Unlike VideoLAN, Mozilla has a big, obvious income stream for H.264 patent-holders to go after. Mozilla, quite reasonably, thinks they should spend that income

Unlike VideoLAN, Mozilla has a big, obvious income stream for H.264 patent-holders to go after. Mozilla, quite reasonably, thinks they should spend that income advancing their mission rather than paying off patent holders (in a way that undermines it). They're also, again unlike VideoLAN, headquartered in a very, very software-patent-friendly jurisdiction. Mozilla isn't refusing to ship H.264 because they lack "balls". They're refusing because there are serious practical constraints that get in the way.