training of engineering and computer science graduates. I've met too many engineers (one would be too many) who, when confronted with potential IP issues, say "who cares anyway?" Since Mozilla wants to distribute a free product to millions of users in the US, they have to care about patents, and that prevents them from including H.264. However, contrary to H.264, WebM is explicitly designed to avoid patents that aren't owned by Google/On2, so Microsoft could implement WebM with significantly less risk than Mozilla could implement H.264.