Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Browser Vendors Force W3C To Scrap HTML 5 Codecs

Posted by timothy on from the that's-a-disappointment dept.

snydeq writes "Major browser vendors have been unable to agree on an encoding format they will support in their products, forcing the W3C to drop audio and video codecs from HTML 5, the forthcoming W3C spec that has been viewed as a threat to Flash, Silverlight, and similar technologies. 'After an inordinate amount of discussions on the situation, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that there is no suitable codec that all vendors are willing to implement and ship,' HTML 5 editor Ian Hickson wrote to the whatwg mailing list. Apple, for its part, won't support Ogg Theora in QuickTime, expressing concerns over patents despite the fact that the codec can be used royalty-free. Opera and Mozilla oppose using H.264 due to licensing and distribution issues. Google has similar reservations, despite already using H.264 and Ogg Theora in Chrome. Microsoft has made no commitment to support <video>."

4 of 640 comments (clear)

  1. Video was bait anyway by Dracos · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Video was a piece of bait for forcing HTML5 down everyone's throats. Now can we move on to dropping the whole spec?

  2. Re:Fuck Apple too... by twidarkling · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    You mean that Gates bailed them out, and they have a history of making shitty products well beyond what anyone would reasonably pay for the products, even if they DID work as advertised?

    --
    Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
  3. Re:Things to learn from the Open Source model by morgauxo · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    "The only good news is that Apple ownz the mobile web with the iPhone, so it can pretty much establish HTML5 itself and sell Flash-killer AT&T-based video to the good sheep locked in it's app store."

    There, I fixed that for you

  4. No surprises here by BitHive · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    This is just what I would expect from a Process that tries to "govern" browser innovation. Just like the most Inefficient Enterprise known to man, a Federal Government, these starry-eyed liberals are learning the hard way that you can't just say you want everyone to get along and expect anything to actually happen.

    So much of computing has become tainted by unproven and fantastical liberal ideas, such as the Collectivization of memory by fiat (aka "virtual" memory) and a bloated, power-hungry Executive (monolithic kernels). The sooner we can move away from the european socialest and west-coast liberal traditions in software design, the better off we will be.

    These companies should take a lesson from the free market and try to deliver a product that can beat their competition. Whoever proposes the best standard will win and we won't have to listen to whining on Slashdot about how everyone should just cooperate like losers.