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Google dropping a highly patented codec from Chrome is a step backwards for openness Even the title doesn't make sense. They could say "step backwards for easy

• alanh 16y ago
  It is apparent you did not read the article. Please go read it, or at least this quote: > This explanation is lacking, to say the least. It appears to be a conflation of several issues: openness, royalty-freedom, and source code availability, among others. In the traditional sense, H.264 is an open standard. That is to say, it was a standard designed by a range of domain experts from across the industry, working to the remit of a standards organization. In fact, two standards organizations were involved: ISO and ITU. The specification was devised collaboratively, with its final ratification dependent on the agreement of the individuals, corporations, and national standards bodies that variously make up ISO and ITU. This makes H.264 an open standard in the same way as, for example, JPEG still images, or the C++ programming language, or the ISO 9660 filesystem used on CD-ROMs. H.264 is unambiguously open. > In contrast, neither WebM's VP8 nor Theora were assembled by a standards body such as ISO. VP8 was developed independently and entirely in secret by the company On2, prior to the company's purchase last year by Google. Theora was created by a group of open-source developers…