21–30 of 85 posts
What we need is a catchy domain name, some marketing and a few devs and the spice shall flow again.
I began to wonder how long it will take for someone to begin working on a fork of Firefox which would include support for h264. I have already seen patches for both DirectShow and GStreamer backends, so I'd guess it's not that hard technically. What we need is a catchy domain name, some marketing and a few devs and the spice shall flow again.
Mozilla has taken on the responsibility of providing a free-software solution for browsing the web ..and in so doing they have intentionally crippled their browser's ability to play one of the most widely used video formats. To some of us, this sounds like a dumb move . Hence "get with the program", that program being the one where you attempt to build the best software for browsing the web.
I'm not sure you understand the problem here. They do not have a license to use h264, and even if they did, they could not afford to share it with you. Distributing patent-encumbered GPL code violates the spirit of GPL-2 and the letter of GPL-3. If you don't like it, campaign against software patents. Chromium's approach to this is slightly better, but it's not all there yet. (Speculating here) Google can afford to d…
Their implementation is designed to make it extremely difficult to swap in other codecs from a plugin or straightforward patchset. You'd have to fully fork at least Gecko and XULRunner, and extend Firefox. Due to their strong Trademark policies, your fork couldn't use their names or logos (see also: Iceweasel).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure you understand the problem here. They do not have a license to use h264, and even if they did, they could not afford to share it with you. Distributing patent-encumbered GPL code violates the spirit of GPL-2 and the letter of GPL-3. If you don't like it, campaign against software patents. Chromium's approach to this is slightly better, but it's not all there yet. (Speculating here) Google can afford to d…
I'm not sure you understand the problem here. I do, which is why I am so critical of Mozilla's "solution" to it, which has confused the issue of not being able to ship h.264 support for the reasons you mention with trying to promote a format that (whatever its merits) nobody wants. Ideally, that's the approach Mozilla would take, too. Indeed, it would be, but my understanding is that they are unwilling to do so or un…
I did a bit more research, and found this[1] bug. Mozilla explicitly rejected using ffmpeg on mostly-ideological grounds. So, I guess there's plenty of blame to go around. They're still bound by software patents, but they could allow their users the ability to choose, and they refused.
... So I guess that means we're now in violent agreement. :)
Mozilla has taken on the responsibility of providing a free-software solution for browsing the web ..and in so doing they have intentionally crippled their browser's ability to play one of the most widely used video formats. To some of us, this sounds like a dumb move . Hence "get with the program", that program being the one where you attempt to build the best software for browsing the web.
I'm not sure you understand the problem here. They do not have a license to use h264, and even if they did, they could not afford to share it with you. Distributing patent-encumbered GPL code violates the spirit of GPL-2 and the letter of GPL-3. If you don't like it, campaign against software patents. Chromium's approach to this is slightly better, but it's not all there yet. (Speculating here) Google can afford to d…
Mozilla wouldn't need to distribute h264 decoder. It should allow using 3rd party decoders, either by using system APIs (GStreamer, DirectShow etc) or exposing somekind of plugin interface.
> As they say: Patches Welcome.
Patches haven't been welcome.
Mozilla has taken on the responsibility of providing a free-software solution for browsing the web ..and in so doing they have intentionally crippled their browser's ability to play one of the most widely used video formats. To some of us, this sounds like a dumb move . Hence "get with the program", that program being the one where you attempt to build the best software for browsing the web.
It just depends how much you value your freedom.
Let me be clear: I welcome your rebuttal, and I will read it with an open mind. What I will not do, for you, for Mozilla, or any of the multitude in the Free Software movement and elsewhere that use this tactic is sit and wring my hands about how I'm no longer in the freedom-valuer's club or try to claw my way back into proper thought by hemming and hawing and qualifying my opinion until it is meaningless.
I began to wonder how long it will take for someone to begin working on a fork of Firefox which would include support for h264. I have already seen patches for both DirectShow and GStreamer backends, so I'd guess it's not that hard technically. What we need is a catchy domain name, some marketing and a few devs and the spice shall flow again.
Who's going to pay the licensing fees? If you fork, you probably don't get access to the Google money spigot.
Nobody gives a shit about distributing the x264 source code, and only the fosstards even have a hiccup about distributing binaries, especially from hosts outside the US. Ubuntu may not ship with the gstreamer plugin, but it does prompt you to download it the first time it's asked for by an application.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure you understand the problem here. I do, which is why I am so critical of Mozilla's "solution" to it, which has confused the issue of not being able to ship h.264 support for the reasons you mention with trying to promote a format that (whatever its merits) nobody wants. Ideally, that's the approach Mozilla would take, too. Indeed, it would be, but my understanding is that they are unwilling to do so or un…
I took a quick look at the firefox source, and it looks like they wrote their own media-handling code (implemented with libtheora, etc). I did a bit more research, and found this[1] bug. Mozilla explicitly rejected using ffmpeg on mostly-ideological grounds. So, I guess there's plenty of blame to go around. They're still bound by software patents, but they could allow their users the ability to choose, and they refus…