Sorry guys there is no reason for Safari not to at least offer up support for WebM since there is not risk to them since they said they had no problem paying for the h.264 patents. I am an Apple fanboy as much as the next guy but that's the truth. Apple should be offering up the choice to use WebM or h.264 and LET THE MARKET DECIDE!
Well, the hardware vendors of mobile, embedded or stand-alone devices (eg, game consoles) have pretty much decided upon h.264 at the moment already.
The 'market' is not the consumer (Which consumers consciously decides to download a video in a specific codec? Very few.) but both the ones offering video online (and in the form of Blu-Ray disks for example) and the ones selling software and hardware to decode the codecs (ie, the hardware makers, the browser makers, Adobe, via Flash, the OS makers).
No, it is not entirely open. It is restricted by patents. It is patent-encumbered.
Irrelevant. Still not open.
Actually, WebM is not proprietary. It's an open-source project.
Irrelevant. HTML5 is not a standard (yet) either.
The same goes for HTML5. You are saying that people should give up on HTML5. Good one!
Actually, it's an open-source project, and Google gave out the rights of all patents for free, and irrevocably.
No, not at all. Just because you hate Google doesn't mean that everything they do is wrong.
And now you are an Apple fanboy, and you fear competition from Google. A bit pathetic, really.
You are sinking deeper into insanity now...
You are talking pure and utter nonsense. WebM is run as an open-source project. Google has issued an irrevocable license. Even the MPEG-LA doesn't indemnify against patent lawsuits. H264 is a threat to the open web.
You are nothing but a hypocritical Apple fanboy spreading FUD.
You're literally too close-minded to understand that liking Apple and liking Google are not mutually exclusive and that disagreeing with Google on this could actually be about something other than Apple, aren't you? So much for "open". Your ideas are more closed than a liquor store on a Blue Sunday.
Open access to all the mined data collected about themself or others
Open ability to say/publish/advocate anything about anyone without recourse
Open ability to define new formats for access and content
Open ability to restrict others' content or access
Open ability to charge for access or content
You get the drill.
The idealist stance on "free and open" needs to be tempered with reality.
The reason the web is as "free and open" as it is -- is that a lot of taxpayers, corporations , governments have paid, and are paying a lot of money to make it so.
If the web were totally free and totally open there would be:
-- total chaos
-- information overload
-- unintelligible tower of Babel for content and format
Or:
-- nothing of value because there is no incentive [money to be made] to provide access or content.
Here is where a standards organization can help -- as an arbitor for the benefit of all the divergent interests.
However, when you set a standard on anything, at least three things can happen:
1) A guaranteed minimum threshold is provided -- a good thing
2) The threshold becomes an ad hoc ceiling of capability -- a bad thing
3) People/organizations will try to manipulate 1) and 2) -- to their own self interests.
Google appears to be attempting 3).
I see no reason that Google shouldn't be able to offer as a standard: a codec as an alternative to h.264.
I see everything wrong with Google attempting to leverage its considerable web presence to force the removal of an alternate codec.
To pre-empt the Apple iOS Flash issue:
Apple does not support Flash on iOS mobile because of performance and resource issues.
Apple does not support Flash on iOS mobile because of cursor/touch inconsistancies.
Apple does not support Flash on iOS moble because an acceptable Flash player does not, yet, exist!
Apple limited its non-support of Flash to a segment of its own devices that could not support Flash.
Apple offered an existing, freely available (to users) alternative with wide support.
Apple made no attempt to force discontinuation of Flash on OS X or other platforms where the issues are less severe.
What Apple did do was say openly that Flash sucked on OS X -- a well-known, proven fact!
I suspect, that if Adobe were to provide an iOS implementation that adequately addressed the above issues -- that Apple would support it.
H.264 is an open standard under the accepted definition of what an open standard is. T
I.
i will make it simple for you: show us exactly where we can find who determines the 'accepted definition' and what this accepted definition is? web link? page in a dictionary?
Well, if it's FUD, FUD, FUD, and I'm "desperate" why don't you refute the arguments?
I already have, but you keep repeating them.
Quote:
Google's agenda is to control information on the Web, and access to that information. Their entire business model is based on that.
Paranoid delusional indeed.
Quote:
You're completely wrong about what open standards are, and you're completely wrong about what WebM is in this context: WebM == Son of Flash.
Did you read the W3C Patent Policy yet, or are you going to continue repeating the same old lies over and over again?
Quote:
Originally Posted by anonymouse
Google lives by stealing information and selling it. Ask the newspapers what they think about Google news.
You mean the service where Google shows a single sentence, and links to the full story on the site that carries it? That's just the newspaper desperately trying to hold on to good old times.
It means, among other things, that web standards must be royalty-free.
Quote:
The idealist stance on "free and open" needs to be tempered with reality.
That "idealist stance" is the very basis of the web. The web stands up quite nicely in reality, wouldn't you say?
Quote:
The reason the web is as "free and open" as it is -- is that a lot of taxpayers, corporations , governments have paid, and are paying a lot of money to make it so.
And everyone has benefited from this.
Quote:
If the web were totally free and totally open there would be:
-- total chaos
-- information overload
-- unintelligible tower of Babel for content and format
But that's not what "open web" means.
Quote:
Here is where a standards organization can help -- as an arbitor for the benefit of all the divergent interests.
The open web is based on exactly that: Open standards. You are just trying to change the subject and blatantly lie about what people are saying.
Quote:
Google appears to be attempting 3).
You hardcore Apple fanboys crack me up.
Quote:
I see everything wrong with Google attempting to leverage its considerable web presence to force the removal of an alternate codec.
Google isn't forcing the removal of anything. It's removing h264 from its own browser, and releasing WebM into the open because the web needs to be based on open standards, not closed ones like h264.
There's every reason to believe that the easiest path for video encoders is to simply serve their H.264 content in a Flash wrapper to clients that don't have H.264 straight up. Why would they go through the trouble of re-encoding huge libraries when Google's patently self serving embrace of "open standards" allows them to continue to use Flash?
If Google had announced they were dropping support of Flash in the interest of openness I would be extremely impressed. As it is-- dropping the ubiquitous, well performing and ratified standard but keeping the ubiquitous, poorly performing and proprietary format, claiming that ubiquity on the one hand requires support but that on the other does not-- I call bullshit.
Did you read the W3C Patent Policy yet, or are you going to continue repeating the same old lies over and over again?
You mean the service where Google shows a single sentence, and links to the full story on the site that carries it? That's just the newspaper desperately trying to hold on to good old times.
Ya' know... I've read your last 30, or so, posts -- and you just keep repeating the same arbitrary, unsupported statements.
You never address the challenges to your assertions. Many of these challenges are made by members who have reputations for fairness, sound reasoning and willingness to evaluate all points presented.
You are not contributing to the discussion.
If you can prove that h.264 is not a de facto standard -- let's see/hear it.
Sorry guys there is no reason for Safari not to at least offer up support for WebM since there is not risk to them since they said they had no problem paying for the h.264 patents. I am an Apple fanboy as much as the next guy but that's the truth. Apple should be offering up the choice to use WebM or h.264 and LET THE MARKET DECIDE!
I am a freelance web/graphic designer, I got rid of all of my Flash based video on all of my clients' sites.
I did encode the video content three ways, Ogg, WebM and H.264. I tested all of the videos in the various browers (and my code has a fall back to Flash for browsers not ready for html5 video tag)
I will say, and open, not open, hanging upside down that the video play back on Ogg and WebM is CRAP!!!!!! It looked so awful that I encoded the files several times. But I could not get them to look good. The H.264 video looks fantastic. So NOOOOO! I do not want to have Apple support the craptastic WebM. I would have to have some crazy code to pick the H.264 video version over the WebM in the Safari browser (if you have more than one file available then you need to tell the browser which on to pick, right now there is the default for each browser so it is simple). I figure there is nothing I can do if people choose Firefox as a browser (I quite using it a while ago all of the updates are really annoying and the add-ons just bog down the process of browsing) I only use Chrome to view Flash content, I took the Flash player out of my Safari browser completely and now it never crashes (plays Silverlight just fine though)
I does upset me that Google is pulling this stunt. It doesn't change how I work with video, but I do find their excuse ridiculous, sure use a piece of crap codec over a robust mature one for a reason that isn't even logical. Makes me trust Google even less than I do now.
And I think what people are saying is that Google does need to improve the craptastic performance of WebM and most likely they will then step deep into patent violations to do so. I am not a lawyer nor a codec writer, but that is what I am gathering in regards to the patent arguments presented here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jensonb
No, what H.264 is not is "free as in beer". It is entirely open, and you'e free to use it to your heart's content. It is also an Industry Standard controlled by a co-operative joint venture consisting of the vast majority of the industry. webM is a proprietary codec offering free as in beer access to the source code. It is not a standard - almost nobody uses it and it is still technically proprietary - and it's definitely not open, since instead of turning over control to a standards body (Heck, turning it over to W3C would go a long way to convincing me Google are not acting maliciously), Google are maintaining control themselves.
What you webM advocates seem to not understand is that by backing Google on this, you're not backing an Open Web. Your backing Google's attempt to control the web. This is coming from someone who has been unashamedly pro-Google (I happily use their services literally every day, and maintain their Search is the best by lightyears): Google is not your friend. They have their own interests, just like Apple and just like Microsoft. In fact, Google's are even more out of step with yours, you're not their customer. They give stuff like webM and Android away free to users and partners and earn their money from their customers, the advertisers.
Apple and Microsoft, at least, have to at least try and look out for the interests of their users.
Google don't own the Web and they certainly don't have any right to control video, an area where their expertise is limited to having acquired the (Admittedly) breakout video hosting Startup. It may be the biggest, but it's not the only and it's not unassailable.
Put it this way, if I was Google and so I was running YouTube, I'd be living in constant fear of Facebook too.
Bottom line, if Google's really looking out for the open web, then they should turn over control of webM to W3C, get it ratified as a standard, and indemnify users against patent lawsuits - and continue to support H.264 in Chrome. They already did the work, taking it out is anti-consumer. But like I said, Google doesn't care about consumers.
Thank you! This deserves to be re-posted. Please take the time to read it again. It is spot right on.
Are insike and geezmo the same person? They sure sound like it.
Whenever a discussion on AI involves Apple and Google on different sides of an issue -- the forum seems to be monopolized by a tag team of anti-Apple posters, who seem to play off each other's posts.
This happens so predictably that it is hard to believe that it is not orchastrated.
I understand why people who like Apple come to AI.
What I don't understand is what the Apple haters hope to accomplish -- at best they make AI a more popular site, at worst they look pretty stupid vis a vis a reasonable discussion, while doing nothing to advance their agenda.
Google states "If there are significant improvements to warrant a new revision we might adopt them, but only after careful consideration and after discussing suggested changes with the WebM community". What does it means here "after discussing"? Anything different from "everyone speaks, google decides"? Who has decisional rights in WebM "community" (not "project")? Who will vote?
Have you some more doubts about openness? Read the License agreement for Contributors to WebM project:
"You [contributors] hereby grant to Google and to recipients of software distributed by Google a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute Your Contributions and such derivative works."
If i don't make mistakes, this means that contributors confer their IP to Google (not to "WebM project") and implicitly give faculty of distribution to Google (not to "WebM project").
"WebM project" seems not an independent board like ISO, but a project firmly owned by Google.
Google does his own interest, as Apple does, and now advantages Adobe Flash.
Nor Google is good, nor Apple is evil. But Google makes his money mostly from advertisers; Microsoft from OEMs; Apple from users.
It means, among other things, that web standards must be royalty-free.
That "idealist stance" is the very basis of the web. The web stands up quite nicely in reality, wouldn't you say?
And everyone has benefited from this.
But that's not what "open web" means.
The open web is based on exactly that: Open standards. You are just trying to change the subject and blatantly lie about what people are saying.
You hardcore Apple fanboys crack me up.
Google isn't forcing the removal of anything. It's removing h264 from its own browser, and releasing WebM into the open because the web needs to be based on open standards, not closed ones like h264.
You are really desperate.
You invest the hundreds of Billions to make your pipe dream happen. Otherwise, get back to Reality.
Comments
Sorry guys there is no reason for Safari not to at least offer up support for WebM since there is not risk to them since they said they had no problem paying for the h.264 patents. I am an Apple fanboy as much as the next guy but that's the truth. Apple should be offering up the choice to use WebM or h.264 and LET THE MARKET DECIDE!
Well, the hardware vendors of mobile, embedded or stand-alone devices (eg, game consoles) have pretty much decided upon h.264 at the moment already.
The 'market' is not the consumer (Which consumers consciously decides to download a video in a specific codec? Very few.) but both the ones offering video online (and in the form of Blu-Ray disks for example) and the ones selling software and hardware to decode the codecs (ie, the hardware makers, the browser makers, Adobe, via Flash, the OS makers).
No, it is not entirely open. It is restricted by patents. It is patent-encumbered.
Irrelevant. Still not open.
Actually, WebM is not proprietary. It's an open-source project.
Irrelevant. HTML5 is not a standard (yet) either.
The same goes for HTML5. You are saying that people should give up on HTML5. Good one!
Actually, it's an open-source project, and Google gave out the rights of all patents for free, and irrevocably.
No, not at all. Just because you hate Google doesn't mean that everything they do is wrong.
And now you are an Apple fanboy, and you fear competition from Google. A bit pathetic, really.
You are sinking deeper into insanity now...
You are talking pure and utter nonsense. WebM is run as an open-source project. Google has issued an irrevocable license. Even the MPEG-LA doesn't indemnify against patent lawsuits. H264 is a threat to the open web.
You are nothing but a hypocritical Apple fanboy spreading FUD.
You're literally too close-minded to understand that liking Apple and liking Google are not mutually exclusive and that disagreeing with Google on this could actually be about something other than Apple, aren't you? So much for "open". Your ideas are more closed than a liquor store on a Blue Sunday.
What does thst mean?
Does everyone get:
Open web.
What does that mean?
Does everyone get:
You get the drill.
The idealist stance on "free and open" needs to be tempered with reality.
The reason the web is as "free and open" as it is -- is that a lot of taxpayers, corporations , governments have paid, and are paying a lot of money to make it so.
If the web were totally free and totally open there would be:
-- total chaos
-- information overload
-- unintelligible tower of Babel for content and format
Or:
-- nothing of value because there is no incentive [money to be made] to provide access or content.
Here is where a standards organization can help -- as an arbitor for the benefit of all the divergent interests.
However, when you set a standard on anything, at least three things can happen:
1) A guaranteed minimum threshold is provided -- a good thing
2) The threshold becomes an ad hoc ceiling of capability -- a bad thing
3) People/organizations will try to manipulate 1) and 2) -- to their own self interests.
Google appears to be attempting 3).
I see no reason that Google shouldn't be able to offer as a standard: a codec as an alternative to h.264.
I see everything wrong with Google attempting to leverage its considerable web presence to force the removal of an alternate codec.
To pre-empt the Apple iOS Flash issue:
Apple does not support Flash on iOS mobile because of performance and resource issues.
Apple does not support Flash on iOS mobile because of cursor/touch inconsistancies.
Apple does not support Flash on iOS moble because an acceptable Flash player does not, yet, exist!
Apple limited its non-support of Flash to a segment of its own devices that could not support Flash.
Apple offered an existing, freely available (to users) alternative with wide support.
Apple made no attempt to force discontinuation of Flash on OS X or other platforms where the issues are less severe.
What Apple did do was say openly that Flash sucked on OS X -- a well-known, proven fact!
I suspect, that if Adobe were to provide an iOS implementation that adequately addressed the above issues -- that Apple would support it.
Wow. I leave for 24 hours and this thread is still going, and still insane.
Open, closed, whatever. The whole discussion can be distilled to: "iPhone can't view webM content. Apple needs YouTube to remain in h.264."
Nothing else has a significant impact to the general public.
Most people will not be affected one way or the other unless iPhone can't view YouTube.
Or if a viable h.264 alternative to YT were to emerge.
H.264 is an open standard under the accepted definition of what an open standard is. T
I.
i will make it simple for you: show us exactly where we can find who determines the 'accepted definition' and what this accepted definition is? web link? page in a dictionary?
I really hope you're being sarcastic. Because if you're actually serious about believing that, there's something seriously wrong here.
I thought you were going to stick with more credible websites. Why don't you go ahead and do that?
Well, if it's FUD, FUD, FUD, and I'm "desperate" why don't you refute the arguments?
I already have, but you keep repeating them.
Google's agenda is to control information on the Web, and access to that information. Their entire business model is based on that.
Paranoid delusional indeed.
You're completely wrong about what open standards are, and you're completely wrong about what WebM is in this context: WebM == Son of Flash.
Did you read the W3C Patent Policy yet, or are you going to continue repeating the same old lies over and over again?
Google lives by stealing information and selling it. Ask the newspapers what they think about Google news.
You mean the service where Google shows a single sentence, and links to the full story on the site that carries it? That's just the newspaper desperately trying to hold on to good old times.
Nice attempt to confuse the issue, but Google is the company here pushing everyone to Flash.
LOL. Now you are really losing it
You're literally too close-minded to understand that liking Apple and liking Google are not mutually exclusive
I never said it was. But it is clear that desperate Apple fanboys are going to desperately bash Google.
So much for "open". Your ideas are more closed than a liquor store on a Blue Sunday.
It doesn't matter what my ideas are. What's important is that the web is open, and that means that h264 needs to go away from the web.
Open web.
What does that mean?
It means, among other things, that web standards must be royalty-free.
The idealist stance on "free and open" needs to be tempered with reality.
That "idealist stance" is the very basis of the web. The web stands up quite nicely in reality, wouldn't you say?
The reason the web is as "free and open" as it is -- is that a lot of taxpayers, corporations , governments have paid, and are paying a lot of money to make it so.
And everyone has benefited from this.
If the web were totally free and totally open there would be:
-- total chaos
-- information overload
-- unintelligible tower of Babel for content and format
But that's not what "open web" means.
Here is where a standards organization can help -- as an arbitor for the benefit of all the divergent interests.
The open web is based on exactly that: Open standards. You are just trying to change the subject and blatantly lie about what people are saying.
Google appears to be attempting 3).
You hardcore Apple fanboys crack me up.
I see everything wrong with Google attempting to leverage its considerable web presence to force the removal of an alternate codec.
Google isn't forcing the removal of anything. It's removing h264 from its own browser, and releasing WebM into the open because the web needs to be based on open standards, not closed ones like h264.
To pre-empt the Apple iOS Flash issue:
You are really desperate.
LOL. Now you are really losing it
There's every reason to believe that the easiest path for video encoders is to simply serve their H.264 content in a Flash wrapper to clients that don't have H.264 straight up. Why would they go through the trouble of re-encoding huge libraries when Google's patently self serving embrace of "open standards" allows them to continue to use Flash?
If Google had announced they were dropping support of Flash in the interest of openness I would be extremely impressed. As it is-- dropping the ubiquitous, well performing and ratified standard but keeping the ubiquitous, poorly performing and proprietary format, claiming that ubiquity on the one hand requires support but that on the other does not-- I call bullshit.
The open web is based on exactly that: Open standards. You are just trying to change the subject and blatantly lie about what people are saying.
Will Chrome continue supporting the GIF/Jpeg image formats? Did they work out a deal with Unisys/Compuserve or whoever owns them?
I already have, but you keep repeating them.
Paranoid delusional indeed.
Did you read the W3C Patent Policy yet, or are you going to continue repeating the same old lies over and over again?
You mean the service where Google shows a single sentence, and links to the full story on the site that carries it? That's just the newspaper desperately trying to hold on to good old times.
Ya' know... I've read your last 30, or so, posts -- and you just keep repeating the same arbitrary, unsupported statements.
You never address the challenges to your assertions. Many of these challenges are made by members who have reputations for fairness, sound reasoning and willingness to evaluate all points presented.
You are not contributing to the discussion.
If you can prove that h.264 is not a de facto standard -- let's see/hear it.
YouTube was the first on the block. Now anyone can start their own video hosting site.
Bringing plugins to the internet will cause users to find alternates.
Sorry guys there is no reason for Safari not to at least offer up support for WebM since there is not risk to them since they said they had no problem paying for the h.264 patents. I am an Apple fanboy as much as the next guy but that's the truth. Apple should be offering up the choice to use WebM or h.264 and LET THE MARKET DECIDE!
I am a freelance web/graphic designer, I got rid of all of my Flash based video on all of my clients' sites.
I did encode the video content three ways, Ogg, WebM and H.264. I tested all of the videos in the various browers (and my code has a fall back to Flash for browsers not ready for html5 video tag)
I will say, and open, not open, hanging upside down that the video play back on Ogg and WebM is CRAP!!!!!! It looked so awful that I encoded the files several times. But I could not get them to look good. The H.264 video looks fantastic. So NOOOOO! I do not want to have Apple support the craptastic WebM. I would have to have some crazy code to pick the H.264 video version over the WebM in the Safari browser (if you have more than one file available then you need to tell the browser which on to pick, right now there is the default for each browser so it is simple). I figure there is nothing I can do if people choose Firefox as a browser (I quite using it a while ago all of the updates are really annoying and the add-ons just bog down the process of browsing) I only use Chrome to view Flash content, I took the Flash player out of my Safari browser completely and now it never crashes (plays Silverlight just fine though)
I does upset me that Google is pulling this stunt. It doesn't change how I work with video, but I do find their excuse ridiculous, sure use a piece of crap codec over a robust mature one for a reason that isn't even logical. Makes me trust Google even less than I do now.
And I think what people are saying is that Google does need to improve the craptastic performance of WebM and most likely they will then step deep into patent violations to do so. I am not a lawyer nor a codec writer, but that is what I am gathering in regards to the patent arguments presented here.
No, what H.264 is not is "free as in beer". It is entirely open, and you'e free to use it to your heart's content. It is also an Industry Standard controlled by a co-operative joint venture consisting of the vast majority of the industry. webM is a proprietary codec offering free as in beer access to the source code. It is not a standard - almost nobody uses it and it is still technically proprietary - and it's definitely not open, since instead of turning over control to a standards body (Heck, turning it over to W3C would go a long way to convincing me Google are not acting maliciously), Google are maintaining control themselves.
What you webM advocates seem to not understand is that by backing Google on this, you're not backing an Open Web. Your backing Google's attempt to control the web. This is coming from someone who has been unashamedly pro-Google (I happily use their services literally every day, and maintain their Search is the best by lightyears): Google is not your friend. They have their own interests, just like Apple and just like Microsoft. In fact, Google's are even more out of step with yours, you're not their customer. They give stuff like webM and Android away free to users and partners and earn their money from their customers, the advertisers.
Apple and Microsoft, at least, have to at least try and look out for the interests of their users.
Google don't own the Web and they certainly don't have any right to control video, an area where their expertise is limited to having acquired the (Admittedly) breakout video hosting Startup. It may be the biggest, but it's not the only and it's not unassailable.
Put it this way, if I was Google and so I was running YouTube, I'd be living in constant fear of Facebook too.
Bottom line, if Google's really looking out for the open web, then they should turn over control of webM to W3C, get it ratified as a standard, and indemnify users against patent lawsuits - and continue to support H.264 in Chrome. They already did the work, taking it out is anti-consumer. But like I said, Google doesn't care about consumers.
Thank you! This deserves to be re-posted. Please take the time to read it again. It is spot right on.
Are insike and geezmo the same person? They sure sound like it.
Whenever a discussion on AI involves Apple and Google on different sides of an issue -- the forum seems to be monopolized by a tag team of anti-Apple posters, who seem to play off each other's posts.
This happens so predictably that it is hard to believe that it is not orchastrated.
I understand why people who like Apple come to AI.
What I don't understand is what the Apple haters hope to accomplish -- at best they make AI a more popular site, at worst they look pretty stupid vis a vis a reasonable discussion, while doing nothing to advance their agenda.
LOL. Now you are really losing it
I have read w3c patent policy.
I wasn't able to find any single occurrence of the words "open standard".
And guess what? I bet you know.
W3C define his standards (as ISO do) and if someone wants to submit technology to w3c that technology must be "royalty free".
If mpeg-la sues google over WebM, WebM is not eligible for w3c submission, right?
And, by the way, Google hasn't yet submitted WebM to w3c.
Tantum debeat about word "standard" in "open standard" statement.
What about openness?
Google itself declare: "The VP8 and WebM specifications as released on May 19th, 2010 are final".
Point. Not open at all.
http://www.webmproject.org/about/faq/
What about improvements?
Google states "If there are significant improvements to warrant a new revision we might adopt them, but only after careful consideration and after discussing suggested changes with the WebM community". What does it means here "after discussing"? Anything different from "everyone speaks, google decides"? Who has decisional rights in WebM "community" (not "project")? Who will vote?
Have you some more doubts about openness? Read the License agreement for Contributors to WebM project:
http://code.google.com/intl/it-IT/le...-cla-v1.0.html
"You [contributors] hereby grant to Google and to recipients of software distributed by Google a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute Your Contributions and such derivative works."
If i don't make mistakes, this means that contributors confer their IP to Google (not to "WebM project") and implicitly give faculty of distribution to Google (not to "WebM project").
"WebM project" seems not an independent board like ISO, but a project firmly owned by Google.
Google does his own interest, as Apple does, and now advantages Adobe Flash.
Nor Google is good, nor Apple is evil. But Google makes his money mostly from advertisers; Microsoft from OEMs; Apple from users.
Overall, I dislike Flash and Adobe.
It means, among other things, that web standards must be royalty-free.
That "idealist stance" is the very basis of the web. The web stands up quite nicely in reality, wouldn't you say?
And everyone has benefited from this.
But that's not what "open web" means.
The open web is based on exactly that: Open standards. You are just trying to change the subject and blatantly lie about what people are saying.
You hardcore Apple fanboys crack me up.
Google isn't forcing the removal of anything. It's removing h264 from its own browser, and releasing WebM into the open because the web needs to be based on open standards, not closed ones like h264.
You are really desperate.
You invest the hundreds of Billions to make your pipe dream happen. Otherwise, get back to Reality.
This was said already, and this is why Firefox and others can't use it.
Not "can't", won't.
They can use it because it is open.