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Dear Mozilla, Please Don't Kill HTML5 Video

briancrescimanno.com

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Re: Dear Mozilla, Please Don't Kill HTML5 Video

#11

Post by bcrescimanno »

daleharvey wrote: post #9
bcrescimanno wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd personally contend that MS, Apple, and Google didn't "choose proprietary," they chose 1) the current market leading format 2) ...that has the most video content available online already 3) ...that can be hardware accelarated 4) ...that offers the best quality to size ratio.

none of those change the fact that they "chose proprietary"

Sure--but they chose pragmatically. Proprietary vs. open was not as major a factor as say; not forcing 9 of 10 businesses to re-encode all of their video if they want it to work with Firefox.

Re: Dear Mozilla, Please Don't Kill HTML5 Video

#12

Post by docgnome »

bcrescimanno wrote: post #7
docgnome wrote: post #5

I like how Mozilla gets all the blame for refusing to support a non-free solution, instead of Google, Apple, and Microsoft for choosing a proprietary solution.

I'd personally contend that MS, Apple, and Google didn't "choose proprietary," they chose 1) the current market leading format 2) ...that has the most video content available online already 3) ...that can be hardware accelarated 4) ...that offers the best quality to size ratio.

You're right of course. Free vs Non-Free had nothing to do with it. I just really hate how everyone is hating on Mozilla for making a choice that is consistent with their principles.

Re: Dear Mozilla, Please Don't Kill HTML5 Video

#14

Post by fungi »

this really isn't fair

mozilla is in no position to be directly supporting h264, to suggest otherwise is just naive. its not a free codec and they simply can't afford to bet their future on the liability of massive royalties when the licensing regime changes (and it will).

their reasons for not indirectly supporting h264 via the OS is in my view valid but weak, would assume that this will be overcome with an extension of some sort in the future.

in any case encoding video twice really isn't a big deal.

Re: Dear Mozilla, Please Don't Kill HTML5 Video

#15

Post by jimmyjim »

freetard wrote: post #3

Mozilla is waiting for google to open source On2's codec.

It isn't in Google's long-term interest to do any such thing for its future expansion. Especially with the news of Android on TV's, it would seem that it'll have to cave in to DRM-encumbered technologies in order to play ball with big media.

Re: Dear Mozilla, Please Don't Kill HTML5 Video

#16

Post by freetard »

evgen wrote: post #6
freetard wrote: post #3

Mozilla is waiting for google to open source On2's codec.

What benefit if there for Google to do this anytime soon? They can wait for Mozilla to implode, scoop up most of their marketshare and continue to use the On2 codec as a veiled threat to keep MPEG-LA in line. The On2 codec is more useful to Google if it stays locked in a drawer.

Google doesn't want to kill mozilla. Open standards are good for the web and therefor good for Google. Google explicitly said that they want other browsers to copy the features of chrome because great broswers mean a better web experience for everyone which is good for google. A competitor such as mozilla that embraces open standard is actually a good thing for google, that's the kind of browser competitor they want, not IE.

As for freeing On2 codec, google made it clear on their press release when they bought on2 that having an open video standard was primordial for the web. And again, it's in their interest to make the web the best platform possible, and having a free and open video codec usable by all is a huge part of achieving that goal.

Letting the On2 codec locked in a drawer would be a huge mistake, it would help mpeg4 be the ubiquitous standard making any alternative irrelevant and useless (like vorbis or aac were with mp3, even though vorbis and aac were actually better). If there is any time to make use of On2, it's now and that's by making it open source.

Re: Dear Mozilla, Please Don't Kill HTML5 Video

#17

Post by bcrescimanno »

fungi wrote: post #14

this really isn't fair mozilla is in no position to be directly supporting h264, to suggest otherwise is just naive. its not a free codec and they simply can't afford to bet their future on the liability of massive royalties when the licensing regime changes (and it will). their reasons for not indirectly supporting h264 via the OS is in my view valid but weak, would assume that this will be overcome with an extensio…

How do you account for them directly supporting GIF? I'm not disagreeing in principle; but history shows that Mozilla as an organization is capable of picking it's battles and even supporting patent encumbered formats if doing so will make the Web a better place.

Being an employee of a one of the largest online video providers, I can assure you that both we and our customers see multiple encoding formats as a big deal.

Re: Dear Mozilla, Please Don't Kill HTML5 Video

#18

Post by freetard »

jimmyjim wrote: post #15
freetard wrote: post #3

Mozilla is waiting for google to open source On2's codec.

It isn't in Google's long-term interest to do any such thing for its future expansion. Especially with the news of Android on TV's, it would seem that it'll have to cave in to DRM-encumbered technologies in order to play ball with big media.

Having an open codec doesn't prevent at all using DRM.

Re: Dear Mozilla, Please Don't Kill HTML5 Video

#19

Post by jimmyjim »

jimmyjim wrote: post #15
freetard wrote: post #3

Mozilla is waiting for google to open source On2's codec.

It isn't in Google's long-term interest to do any such thing for its future expansion. Especially with the news of Android on TV's, it would seem that it'll have to cave in to DRM-encumbered technologies in order to play ball with big media.

And on a related note, Google's visions come to light quite clearly if you look at what they're focusing on: cloud computing, ultra-high speed connections. They don't want users to have any local storage. They just want to serve ads on all media. Very obvious of course, but it's interesting to see the grand scheme coming together.

Re: Dear Mozilla, Please Don't Kill HTML5 Video

#20

Post by jmillikin »

bcrescimanno wrote: post #17
fungi wrote: post #14

this really isn't fair mozilla is in no position to be directly supporting h264, to suggest otherwise is just naive. its not a free codec and they simply can't afford to bet their future on the liability of massive royalties when the licensing regime changes (and it will). their reasons for not indirectly supporting h264 via the OS is in my view valid but weak, would assume that this will be overcome with an extensio…

How do you account for them directly supporting GIF? I'm not disagreeing in principle; but history shows that Mozilla as an organization is capable of picking it's battles and even supporting patent encumbered formats if doing so will make the Web a better place. Being an employee of a one of the largest online video providers, I can assure you that both we and our customers see multiple encoding formats as a big dea…

The GIF patents expired while Firefox was still in early development. And it was not the GIF format itself which was patented, but a particular compression algorithm used with it -- decoders, as used in Mozilla, were not patented.

People could (and did) create uncompressed GIFs to avoid the patent risk. For obvious reasons, uncompressed H.264 is not useful.

[1] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gif.html

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