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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

#21

Post by rimantas »

nikster wrote: post #13
pacifika wrote: post #3

This article would be correct if Google dropped flash together with H.264. The practical result of playing H.264 to Chrome users via Flash instead of through a native open source implementation (Chromium) is surely a net negative for free standards supporters? After all it's "proprietary, nonstandard software."

I don't buy the argument that it strengthens Flash. Flash and H.264 are both 90% YouTube, e.g. Google. Google can, therefore, flip a switch and turn everything to WebM. They just need broad support in place first. If Google says they will switch YouTube to WebM gradually, then all the browsers and devices will need to support it. End of story.

Care to elaborate, how do I solder that WebM chip into my iPhone 4?

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

#23

Post by commandar »

cletus wrote: post #4

A few points: > We applaud Google for this change; it's a positive step for free software Except that it further entrenches Flash in the short to medium term, possibly longer. > Most of it is delivered with Flash, which is proprietary, nonstandard software. Exactly. H.264 isn't going away anytime soon so having a Web browser without Flash gets that much harder. With no native support for H.264 in Firefox or (soon) Ch…

>Exactly. H.264 isn't going away anytime soon so having a Web browser without Flash gets that much harder.

This is short term thinking. Flash isn't going away in the short term anyway; why should we kneecap the future of HTML5 before it gets off the ground because it might temporarily extend the life of an already entrenched format?

Because the way I see it, there's zero chance of replacing it when your alternative had nearly 20% of the market guaranteed to be segmented due to Mozilla's refusal to adopt H.264. Everybody would have kept using Flash+H.264 anyway.

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

#24

Post by jasonlotito »

masklinn wrote: post #14
jasonlotito wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Except that it further entrenches Flash in the short to medium term, possibly longer. Only because Microsoft and Apple choose not to support WebM. Prior to Google's choice, Firefox (with rather significant browser usage stats) wasn't supporting H.264 either, which kept Flash on the web. Also, people keep referring to IE, but it still needs Flash. Sure, IE9 is coming, but we'll see what the adoption rates will be li…

> 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 want to support it. Fine.

Neither H.264 and WebM are written into the standard. Fine.

Let the competition begin. The best technology that meets all the needs of the various groups will win.

> GIF is completely irrelevant to the issue at hand (or, if you want to reach for it, WebM is actually more at risk of a GIF-type scenario than h.264)

No, and no. I'd explain more, but I can't follow your logic. (Nor do I really want to try. Sorry, but you seem far too emotional about the topic. I'm probably wrong, but your comment comes off that way).

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

#25

Post by commandar »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #5
pacifika wrote: post #3

This article would be correct if Google dropped flash together with H.264. The practical result of playing H.264 to Chrome users via Flash instead of through a native open source implementation (Chromium) is surely a net negative for free standards supporters? After all it's "proprietary, nonstandard software."

I don't understand this position. Dropping H.264 is aligned with the FSF's goals, so of course they should support it. To me, Google's move is an indication that Google will eventually drop and/or downgrade Flash support. You encourage institutions to do the right thing by applauding when they do the right thing. Not by saying "you suck because you didn't take it far enough". You say "Good move doing X. And when you…

This is going to sound somewhat trollish, unfortunately, but it's difficult for me to resolve the sheer cognitive dissonance in these complaints with anything other than either fanboyism or myopia.

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

#27

Post by ashearer »

pacifika wrote: post #3

This article would be correct if Google dropped flash together with H.264. The practical result of playing H.264 to Chrome users via Flash instead of through a native open source implementation (Chromium) is surely a net negative for free standards supporters? After all it's "proprietary, nonstandard software."

For the FSF, the medium-term risk of not eradicating Flash as quickly as possible is well worth the rare chance to achieve the only desirable outcome for open source in the long term: having the world's video encoded with a free standard.

After all, not needing a Flash wrapper is a hollow victory if your open source player can't legally decode the content. The content standard is the major battle. If that is won, getting rid of the Flash video wrapper is a trivial effort in comparison.

The scenario that everyone will just continue to use Flash with H.264 is assured only if nothing else changes. But Flash adopting WebM will change the support numbers dramatically, and being the odd ones out in not supporting WebM is the only way that Apple and MS would feel any pressure to follow suit.

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

#28

Post by jasonlotito »

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.

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

#29

Post by cletus »

spiffworks wrote: post #10
cletus wrote: post #4

A few points: > We applaud Google for this change; it's a positive step for free software Except that it further entrenches Flash in the short to medium term, possibly longer. > Most of it is delivered with Flash, which is proprietary, nonstandard software. Exactly. H.264 isn't going away anytime soon so having a Web browser without Flash gets that much harder. With no native support for H.264 in Firefox or (soon) Ch…

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 free simply because they're not as restrictive.

This ambiguity is more pronounced when you use words like "open" because it means different things to different people.

So it would be more accurate to say that H.264 is incompatible with the FSF's idea of software freedom.

> if it gets entrenched

What do you mean "if"? It already has.

> Why wait until a fiasco?

Because anyone who writes software knows that writing code to solve problems you may never have is a recipe for wasted effort if not outright disaster.

It's a bit like the standoff between the (former) Soviet Union and the USA: not a single shot was ever (directly) fired between the two but the threat of escalating conflict kept them in check (resulting in proxy conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc but I digress).

Think about it this way: MPEG-LA could announce tomorrow that licenses now cost $1 trillion. The result? Obviously no one would pay and a new standard would arise pretty quickly. What if it was $1 billion? $100 million? The point here it is simply a question of degree.

So what keeps (and will keep) MPEG-LA in check is market forces, the limits of what people can and will pay and the threat of a free or cheaper alternative... much like any market. Switching formats is a process that can be automated so the transition cost isn't really that high.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Vira...

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

#30

Post by pohl »

patrickaljord wrote: post #17
spiffworks wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

H.264 is probably superior to webm. I don't understand video codecs, but it's the consensus opinion among people who know this stuff. However, I fail to see how its relevant in any way. The tegra2 can already decode 1080p vp8 in hardware, and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't notice the difference between a 720p video in webm and another in H.264 in terms of performance on your x86 cpu. The inefficiency, if any, would be…

H.264 baseline codec is similar to vp8, not superior. And baseline is what is used on mobile and all hardware encoders, so the highest versions of H.264 don't even matter.

...baseline is what is used on mobile...

That's the market segment that the baseline profile was conceived for, but the phone in my pocket and the tablet on my nightstand both support the main profile. Sure, most content that I view on it is probably encoded in baseline, but there are 17 million iPads in the wild that support the main profile. Edit: it's not just iOS devices, either. The Playstation Portable supports the main profile too. There are around 62 million of them out there.

VP8 needs to skate to where the puck is going to be, as it were.

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