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Dear Mozilla, Please Don't Kill HTML5 Video

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

#31

Post by jmillikin »

reconbot wrote: post #26
jmillikin wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's fair to blame Google here -- after all, Chrome supports Theora and Vorbis natively. If they want to pay for licenses, that's their decision. The problem is when a browser doesn't support Theora/Vorbis at all , such as Safari or current news regarding IE9. I'm personally hoping that the released version of IE9 will support Theora/Vorbis -- very unlikely, but a man can dream.

I'm really confused why chrome (and now IE9) doesn't support Theora/Vorbis when it's FREE and USEFUL for them to do so. I think I'm missing something. I do know if you build your own Chromium you can use a non neutered library of ffmpeg and play every codec it supports instead of just mp4.

(I think the "chrome" in your post is a typo, do you mean Safari?)

Apple doesn't support Theora in Safari because the iPhone doesn't have a Theora hardware decoder. They bluster a bit about submarine patents, but really, their refusal boils down to the iPhone. If desktop Safari supports Theora and the iPhone doesn't, users will complain. If playing some videos on the iPhone uses the battery faster than advertised, users will complain.

Microsoft, of course, has a long-lasting and well-documented dislike towards open formats. Whether IE9 supports Theora and Vorbis will depend on internal company politics -- "Free Is Bad" vs. "Lets Not Fuck Up IE Again".

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

#32

Post by CoreDumpling »

evgen wrote: post #4

Don't worry, Mozilla is taking a principled stand that will become the impetus for their final jump into irrelevance. If IE9 does what their recent noises regarding HTML5 have been suggesting then Mozilla will join Opera in the "cute but useless" category and Chrome & IE9 will divvy up the Firefox marketshare within three years.

Sorry, my sarcasm meter needs some calibration. While HTML5 video driving forward web standards is certainly nice, I can't even bring myself to believe that we will rid ourselves of the rotting carcass that is IE6 within the next three years, let alone Flash as a video delivery platform. I don't think Mozilla feels threatened yet, but we'll see if they change their minds once they see this affecting their bottom line.

Strangely enough, my gripes with Firefox have driven me to Opera, despite the "cute but useless" label you have slapped on it in such a cavalier fashion.

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

#33

Post by [deleted] »

evgen wrote: post #4

Don't worry, Mozilla is taking a principled stand that will become the impetus for their final jump into irrelevance. If IE9 does what their recent noises regarding HTML5 have been suggesting then Mozilla will join Opera in the "cute but useless" category and Chrome & IE9 will divvy up the Firefox marketshare within three years.

[deleted]

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

#35

Post by fungi »

vrode wrote: post #30
jmillikin wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What about Flash then?

?

what do you mean?

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

#36

Post by jmillikin »

CoreDumpling wrote: post #32
evgen wrote: post #4

Don't worry, Mozilla is taking a principled stand that will become the impetus for their final jump into irrelevance. If IE9 does what their recent noises regarding HTML5 have been suggesting then Mozilla will join Opera in the "cute but useless" category and Chrome & IE9 will divvy up the Firefox marketshare within three years.

Sorry, my sarcasm meter needs some calibration. While HTML5 video driving forward web standards is certainly nice, I can't even bring myself to believe that we will rid ourselves of the rotting carcass that is IE6 within the next three years, let alone Flash as a video delivery platform. I don't think Mozilla feels threatened yet, but we'll see if they change their minds once they see this affecting their bottom line…

Opera is sort of "cute but useless" -- on some sites I maintain for non-technical users, Opera has a smaller market share than IE5. IE6 will probably be around until we're all dead of age.

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

#37

Post by fnid2 »

In the end, this was a good move from Google, Apple, and Microsoft if they want to kill off FireFox. Why do any of those three want FF to survive? They're rich, they got money. They want to dominate the browser market. FF is all of their enemies, so in this instance, they are friends.

I don't see anyway that FF could compete against them all if people can't watch videos in the browser.

Additionally, they are all owners of massive content sites that will be able to distribute the content as well, so it's a win win for them. They beat out FF as a browser and they beat out rival content distributors.

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

#38

Post by buster »

jmillikin wrote: post #31
reconbot wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really confused why chrome (and now IE9) doesn't support Theora/Vorbis when it's FREE and USEFUL for them to do so. I think I'm missing something. I do know if you build your own Chromium you can use a non neutered library of ffmpeg and play every codec it supports instead of just mp4.

(I think the "chrome" in your post is a typo, do you mean Safari?) Apple doesn't support Theora in Safari because the iPhone doesn't have a Theora hardware decoder. They bluster a bit about submarine patents, but really, their refusal boils down to the iPhone. If desktop Safari supports Theora and the iPhone doesn't, users will complain. If playing some videos on the iPhone uses the battery faster than advertised, us…

It's funny how one can see that you are a mac/iPhone user.. You are, aren't you? ;)

No, Apple stated that they don't support Theora "claiming that the lack of known patents on Theora doesn't rule out the threat of submarine patents that could eventually be used against adopters." http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/07/decoding-the...

They also said that they have no hardwaredecoder, but this is just an excuse, imo. Video decoding is done by DSPs and DSP are designed to be programmable quite flexible. Apple/Whoever just would have to do that.

All in all, the whole situation is very clear when you look at it with the "patent view" ;)

MS: -has Windows Media Player, WMV, pays MPEG Patent fees anyway -> H.264

Apple: -has Quicktime, pays MPEG Patent fees anyway -> H.264

Mozilla: -no license -> Theora

Opera: -no license -> Theora

Goole: -no Codecs but youtube is in mpeg, but can easily switch to theora -> H.264+theora

MS and Apple have reasons to use the H.264 format: they already pay those fees, have expertise with the format, can "supress" the competition with it. Because MS could build in theora support, but what Mozila can't is to build in h.264 format (without paying). Mozilla can only lose this battle and MS&Apple are quite happy about it. There goes the competition. Typical stupid, "selfish", proprieatry bullshit-decission.

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

#39

Post by andrewf »

mkyc wrote: post #34
Qz wrote: post #24

I'm so glad the patent system is spurring creativity and innovation.

It seems to have gotten us h264. The variant that isn't patented is clearly inferior - look at the screenshots.

Theora is patented. On2 granted people the right to use their patented technology without fear of legal reprisal. http://theora.org/faq/#24

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

#40

Post by ubernostrum »

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…

To suggest that the only way to handle H.264 is to directly write and ship a codec for it is such an uninformed position that I'm surprised you're sitting at a positive score.

Every major operating system on the market today (including Linux) has a media framework with support available for H.264. Mozilla's policy is to refuse to delegate to the OS for media handling, largely so that they'll have a political bargaining chip to try to push Theora on everyone else.

In other words, this is not a pragmatic or economic decision by Mozilla; it is purely an ideological decision, because they could -- if they chose -- support H.264 video easily and at zero financial cost to themselves and their users. What we should be talking about, then, is whether this is a good ideological stand to take.

(and, personally, I think it's the wrong stand at the wrong time; Mozilla should be holding off from making any decisions until the Bilski case is decided, because it may well turn out that there's no such thing as a software patent in the US)

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