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Google is putting its foot down to ensure that web video isn't hijacked by a codec that is owned by a notorious organisation, and they're doing it at great cost

Google is putting its foot down to ensure that web video isn't hijacked by a codec that is owned by a notorious organisation, and they're doing it at great cost to themselves- in terms of the blowback from this, and the amount of money they spent on On2, and the patent litigation that is almost certainly coming if webm gains any significant adoption. Mozilla and Google are fighting for your and my right to produce fully compliant browsers without having to pay somebody else. They're fighting for your right to fork.

krschultz 16y ago
Is it really at a great cost to themselves? How do we know that total cost of license fees per copy of Chrome plus license fees per copy of Android is less than the cost of buying On2?
- spiffworks 16y ago
  Well, H.264 licenses top out at 6 million, I think. On2 was acquired for 133 million(check Wikipedia). And they've only removed H.264 from Chrome, it would be disastrous for them to do the same with Android. So even if they were to license H.264 for its patent lifetime, they've lost more money than they've saved.
GHFigs 16y ago
Google is putting its foot down to ensure that web video isn't hijacked by [h.264] What on earth do you mean by "hijacked"? Web video has been dominated by h.264 since it was added to Flash, and Google itself is among the most prominent pushers. It didn't sneak in through the back door, it reached it's current status the same way anything else on the web has: by being useful. Mozilla and Google are fighting for your and my right to produce fully compliant browsers without having to pay somebody else. This is what gets me scratching my head, because it's Mozilla and Google who are the ones trying to make browsers, not me. Mozilla and Google are acting in their own interests (which is fine, don't get me wrong) but they keep telling me that it's for my sake even though, if asked, I would tell them not to do what they're doing. It feels more like an ideological bludgeoning than a favor. Also, I take issue with your saying "fully compliant". Codec support hasn't been a standards compliance issue since Ogg was (rightfully) pulled from the spec. If anything, the fact that the spec is codec-agnostic suggests that the most "spiritually" compliant position would be for the implementation to be, as well. But that's not what we get from Mozilla or Google. For that kind of openness we have to turn to...Microsoft and Apple? Weird.
- spiffworks 16y ago
  >What on earth do you mean by "hijacked"? You're right, that was a poor choice of words. I meant dominated. >Mozilla and Google who are the ones trying to make browsers, not me. The point is that you shouldn't have to pay royalties to someone to ship a competitive browser which has support for the most widely used codec. Think of Rockmelt or Flock. If they had to pay millions to stay competitive, isn't that a net loss for the internet? >Also, I take issue with your saying "fully compliant". You're right again, I meant a competitive browser. >If anything, the fact that the spec is codec-agnostic suggests that the most "spiritually" compliant position would be for the implementation to be, as well I don't understand exactly what you mean here. I thought the whole point of HTML5 was that video becomes a first class citizen, so if I had to install a plugin for each codec, wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose? Or are you saying that every browser should include support for the widest range of codecs that it possibly can? I think its unfair to ask a non-profit organisation like Mozilla to license a codec for many millions of dollars. Could you elaborate?
  - GHFigs 16y ago
    Or are you saying that every browser should include support for the widest range of codecs that it possibly can? No. Quite the opposite, actually. I am saying that a reasonable approach would have been for the browsers to defer support to the operating system. Apple does this. Microsoft does this. Mozilla, Google, and Opera have instead chosen to limit support to only the codecs they implement in-browser. (I say "would have been" because there's practically zero chance of this happening now.) One effect of this is that even on a system with h.264 already present you can't view it in those browsers. This is not a requirement of the HTML5 spec, an h.264 licensing issue or a technically intractable problem, but a choice made by those browser vendors to favor certain codecs. The point is that while the debate is frequently framed as a standards issue it's really more about the ideology of implementing things on top of those standards.

krschultz 16y ago

Is it really at a great cost to themselves? How do we know that total cost of license fees per copy of Chrome plus license fees per copy of Android is less than the cost of buying On2?

spiffworks 16y ago
Well, H.264 licenses top out at 6 million, I think. On2 was acquired for 133 million(check Wikipedia). And they've only removed H.264 from Chrome, it would be disastrous for them to do the same with Android. So even if they were to license H.264 for its patent lifetime, they've lost more money than they've saved.

GHFigs 16y ago

Google is putting its foot down to ensure that web video isn't hijacked by [h.264] What on earth do you mean by "hijacked"? Web video has been dominated by h.264 since it was added to Flash, and Google itself is among the most prominent pushers. It didn't sneak in through the back door, it reached it's current status the same way anything else on the web has: by being useful. Mozilla and Google are fighting for your and my right to produce fully compliant browsers without having to pay somebody else. This is what gets me scratching my head, because it's Mozilla and Google who are the ones trying to make browsers, not me. Mozilla and Google are acting in their own interests (which is fine, don't get me wrong) but they keep telling me that it's for my sake even though, if asked, I would tell them not to do what they're doing. It feels more like an ideological bludgeoning than a favor. Also, I take issue with your saying "fully compliant". Codec support hasn't been a standards compliance issue since Ogg was (rightfully) pulled from the spec. If anything, the fact that the spec is codec-agnostic suggests that the most "spiritually" compliant position would be for the implementation to be, as well. But that's not what we get from Mozilla or Google. For that kind of openness we have to turn to...Microsoft and Apple? Weird.

spiffworks 16y ago
>What on earth do you mean by "hijacked"? You're right, that was a poor choice of words. I meant dominated. >Mozilla and Google who are the ones trying to make browsers, not me. The point is that you shouldn't have to pay royalties to someone to ship a competitive browser which has support for the most widely used codec. Think of Rockmelt or Flock. If they had to pay millions to stay competitive, isn't that a net loss for the internet? >Also, I take issue with your saying "fully compliant". You're right again, I meant a competitive browser. >If anything, the fact that the spec is codec-agnostic suggests that the most "spiritually" compliant position would be for the implementation to be, as well I don't understand exactly what you mean here. I thought the whole point of HTML5 was that video becomes a first class citizen, so if I had to install a plugin for each codec, wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose? Or are you saying that every browser should include support for the widest range of codecs that it possibly can? I think its unfair to ask a non-profit organisation like Mozilla to license a codec for many millions of dollars. Could you elaborate?
- GHFigs 16y ago
  Or are you saying that every browser should include support for the widest range of codecs that it possibly can? No. Quite the opposite, actually. I am saying that a reasonable approach would have been for the browsers to defer support to the operating system. Apple does this. Microsoft does this. Mozilla, Google, and Opera have instead chosen to limit support to only the codecs they implement in-browser. (I say "would have been" because there's practically zero chance of this happening now.) One effect of this is that even on a system with h.264 already present you can't view it in those browsers. This is not a requirement of the HTML5 spec, an h.264 licensing issue or a technically intractable problem, but a choice made by those browser vendors to favor certain codecs. The point is that while the debate is frequently framed as a standards issue it's really more about the ideology of implementing things on top of those standards.