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Browser Vendors Force W3C To Scrap HTML 5 Codecs
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>."
The "problem" is that FOSS political advocates hoped that HTML5 would designate Ogg as a standard container and therefore ratchet free codecs into relevance.
Instead, the world is continuing to use ISO/MPEG standards that are technically superior, already supported in silicon, and can actually rival the best Microsoft can offer as a proprietary codec vendor.
FOSS advocates would rather have something third rate declared the standard so that companies that actually support FOSS development, such as Apple and Google, would be disadvantaged in taking on Microsoft. FOSS is unwittingly working to keep Microsoft in charge, much like the Ralph Nader crowd saying there's no difference between Gore and Bush and fating us into 8 years of torture dictatorship, religion, and environmental destruction.
But yay they lost this time. As they tend to.
AGREED 100%, see my post a few threads above. Apple continuously sabotage the progress of fledgling technology by strangling it with MONOPOLIES and DRM. eg. Quicktime&h264, FinalCut exclusivity on mac, Logic exclusivity on mac, ipod/itunes exclusivity, no upgradability of their imacs, AT&T only Iphone, mac / pc fiel sharing incompatability, retarding windows installs on mac hardware, expensive hardware upgrades due to incompatability taking no advantage of the CHEAP pc hardware market etc. etc. etc.