The fact remains that webm has a better chance of being an open source standard with no royalty fees...
As long as webM stays as is this may be true. In order for webM to evolve and be improved, which must be done, it would or will become a patent nightmare.
Research this just a bit and you will see the many potential and probable patent problems of developing webM any further.
As long as webM stays as is this may be true. In order for webM to evolve and be improved, which must be done, it would or will become a patent nightmare.
Research this just a bit and you will see the many potential and probable patent problems of developing webM any further.
And that is Googles strategy because they have no IP.
Develop something and push it to market no matter whose patents it violates.
Give it away for "free" and reach critical mass.
Once the patent case works its way through the court system the user base is "too big" for the courts to force Google to pull the plug.
And thats how Google gets around patent law.
They tried it with Android and now they are trying it with WebM.
I am glad that Oracle is standing up for their IP and I hope the patent holders of IP that WebM does that same instead of taking the payout.
Hopefully the US justice department slaps them down.
Folks, its all about control. Google wants it but being the new kid on the block they have no IP so they have little control.
"If you want to do any kind of video on the web, you don't have a choice [but to use Flash]". Nice one, open source proponents. I didn't know roll over and play dead was part of your strategy
.
Differently from Flash, H.264 is not ubiquitous on the web, and it is not free. We are not settled yet on which codec should be used on <video> tags. That's why most web video services still support Flash. And given that Mozilla and Opera have together 30-35% of the browser market (now 40-47% with Chrome), video publishers won't stop supporting Flash until the majority of the browser makers support a royalty-free video codec in line with W3C patent policies, so that every web video publisher can be sure that the majority of browsers can play videos using the <video> tag.
Mozilla, Opera, Chrome, Chromium, Konqueror and others will support WebM, most of them because they can't afford the royalty fees. If Apple and Microsoft want to revert this trend and make at least Opera and Mozilla support H.264, they should volunteer to pay their royalty fees for a lifetime. The problem is that they can't as nobody knows how much H.264 royalties will cost in a few years. An alternative is to support a royalty-free codec natively in their browsers, which should be trivial to them. This would make it possible to have a standard codec for the <video> tag.
Ohhhh boy I bet you MPEG LA is waiting patiently for Google to roll out WebM for a year or so, make some nice patent-infringing improvements to it... Then BAM! Crush WebM with litigation. Just you see...
MPEG LA is already saying they believe that WebM already violates some MPEG LA patents. If WebM gets any of the major improvements it needs would also mean more patent violations = LAWSUIT(s).
Google making WebM available free, WITHOUT PATENT INDEMNIFICATION, should tell everyone all they need to know about WebM.
You can repeat it as many times as you want, but H.264 is NOT an open standard. It contains patented technologies, which means it isn't "open", no matter how many times Appleinsider says it is.
Ogg Theora, however is 100% open, and is now supported by both Mozilla and Chrome. Since Google owns YouTube, I assume YouTube will switch to Ogg very shortly.
That leaves Safari with H264, which is not exactly a dominant player in the browser market right now. The iPhone is no longer the dominant smartphone platform, either, so Android should also push more folks into using Ogg.
While I understand Apple placed it's bets on H264 (understandable since they are an MPEG LA licensor), I think it'll be forced to include Ogg support once YouTube makes the switch - I think the iPhone needs YouTube more than YouTube needs the iPhone at this point.
Does anybody else remember when Appleinsider used to pay at least passing lip service to the fact that most stories have to viewpoints? Lately every article can be summed up with 2 simple points:
1. Apple is Correct/Perfect/Amazing/The Future/Putting the Customer First
2. Not Apple (Google, MS, Consumer Reports, etc) is WRONG/FLAWED/STUPID/SO LAST YEAR/ONLY INTERESTED IN MONEY.
Holy Troll Batman! How do we fight such evil...
Hold on my crime fighting friend, I've invented a Bat Bunter! Simply push the second button on your belt and the "Troll will be abolished" will work. It's a new Android enabled feature!
...I would rather this be hashed out in court so we can see who is doing what. I don't know why MPEG hasn't already been looking into patent infringements beforehand. What was the logic behind them not already pursuing a case regarding On2 and now WebM? I would've rather this been litigated in court already so we know what to do as developers.
I'd imagine nothing has happened yet because there is no money to be made from said litigation.
This part of the Opera article is nonsense (and who really cares about Opera anyways?)
Why would you have to care about Opera? Opera isn't important here. It's the argument that matters. But you obviously don't think you have a strong counter-argument, so you resort to petty attacks.
Quote:
By the above reasoning, why doesn't Google just bundle a plugin for H.264?
They are. It's called Flash.
Quote:
If "most of the web video is still Flash", a lot of the web video is also H.264.
But the point is that the h264 is served through Flash, so Flash serves the purpose of allowing Chrome to show just about any video online while Google is working on making WebM the codec of choice for native video.
Quote:
Clearly Google is favouring WebM and Flash video for their own purposes.
Google is favoring WebM for native video, and is using Flash for practical reasons.
Quote:
It's a pity all the open source idealists are going to be thoroughly conned by Google.
Your attacks fail miserably again. Opera isn't open-source! It's about open standards, not about source code.
Quote:
Even the article suggests "Oh, Flash is ubiquitous, so we give up, let's embrace that decrepit closed proprietary system" and "it's just pragmatism". Wouldn't it be more pragmatic to let Flash die and just work with H.264 and clarify licensing, royalties, etc.?
No, it's pragmatism to use what's already out there for now. Google doesn't want h264 because it's not compatible with the open web.
Quote:
People, don't buy this smoke-and-mirrors stuff from Google and Opera.
From Google and Opera? Are you saying that Google and Opera are part of some evil plan to open the web?
Quote:
More gems: "If you want to do any kind of video on the web, you don't have a choice [but to use Flash]". Nice one, open source proponents. I didn't know roll over and play dead was part of your strategy.
Your attacks fail miserably again. Opera isn't open-source! It's about open standards, not about source code.
And it's not about rolling over. It's describing the situation as it is today. Flash is simply the de facto standard for video on the web. There's a reason why most video sites don't work on the iPhone. Apple is lucky that Google chose to serve h264 videos on YouTube, because that saves Apple's ass.
It's funny. Google saves Apple by allowing iOS devices to view h264 content on YouTube!
Quote:
Here's the best part, the article acknowledges: VP8 is a technology with a specification, not a standard. However, Google has granted anyone the right to use it, and makes no claims about patents to restrict its royalty-free use. This means that VP8 is actually a good candidate for being turned into a proper open web standard.
So... it's just "a good candidate"? And Google makes no claims about patents? IE, if you get sued Google will just whistle as it walks past.
You dishonestly cut off the sentence. It reads: "makes no claims about patents to restrict its royalty-free use"
The point is that Google has released WebM to the world for free, and will not demand royalties for VP8 patents. Google has also said that there are no known patent violations in VP8, and no one has brought forth any patent claims either.
And given that Mozilla and Opera have together 30-35% of the browser market (now 40-47% with Chrome)
No, the situation is far, far worse for h264. It's extremely disturbing.
We know that Firefox, Chrome and Opera users are fairly quick to upgrade. This means than when Firefox 4 is released with native WebM support, browser versions that support WebM will be:
Chrome 6+
Firefox 4
Opera 10.6+
On the other hand, h264 is supported by:
IE9
Safari 3+
Now, the h264 supporter might be smiling because IE is on the h264 side, but he should wipe that smile right off him. Because what will IE9's market share be? It will be tiny! And it will remain tiny for years to come.
On the other hand, Chrome is really growing crazily, and Firefox is quite stable. And Chrome 6+, Firefox 4 and Opera 10.6+ will have nearly 50% market share in total!
On the other hand, IE9 and Safari 3+ will start out with Safari's 5% and IE9's 0%. And then IE might grow slowly over time, but this whole time, WebM will be supported by nearly 50% of browsers with HTML5 video support, while h264 will be supported by less than 10%!
And since h264 support in browsers is so limited, the right choice will be to go for WebM, because then you cover nearly half the market (and growing).
What an amazing assumption. "Improvement == patent infringement."
Since the alternative would require them to think up some new compression technique no-one has ever thought of before, in a highly competitive industry, it's not much of an assumption.
Apple made a deal with MPEG-LA, and the chip makers have put H.264 in hardware, not because they have some bias against open-source, but because they are just dealing with the facts as they are. OS scheduling algorithms, filesystem techniques, HTML renderers, ... -- sure, use open source (and OS X does), but video compression is a special case.
Nearly half of the "software" supporters of WebM I've never heard. Most of the other half *license H.264/AVC*, here's a list of them:
Android (via Google)
Codecian
CoreCodec
Digital Rapids
FFMPEG
Flash (via Adobe)
Flumotion (via Fluendo S.A.)
Google Chrome (via Google, although support is dropped they still licensed it)
Inlet Technologies (not sure of licensing of H.264, but they need to use it in their iOS product line).
Java (via Sun Microsystems)
Matroska (via CoreCodec as the owners of the copyrights and spec)
Moonvida (uses H.264, so can't rule out source code looking/contributing)
ooVoo, LLC
Oracle (as both Oracle and Sun)
Harmonic
Skype Technologies
SightSpeed (via Logitech, since 2008)
Sorenson
Telestream
Ucentrik
Wowza (their server can ENCODE for iOS, so it will probably use H.264)
XBMC (makes use of H.264 most likely using x264)
As far as patents go they can pretty much be considered dirty as they all have access to the H.264 tech/code directly, or indirectly through the likes of x264's source code.
These supporters, seeing as they license H.264/AVC, have a problem of cross-pollenating WebM with H.264/AVC tech (if they have any input at all into WebM), albeit unintentionally. Just adds more weight to the patent infringing fire in my eyes.
The only clean software supporters are:
iLinc (not too sure, they MAY use H.264)
Mozilla Firefox
Opera
Tixeo
WINAMP (although who knows, seeing as anyone can commit source code)
Wildform (not sure)
Also, H.264/AVC has 940 licensees (therefore supporters), which makes WebM's supporters look irrelevant.
Will Apple or Microsoft volunteer to pay H.264 royalties for Mozilla during a lifetime, so that Firefox can bundle H.264? Otherwise, 30% of the web users that use Firefox won't have H.264 natively in their browsers. If they don't volunteer, we won't ever be able to use the <video> tag, and we will have to continue relying on Flash...
There's of course a simpler route. Apple and Microsoft could support at least one royalty-free codec in their browsers, so that the majority of users would have native video through the <video> tag. As it is, we will have half of the market (Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Chromium, Konqueror etc) supporting only royalty-free codecs, and the other half (Internet Explorer and Safari) supporting only H.264.
It is not the opinion of AppleInsider. "Open" has long referred to specifications that are openly presented to enable interoperability. It does not mean, necessarily, Open Source or Free Software. Repeating what you think doesn't make that the case either.
Even Microsoft defines "open standard" as one that is royalty-free. And remember, this is about the web. An open standard on the web must be royalty-free. Look up the W3C patent policy.
On the other hand, IE9 and Safari 3+ will start out with Safari's 5% and IE9's 0%. And then IE might grow slowly over time, but this whole time, WebM will be supported by nearly 50% of browsers with HTML5 video support, while h264 will be supported by less than 10%!
Exactly. Besides being royalty-free which should attract more supporters, WebM is going to have a huge lead in terms of video for the web, exactly because IE9 won't be ready until 2012, while 90% of Chrome users and 80% of Firefox users use the latest versions, versus 70% for Safari and 60% for Internet Explorer:
There are lots of patents in video compression and streaming, held by a large number of companies. What is the best way to prevent a mess of countless cross-licensing agreements and patent law suits and yet combine as much patents as possible to create the best technological solution possible?
Why not get the 20 most-involved companies to pool all their patents, immediately removing the need for any cross-licensing agreements or law suits among them, and creating a state-of-the-art video codec from all this intellectual property. Let's charge pretty small, almost nominal, charges for anybody to use this codec. Since this patent pool would have such a large number of patents, no other company creating a video codec would be likely to sue as for any patent infringement because if we violate one of their patents, they also very likely violate some of our patents.
Doesn't this sound like the best idea to create both the best video codec possible and minimize all the patent wrangle associated with complex technology?
But you might say, would not be even better to make all those pooled patents completely free? Sounds nice in principle but if it is then found that our codec violates a patent from somebody else, we would not have any more ammunition left (ie, for a counter suit) to protect our codec from legal challenges.
Will Apple or Microsoft volunteer to pay H.264 royalties for Mozilla during a lifetime, so that Firefox can bundle H.264? Otherwise, 30% of the web users that use Firefox won't have H.264 natively in their browsers. If they don't volunteer, we won't ever be able to use the <video> tag, and we will have to continue relying on Flash...
Mac OS X and Windows 7 both have H.264 decoding in the operating system libraries. Any program, including Mozilla can use these functions.
There are lots of patents in video compression and streaming, held by a large number of companies. What is the best way to prevent a mess of countless cross-licensing agreements and patent law suits and yet combine as much patents as possible to create the best technological solution possible?
Why not get the 20 most-involved companies to pool all their patents, immediately removing the need for any cross-licensing agreements or law suits among them, and creating a state-of-the-art video codec from all this intellectual property. Let's charge pretty small, almost nominal, charges for anybody to use this codec. Since this patent pool would have such a large number of patents, no other company creating a video codec would be likely to sue as for any patent infringement because if we violate one of their patents, they also very likely violate some of our patents.
Doesn't this sound like the best idea to create both the best video codec possible and minimize all the patent wrangle associated with complex technology?
But you might say, would not be even better to make all those pooled patents completely free? Sounds nice in principle but if it is then found that our codec violates a patent from somebody else, we would not have any more ammunition left (ie, for a counter suit) to protect our codec from legal challenges.
This is not a good idea, in my opinion. Research costs, and no one will ever invest millions of dollars in something that may then be used freely by competitors.
Imagine you were a pharmaceutic industry, and you just developed a new medicine. You had to spend millions in research (instruments, wages, etc etc). If you don't patent your molecule, someone else is able to use it, without any investment in research, and you loose a lot of money.
Comments
Chrome will play html5/h.264 with a plug-in.
And provided by who exactly?
The fact remains that webm has a better chance of being an open source standard with no royalty fees...
As long as webM stays as is this may be true. In order for webM to evolve and be improved, which must be done, it would or will become a patent nightmare.
Research this just a bit and you will see the many potential and probable patent problems of developing webM any further.
As long as webM stays as is this may be true. In order for webM to evolve and be improved, which must be done, it would or will become a patent nightmare.
Research this just a bit and you will see the many potential and probable patent problems of developing webM any further.
And that is Googles strategy because they have no IP.
Develop something and push it to market no matter whose patents it violates.
Give it away for "free" and reach critical mass.
Once the patent case works its way through the court system the user base is "too big" for the courts to force Google to pull the plug.
And thats how Google gets around patent law.
They tried it with Android and now they are trying it with WebM.
I am glad that Oracle is standing up for their IP and I hope the patent holders of IP that WebM does that same instead of taking the payout.
Hopefully the US justice department slaps them down.
Folks, its all about control. Google wants it but being the new kid on the block they have no IP so they have little control.
"If you want to do any kind of video on the web, you don't have a choice [but to use Flash]". Nice one, open source proponents. I didn't know roll over and play dead was part of your strategy
.
Differently from Flash, H.264 is not ubiquitous on the web, and it is not free. We are not settled yet on which codec should be used on <video> tags. That's why most web video services still support Flash. And given that Mozilla and Opera have together 30-35% of the browser market (now 40-47% with Chrome), video publishers won't stop supporting Flash until the majority of the browser makers support a royalty-free video codec in line with W3C patent policies, so that every web video publisher can be sure that the majority of browsers can play videos using the <video> tag.
Mozilla, Opera, Chrome, Chromium, Konqueror and others will support WebM, most of them because they can't afford the royalty fees. If Apple and Microsoft want to revert this trend and make at least Opera and Mozilla support H.264, they should volunteer to pay their royalty fees for a lifetime. The problem is that they can't as nobody knows how much H.264 royalties will cost in a few years. An alternative is to support a royalty-free codec natively in their browsers, which should be trivial to them. This would make it possible to have a standard codec for the <video> tag.
Ohhhh boy I bet you MPEG LA is waiting patiently for Google to roll out WebM for a year or so, make some nice patent-infringing improvements to it... Then BAM! Crush WebM with litigation. Just you see...
MPEG LA is already saying they believe that WebM already violates some MPEG LA patents. If WebM gets any of the major improvements it needs would also mean more patent violations = LAWSUIT(s).
Google making WebM available free, WITHOUT PATENT INDEMNIFICATION, should tell everyone all they need to know about WebM.
You can repeat it as many times as you want, but H.264 is NOT an open standard. It contains patented technologies, which means it isn't "open", no matter how many times Appleinsider says it is.
Ogg Theora, however is 100% open, and is now supported by both Mozilla and Chrome. Since Google owns YouTube, I assume YouTube will switch to Ogg very shortly.
That leaves Safari with H264, which is not exactly a dominant player in the browser market right now. The iPhone is no longer the dominant smartphone platform, either, so Android should also push more folks into using Ogg.
While I understand Apple placed it's bets on H264 (understandable since they are an MPEG LA licensor), I think it'll be forced to include Ogg support once YouTube makes the switch - I think the iPhone needs YouTube more than YouTube needs the iPhone at this point.
Does anybody else remember when Appleinsider used to pay at least passing lip service to the fact that most stories have to viewpoints? Lately every article can be summed up with 2 simple points:
1. Apple is Correct/Perfect/Amazing/The Future/Putting the Customer First
2. Not Apple (Google, MS, Consumer Reports, etc) is WRONG/FLAWED/STUPID/SO LAST YEAR/ONLY INTERESTED IN MONEY.
Holy Troll Batman! How do we fight such evil...
Hold on my crime fighting friend, I've invented a Bat Bunter! Simply push the second button on your belt and the "Troll will be abolished" will work. It's a new Android enabled feature!
...I would rather this be hashed out in court so we can see who is doing what. I don't know why MPEG hasn't already been looking into patent infringements beforehand. What was the logic behind them not already pursuing a case regarding On2 and now WebM? I would've rather this been litigated in court already so we know what to do as developers.
I'd imagine nothing has happened yet because there is no money to be made from said litigation.
This part of the Opera article is nonsense (and who really cares about Opera anyways?)
Why would you have to care about Opera? Opera isn't important here. It's the argument that matters. But you obviously don't think you have a strong counter-argument, so you resort to petty attacks.
By the above reasoning, why doesn't Google just bundle a plugin for H.264?
They are. It's called Flash.
If "most of the web video is still Flash", a lot of the web video is also H.264.
But the point is that the h264 is served through Flash, so Flash serves the purpose of allowing Chrome to show just about any video online while Google is working on making WebM the codec of choice for native video.
Clearly Google is favouring WebM and Flash video for their own purposes.
Google is favoring WebM for native video, and is using Flash for practical reasons.
It's a pity all the open source idealists are going to be thoroughly conned by Google.
Your attacks fail miserably again. Opera isn't open-source! It's about open standards, not about source code.
Even the article suggests "Oh, Flash is ubiquitous, so we give up, let's embrace that decrepit closed proprietary system" and "it's just pragmatism".
No, it's pragmatism to use what's already out there for now. Google doesn't want h264 because it's not compatible with the open web.
People, don't buy this smoke-and-mirrors stuff from Google and Opera.
From Google and Opera? Are you saying that Google and Opera are part of some evil plan to open the web?
More gems: "If you want to do any kind of video on the web, you don't have a choice [but to use Flash]". Nice one, open source proponents. I didn't know roll over and play dead was part of your strategy.
Your attacks fail miserably again. Opera isn't open-source! It's about open standards, not about source code.
And it's not about rolling over. It's describing the situation as it is today. Flash is simply the de facto standard for video on the web. There's a reason why most video sites don't work on the iPhone. Apple is lucky that Google chose to serve h264 videos on YouTube, because that saves Apple's ass.
It's funny. Google saves Apple by allowing iOS devices to view h264 content on YouTube!
Here's the best part, the article acknowledges: VP8 is a technology with a specification, not a standard. However, Google has granted anyone the right to use it, and makes no claims about patents to restrict its royalty-free use. This means that VP8 is actually a good candidate for being turned into a proper open web standard.
So... it's just "a good candidate"? And Google makes no claims about patents? IE, if you get sued Google will just whistle as it walks past.
You dishonestly cut off the sentence. It reads: "makes no claims about patents to restrict its royalty-free use"
The point is that Google has released WebM to the world for free, and will not demand royalties for VP8 patents. Google has also said that there are no known patent violations in VP8, and no one has brought forth any patent claims either.
And given that Mozilla and Opera have together 30-35% of the browser market (now 40-47% with Chrome)
No, the situation is far, far worse for h264. It's extremely disturbing.
We know that Firefox, Chrome and Opera users are fairly quick to upgrade. This means than when Firefox 4 is released with native WebM support, browser versions that support WebM will be:
- Chrome 6+
- Firefox 4
- Opera 10.6+
On the other hand, h264 is supported by:- IE9
- Safari 3+
Now, the h264 supporter might be smiling because IE is on the h264 side, but he should wipe that smile right off him. Because what will IE9's market share be? It will be tiny! And it will remain tiny for years to come.On the other hand, Chrome is really growing crazily, and Firefox is quite stable. And Chrome 6+, Firefox 4 and Opera 10.6+ will have nearly 50% market share in total!
On the other hand, IE9 and Safari 3+ will start out with Safari's 5% and IE9's 0%. And then IE might grow slowly over time, but this whole time, WebM will be supported by nearly 50% of browsers with HTML5 video support, while h264 will be supported by less than 10%!
And since h264 support in browsers is so limited, the right choice will be to go for WebM, because then you cover nearly half the market (and growing).
MPEG LA is already saying they believe that WebM already violates some MPEG LA patents.
The MPEG-LA would have acted on it by now if they weren't just bullshitting.
If WebM gets any of the major improvements it needs would also mean more patent violations = LAWSUIT(s).
What an amazing assumption. "Improvement == patent infringement."
Google making WebM available free, WITHOUT PATENT INDEMNIFICATION, should tell everyone all they need to know about WebM.
What about Google using WebM in all its products, then? Wow, your selective reasoning is really something...
What an amazing assumption. "Improvement == patent infringement."
Since the alternative would require them to think up some new compression technique no-one has ever thought of before, in a highly competitive industry, it's not much of an assumption.
Apple made a deal with MPEG-LA, and the chip makers have put H.264 in hardware, not because they have some bias against open-source, but because they are just dealing with the facts as they are. OS scheduling algorithms, filesystem techniques, HTML renderers, ... -- sure, use open source (and OS X does), but video compression is a special case.
List of WebM suporters:
http://www.webmproject.org/about/supporters/
Nearly half of the "software" supporters of WebM I've never heard. Most of the other half *license H.264/AVC*, here's a list of them:
- Android (via Google)
- Codecian
- CoreCodec
- Digital Rapids
- FFMPEG
- Flash (via Adobe)
- Flumotion (via Fluendo S.A.)
- Google Chrome (via Google, although support is dropped they still licensed it)
- Inlet Technologies (not sure of licensing of H.264, but they need to use it in their iOS product line).
- Java (via Sun Microsystems)
- Matroska (via CoreCodec as the owners of the copyrights and spec)
- Moonvida (uses H.264, so can't rule out source code looking/contributing)
- ooVoo, LLC
- Oracle (as both Oracle and Sun)
- Harmonic
- Skype Technologies
- SightSpeed (via Logitech, since 2008)
- Sorenson
- Telestream
- Ucentrik
- Wowza (their server can ENCODE for iOS, so it will probably use H.264)
- XBMC (makes use of H.264 most likely using x264)
As far as patents go they can pretty much be considered dirty as they all have access to the H.264 tech/code directly, or indirectly through the likes of x264's source code.These supporters, seeing as they license H.264/AVC, have a problem of cross-pollenating WebM with H.264/AVC tech (if they have any input at all into WebM), albeit unintentionally. Just adds more weight to the patent infringing fire in my eyes.
The only clean software supporters are:
- iLinc (not too sure, they MAY use H.264)
- Mozilla Firefox
- Opera
- Tixeo
- WINAMP (although who knows, seeing as anyone can commit source code)
- Wildform (not sure)
Also, H.264/AVC has 940 licensees (therefore supporters), which makes WebM's supporters look irrelevant.Apple made a deal with MPEG-LA
Will Apple or Microsoft volunteer to pay H.264 royalties for Mozilla during a lifetime, so that Firefox can bundle H.264? Otherwise, 30% of the web users that use Firefox won't have H.264 natively in their browsers. If they don't volunteer, we won't ever be able to use the <video> tag, and we will have to continue relying on Flash...
There's of course a simpler route. Apple and Microsoft could support at least one royalty-free codec in their browsers, so that the majority of users would have native video through the <video> tag. As it is, we will have half of the market (Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Chromium, Konqueror etc) supporting only royalty-free codecs, and the other half (Internet Explorer and Safari) supporting only H.264.
It is not the opinion of AppleInsider. "Open" has long referred to specifications that are openly presented to enable interoperability. It does not mean, necessarily, Open Source or Free Software. Repeating what you think doesn't make that the case either.
Even Microsoft defines "open standard" as one that is royalty-free. And remember, this is about the web. An open standard on the web must be royalty-free. Look up the W3C patent policy.
Also, H.264/AVC has 940 licensees (therefore supporters), which makes WebM's supporters look irrelevant.
HTML5 didn't have any support either when it first arrived. Your logic is extremely weird.
On the other hand, IE9 and Safari 3+ will start out with Safari's 5% and IE9's 0%. And then IE might grow slowly over time, but this whole time, WebM will be supported by nearly 50% of browsers with HTML5 video support, while h264 will be supported by less than 10%!
Exactly. Besides being royalty-free which should attract more supporters, WebM is going to have a huge lead in terms of video for the web, exactly because IE9 won't be ready until 2012, while 90% of Chrome users and 80% of Firefox users use the latest versions, versus 70% for Safari and 60% for Internet Explorer:
http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/11/05/...atest-version/
So the Apple-Microsoft alliance will have a real challenge to push H.264 adoption for the web.
Why not get the 20 most-involved companies to pool all their patents, immediately removing the need for any cross-licensing agreements or law suits among them, and creating a state-of-the-art video codec from all this intellectual property. Let's charge pretty small, almost nominal, charges for anybody to use this codec. Since this patent pool would have such a large number of patents, no other company creating a video codec would be likely to sue as for any patent infringement because if we violate one of their patents, they also very likely violate some of our patents.
Doesn't this sound like the best idea to create both the best video codec possible and minimize all the patent wrangle associated with complex technology?
But you might say, would not be even better to make all those pooled patents completely free? Sounds nice in principle but if it is then found that our codec violates a patent from somebody else, we would not have any more ammunition left (ie, for a counter suit) to protect our codec from legal challenges.
Will Apple or Microsoft volunteer to pay H.264 royalties for Mozilla during a lifetime, so that Firefox can bundle H.264? Otherwise, 30% of the web users that use Firefox won't have H.264 natively in their browsers. If they don't volunteer, we won't ever be able to use the <video> tag, and we will have to continue relying on Flash...
Mac OS X and Windows 7 both have H.264 decoding in the operating system libraries. Any program, including Mozilla can use these functions.
Your attacks fail miserably again. Opera isn't open-source! It's about open standards, not about source code.
If that were truly the case then they would be supporting H.264 which is an OPEN STANDARD from ISO?!?
There are lots of patents in video compression and streaming, held by a large number of companies. What is the best way to prevent a mess of countless cross-licensing agreements and patent law suits and yet combine as much patents as possible to create the best technological solution possible?
Why not get the 20 most-involved companies to pool all their patents, immediately removing the need for any cross-licensing agreements or law suits among them, and creating a state-of-the-art video codec from all this intellectual property. Let's charge pretty small, almost nominal, charges for anybody to use this codec. Since this patent pool would have such a large number of patents, no other company creating a video codec would be likely to sue as for any patent infringement because if we violate one of their patents, they also very likely violate some of our patents.
Doesn't this sound like the best idea to create both the best video codec possible and minimize all the patent wrangle associated with complex technology?
But you might say, would not be even better to make all those pooled patents completely free? Sounds nice in principle but if it is then found that our codec violates a patent from somebody else, we would not have any more ammunition left (ie, for a counter suit) to protect our codec from legal challenges.
This is not a good idea, in my opinion. Research costs, and no one will ever invest millions of dollars in something that may then be used freely by competitors.
Imagine you were a pharmaceutic industry, and you just developed a new medicine. You had to spend millions in research (instruments, wages, etc etc). If you don't patent your molecule, someone else is able to use it, without any investment in research, and you loose a lot of money.