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"WebM is probably safer than most because you have a big entity to fight most of your battle for you, presuming such a battle ever materializes." You’re making

"WebM is probably safer than most because you have a big entity to fight most of your battle for you, presuming such a battle ever materializes." You’re making the kind of assumption that a rational business owner won’t make, which is that Google will suddenly jump in at the last minute and protect you. Thus far, Google is suspiciously refraining from indemnifying anyone using WebM. As a business owner, what motive do I have to give Google my trust and risk my entire business for them/their ideology of “openness” (whatever that means) if they’re not willing to give me the slightest shred of reason to trust them? It’s not like their track record is a shining example, either. "Google released WebM explicitly to circumvent the restrictions with H.264" That's their claim, yes. No independent patent entity has verified this that I know of, and MPEG LA have released statements that they are almost certain that WebM violates some of their patents. Also, Google has no stake in H.264, so they're at risk of being forced to forever pay hefty licensing fees to MPEG LA for Youtube (and other properties) if H.264 wins. It's entirely in Google's interest to kill H.264 or at least make WebM popular enough that they can use that to offer video to users, but just because it's in Google's interest doesn't mean it is in the interest of the web at large, or of Google's users and customers themselves. If you think they did this just for the "openness of the web" you're being either ridiculously naïve or a poor business person.

magicalist 16y ago
as a ridiculously naive and poor business person, I'd like to say that if webm becomes popular enough that google can serve it and avoid h264 (and paying royalties to MPEG-LA), I'd consider it a step toward my vision of a more open web (royalty-free codec widely available) and a good development for my business (royalty-free codec widely available). no one is pretending that this will be all rainbows (the post directly acknowledges the current stalemate), so feel free to assume that those of us in favor of this development aren't idiots.

magicalist 16y ago

as a ridiculously naive and poor business person, I'd like to say that if webm becomes popular enough that google can serve it and avoid h264 (and paying royalties to MPEG-LA), I'd consider it a step toward my vision of a more open web (royalty-free codec widely available) and a good development for my business (royalty-free codec widely available). no one is pretending that this will be all rainbows (the post directly acknowledges the current stalemate), so feel free to assume that those of us in favor of this development aren't idiots.