Slashdot Mirror
Ogg Vorbis / Theora Language Removed From HTML5 Spec
Rudd-O writes "It's official. Ogg technology has been removed from the HTML5 spec, after Ian caved in the face of pressure from Apple and Nokia. Unless massive pressure is exerted on the HTML5 spec editing process, the Web authoring world will continue to endure our modern proprietary Tower of Babel. Note that HTML5 in no way required Ogg (as denoted by the word 'should' instead of 'must' in the earlier draft). Adding this to the fact that there are widely available patent-free implementations of Ogg technology, there is really no excuse for Apple and Nokia to say that they couldn't in good faith implement HTML5 as previously formulated."
HTML really must die, and Javascript along with it. Let's stop pretending that markup doesn't have to be a fully specified programming language and create something that can safely run in a lightweight browser sandpit. Java should have been the solution but I think that it's missed the boat.
By being half-assed and not specifying a standard for a widely used aspect of the web browsing experience, what is in effect happening is a de-facto endorsement of all of those pet proprietary formats at the expense of clarity and allowing the various companies to rape the public with a million of buggy plug-ins, each with its own flavour of the week. The very anathema of a "standard".
Have you quite finished? Geez, it's a wonder multimedia-based services like YouTube even work on... just about every browser on the planet.
The Web-using public has proven itself quite capable of adopting new technologies that serve their purposes, and working on the basis of popular de facto standards. If any proprietary technology ceases to serve the needs of the Web-browsing public, that technology will most likely be replaced in fairly short order by another that does serve the public need. This sort of thing has been happening since the dawn of browsers and the old IE vs. Netscape browser wars.
There are advantages to having a truly open standard, but for something that evolves as fast as the Web, we've seen time and again that de facto standards that are technically sensible and practically useful are way more valuable than any formal document produced by a standards body. This whole discussion sounds a lot like people who like a relatively unpopular format bitching because they were hoping their preference would be forced on the rest of the world based on politics rather than technical merit, and they lost the argument.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
You've got something wrong with your system if it crashes. I watch youtube movies all the time in Firefox on Ubuntu. Did you download the proprietary drivers or are you afraid to taint the kernel?