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For the record, it appears Mozilla, Inc is very rich and could almost certainly just afford the fees and be done with it. That way they'd close the loop and we'
by imajes 16y ago
For the record, it appears Mozilla, Inc is very rich and could almost certainly just afford the fees and be done with it. That way they'd close the loop and we'd all adopt h264, pay the money, and be on our way to HTML5 video.
It's clear that the adoption of webm is about control and changing the conversation: Google & Mozilla want to drive the direction and own the space. Let's not forget, mozilla owns the 'open source' identity and needs to keep it going, whilst Google has a significantly vested interest with YouTube.
- beej71 16y agoI can't afford to make a popular browser, though. Sure I can fork one in a second, but if people started using it a lot, I'd be screwed. Only make a popular browser if you're rich enough to support H.264, I think is the lesson.
- anonymous246 16y agoBoth commonly used OS's (Windows and Mac) have OS-level services to play H.264. No need for browser to license anything. In this instance, Mozilla has gone out of it's way to not use the OS-level facility, forcing Microsoft to write a plugin to make that happen.
- beej71 16y agoWell, FWIW, I disagree with Firefox not using it if its free to use. However, I still totally object to H.264 being a requirement in the spec.
- weavejester 16y agoThe problem isn't financial; it's ideological. The GPL says that no additional restrictions must be placed on the end user. The H.264 license says that only personal and non-commercial use is allowed. I'm not sure whether they legally conflict, but the H.264 license is obviously against the spirit of the GPL.