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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

#81

Post by rimantas »

ashearer wrote: post #39
rimantas wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Graphics chips with built-in WebM support are slated to ship this quarter. It's not hard to imagine that the 2012 iPhone hardware will get this ability for free, even if it's only a side effect of using the same graphics chips as Android devices. Then it's just up to Apple whether to turn it on. Google appears to be laying the groundwork it can now so that the answer is more likely to be yes. This will take a few yea…

You did not answer my question.

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

#82

Post by rimantas »

ashearer wrote: post #27
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, get…

What makes you think the world (outside HN) cares about the openness of video player they use?

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

#83

Post by cletus »

commandar wrote: post #23
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 h…

> Flash isn't going away in the short term anyway

I disagree completely. One of the things I love about my iDevices is that they don't support Flash. Some consider this a problem. I consider it a feature.

For me personally, very few times is this frustrating and most of those are when sites use Flash-wrapped video with no HTML5 fallback, which is still relatively common (but decreasingly so).

I wish I could use Chrome without Flash. But it's preinstalled, which I'm vehemently opposed to. What's worse, if you uninstall it almost every page bugs you about missing plugins. The only solution (which I use) is to use a Flashblock plugin, which is far from optimal (eg sites use a Flash overlay over the entire page to trigger all the Flash on the page).

And for the record, I don't hate Flash because it's closed. I hate it because it's buggy, creates extra security vulnerabilities, is used for some quite nefarious practices (eg zombie cookies) and, in the modern era of HTML/JS, is basically not needed anymore (where it once was) for RIAs.

> 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 in real terms this move does absolutely nothing to the future of H.264. Want to watch H.264 in Chrome? You use Flash. So the net result is now I have to use Flash where before I didn't.

> Mozilla's refusal to adopt H.264. Everybody would have kept using Flash+H.264 anyway.

If Firefox users choose to use Flash (by choosing Firefox) then that's their choice. I also understand why Mozilla doesn't support H.264. Beyond the political arguments a license would be a huge slice of their revenues.

So all this move does is force me, as a Chrome user, to use Flash, where before the browser supported the format of most relevance in the video market. Unlike Mozilla, who have valid financial reasons, Google already has a H.264 license so this move is purely philosophical/political.

I object to being drafted into a war that I have no interest in and (imho) is both premature (for WebM as a format), too late (considering H.264 entrenchment to date) and unnecessary (given the cost of changing later and that the FUDed Armageddon scenarios are at best overblown and at worst disingenuous).

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

#84

Post by mikeryan »

Teef wrote: post #71
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…

Android if not today will be more popular device than iOS soon. I was thinking the combination of Android + Chrome would be enough to motivate publishers to encode using Webm?

I'm not yet aware of an Android device which supports WebM hardware decoding. Virtually all of them support H.264 hardware decoding.

This is not an iOS vs Android argument (though many have tried to make it so), all of the current devices chose H.264 as their primary codec because when they were being designed and developed that was the only logical choice.

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

#85

Post by ashearer »

rimantas wrote: post #82
ashearer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, get…

What makes you think the world (outside HN) cares about the openness of video player they use?

I'll throw that back at you. What makes you think I think that, or that it somehow affects what I said?

Regular people don't care, nor do they need to. Browser makers (Apple, Google, Mozilla) and content publishers (YouTube, BBC) care intensely, and are driving the entire controversy. All have a significant financial stake. Sufficiently large content publishers like Google/YouTube and the BBC have been motivated enough to invest heavily in open source codecs themselves. Supporters and detractors of Flash are fanning the flames.

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

#86

Post by pedanticfreak »

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…

Google may eventually drop Adobe Flash if it becomes obsolete, but there is no reason to do it out of spite. Plugins are a part of the web and are in line with Google's culture of extensibility. See also vendor modifications to Android OS. If anything Google will open up plugin autoupdates to more plugin vendors.

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

#87

Post by pedanticfreak »

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…

Google may eventually stop bundling Adobe Flash if it becomes obsolete, but there is no reason to do it out of spite. Plugins are a part of the web and are in line with Google's culture of extensibility. See also vendor modifications to Android OS. If anything Google will open up plugin autoupdates to more plugin vendors.

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

#88

Post by pedanticfreak »

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…

Google may eventually stop bundling Adobe Flash if it becomes obsolete, but there is no reason to do it out of spite. Plugins are a part of the web and are in line with Google's culture of extensibility. See also vendor modifications to Android OS. If anything Google will open up plugin autoupdates to more plugin vendors.

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

#89

Post by nicholasjbs »

9oliYQjP wrote: post #44
spiffworks wrote: post #2

"free standards" I'm glad somebody finally figured out how to accurately describe webm. All this hand-waving talk of 'openness' and 'open standards' was debate poison.

Except it's not "free" in the Free software sense. Google specifically addresses why they didn't use a GPL license but rather BSD. They want to promote WebM in proprietary, closed, products. http://www.webmproject.org/about/faq/ "One of the goals of having this code licensed as liberally as possible is to encourage adoption by as many users as possible. This includes both proprietary and free software. Using the GPL…

BSD-licensed software is free software according to the FSF (see: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleL...), it's just not copyleft.

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

#90

Post by othermaciej »

ootachi wrote: post #61
sudont wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think you are wrong to project the failings of the C++ committee on ISO as a whole.

For H.264/AVC, it was less than 4 years from the first draft to final ratification. It was a joint effort of ISO and ITU-T.

Still, if that's too slow, SMPTE seems to go faster when they start with an existing codec. VC-1 and VC-2 (a profile of Dirac) were both done there.

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