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No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM

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Re: No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM

#61

Post by ootachi »

sudont wrote: post #40
spiffworks wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The webm spec is frozen, and all patents are irrevocably licensed. Webm is not 'controlled' by Google.

The patent thing is just FUD by Apple proponents. But, I won't support WebM until it's an ISO standard, frozen is just a promise at this point. Their own site says "dedicated to developing a high-quality..." which, taken literally, means that the project is still underway. Also listed on the front page: "Submit patches and improvements" Yet again, saying that it's a work in progress.

ISO leads something to be desired: witness the glacial pace of C++0x (now C++1x). I'd prefer some standardization of VP8 - don't get me wrong - but going through ISO would likely be a mistake.

Re: No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM

#62

Post by commandar »

kmfrk wrote: post #47
commandar wrote: post #18

I was discussing this with some people yesterday. I find it incredibly frustrating that the Grubers of the world have spent months attacking Google for supporting the evil, closed Flash, but then manage to spin Google dropping a closed format in favor of an open one as evil and using it as a roundabout way of continuing to hate on Flash. The fact of the matter is that Flash is an entrenched, defacto standard and isn'…

I generally like Gruber and think he tends to weigh his thoughts and arguments very well - but I still can't forgive him for buying MPEG LA's PR release[1] hook and sink[2]. Since when has it been a good idea to take a press release at face value[3]? He hasn't recanted this complete acquiescence, so I am under the impression that he sincerely believes them - and only on the grounds of that single release. Maybe he wa…

Gruber stays in my RSS feed because he can be incredibly insightful at times, but when he decides to go off on one of these insane lines of thought, he really goes for it.

The last one I remember was when he spent weeks snarking about how Google was somehow being dishonest about not using private APIs in Android. The reality was Gruber hadn't spent 5 minutes looking at the intro to the Android SDK document, and fundamentally misunderstood how Android is architected. What really made it ridiculous is that he kept on with it after having been corrected on the matter, with one of those corrections coming from no less than Tim Bray.

Basically, Gruber is great when he sticks to Apple analysis; when he strays into discussing the competition he tends to enthusiastically dig himself a hole.

EDIT:

Here's that response from Tim Bray I was referring to:

http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2010/05/06/Private-AP...

Gruber was conflating internal datastores with private APIs. The official Android SMS app uses public APIs and then stores messages in its own internal datastore. Bray was cautioning app developers that they shouldn't access that store because the SMS app is not part of the core framework, can be replaced by other applications, and is not guaranteed to be there on all devices as a result.

Gruber managed to turn that into constant snarking about Google lying about only using public APIs.

Re: No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM

#63

Post by morganw »

cletus wrote: post #29
spiffworks wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the most critical point, which is "This license is fundamentally incompatible with software freedom. It requires developers to restrict how their software can be used, and to collect royalties in many situations." And that is what it is all about. H.264 imposes end-user licenses and if it gets entrenched, freely redistributable browsers would lose. The argument against dropping H.264 is basically "why swit…

> "This license is fundamentally incompatible with software freedom. It requires developers to restrict how their software can be used, and to collect royalties in many situations." According to the FSF's definition of software freedom. The FSF has quite a radical view in this regard. A Microsoft exec once described the GPL as "viral' [1] and it's a fair point. Many view licenses like MIT and Apache as being more fre…

> A Microsoft exec once described the GPL as "viral' [1] and it's a fair point.

It's not. Plain old copyright is viral. A derived work's copying can only be done with permission of original and deriving author. If you use a commercial library, the license you paid for is that permission. If someone then creates a new work from yours, permission is needed from all three authors unless the original library came with those particular redistribution rights.

Re: No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM

#64

Post by morganw »

spiffworks wrote: post #33
jasonlotito wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When they made their choice WebM wasn't an option because it didn't even exist yet. IE9 is still in development. They can still choose to support WebM. Apple could still choose to WebM support. The point isn't that Apple and Microsoft can choose. Rather, you can't expect to ask Google to support H.264 and not ask Microsoft and Apple to support WebM. Apple and Microsoft don't want to support it. Fine. Google doesn't…

> Apple could still choose to WebM support. In fact, Imagination Technologies, the people who make the GPUs for the iPhone(and the iPad as well, I think), have already announced full vp8 support in their next-gen hardware decoders, so it would be really easy for Apple to include webm support in the next iPhone or the one after that. And they're safe from any patent threats as well, since they're already MPEG-LA licen…

> it would be really easy for Apple to include webm support

And Matroska support. Building container parsers that are resilient to fuzzing attacks is non-trivial. Can I assume you'd like trick play (ffw, rew, scrub), too?

Re: No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM

#65

Post by marbletiles »

The content is all in h.264 because it works in 99.9999% of places. You can make every browser support webM tomorrow and that still wouldn't be a compelling reason for publishers to add WebM in favour of the status quo.

The only thing that could achieve such a thing would be a device with iOS levels of popularity that a) doesn't support h.264 b) doesn't support Flash. Who is going to make such a device? A: Nobody, because it won't support any web video at all apart from maybe YouTube.

You can grouse about open principles all you want, but the big video producers don't care; they will not be a factor. Audience demand is the only thing that matters, and they won't demand WebM when h.264 is already working "fine".

Re: No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM

#66

Post by commandar »

jasonlotito wrote: post #28
commandar wrote: post #18

I was discussing this with some people yesterday. I find it incredibly frustrating that the Grubers of the world have spent months attacking Google for supporting the evil, closed Flash, but then manage to spin Google dropping a closed format in favor of an open one as evil and using it as a roundabout way of continuing to hate on Flash. The fact of the matter is that Flash is an entrenched, defacto standard and isn'…

Google supports Adobe Flash, and has dropped support for Google's implementation of H.264 inside Chrome. One is a plugin. One was not. I agree with your comment, and I find the Flash/H.264/Chrome argument to be childish at best.

This can be seen pretty easily on Linux builds of Chrome/Chromium where it links to libflashplayer.so. In fact, when Flash crashes on Linux, Chrome pops up with an infobar telling you that libflashplayer.so has crashed. :)

Re: No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM

#67

Post by ijuhyftgreduy »

marbletiles wrote: post #65

The content is all in h.264 because it works in 99.9999% of places. You can make every browser support webM tomorrow and that still wouldn't be a compelling reason for publishers to add WebM in favour of the status quo. The only thing that could achieve such a thing would be a device with iOS levels of popularity that a) doesn't support h.264 b) doesn't support Flash. Who is going to make such a device? A: Nobody, be…

Google switches youtube to WebM and people will want WebM in their browser, they may even be prepared to switch to chrome if it's the only thing that can view WebM easily.

When Google decides to take the internet TV business away from people like Netflix - remember they are an advertising company - they want their own codec to avoid any arguments.

Re: No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM

#68

Post by contextfree »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #35
jasonlotito wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google supports Adobe Flash, and has dropped support for Google's implementation of H.264 inside Chrome. One is a plugin. One was not. I agree with your comment, and I find the Flash/H.264/Chrome argument to be childish at best.

If an Apple or Microsoft blogger finds themselves taking a more hardline stance than the FSF, it's easy to conclude that they're trolling/astroturfing. However if we're talking "childish", then the "Plugins! I thought the point of HTML5 was to avoid plugins" argument wins by a mile. People, including Google, have been pushing HTML5 via various plugins, fallbacks and shims for a good while (e.g. Chrome Frame, Google G…

The hatred for plugins is ridiculous in general. One of the best things about software is that it can be made freely extensible, and browsers are no exception.

Re: No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM

#69

Post by commandar »

jasonlotito wrote: post #24
masklinn wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only because Microsoft and Apple choose not to support WebM. When they made their choice WebM wasn't an option because it didn't even exist yet . Microsoft might be a different issue, but Apple has now shipped almost 150M devices with hardware h.264 support and no webm support at all. > You completely miss the point. GIF is a lesson, and we should learn from it. GIF is completely irrelevant to the issue at hand (or…

> When they made their choice WebM wasn't an option because it didn't even exist yet. IE9 is still in development. They can still choose to support WebM. Apple could still choose to WebM support. The point isn't that Apple and Microsoft can choose. Rather, you can't expect to ask Google to support H.264 and not ask Microsoft and Apple to support WebM. Apple and Microsoft don't want to support it. Fine. Google doesn't…

>IE9 is still in development. They can still choose to support WebM.

I was talking with a friend yesterday and mentioned how hilarious it'd be if Microsoft decided to adopt WebM on WP7 and then attack Apple for being too closed. :)

Re: No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM

#70

Post by marbletiles »

ijuhyftgreduy wrote: post #67
marbletiles wrote: post #65

The content is all in h.264 because it works in 99.9999% of places. You can make every browser support webM tomorrow and that still wouldn't be a compelling reason for publishers to add WebM in favour of the status quo. The only thing that could achieve such a thing would be a device with iOS levels of popularity that a) doesn't support h.264 b) doesn't support Flash. Who is going to make such a device? A: Nobody, be…

Google switches youtube to WebM and people will want WebM in their browser, they may even be prepared to switch to chrome if it's the only thing that can view WebM easily. When Google decides to take the internet TV business away from people like Netflix - remember they are an advertising company - they want their own codec to avoid any arguments.

Yes, YouTube would have to switch to WebM -- ie no support for serving any other codec -- for that to be true. Which is effectively turning off YouTube for every browser and device on the web today.

Are they going to do that? No chance. Some day, maybe, but they're not going to lead the way.

And while YouTube is still additionally serving h.264, there's still no pressure for everybody else to change.

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