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What To Expect From HTML5
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Neil McAllister takes a deeper look at HTML5, outlining what developers should expect from this overhaul of HTML — one that some believe could put an end to proprietary Web technologies such as Flash and Silverlight. Among the most eagerly anticipated additions to HTML5 are new elements and APIs that allow content authors to create rich media using nothing more than standards-based HTML. The standard also introduces browser-based application caches, which enable Web apps to store information on the client device. 'But for all of HTML5's new features, users shouldn't expect plug-ins to disappear overnight. The Web has a long history of many competing technologies and media formats, and the inertia of that legacy will be difficult to overcome. It may yet be many years before a pure-HTML5 browser will be able to match the capabilities of today's patchwork clients,' McAllister writes. 'In the end, browser market share may be the most significant hurdle for developers interested in making the most of HTML5. Until these legacy browsers are replaced with modern updates, Web developers may be stuck maintaining two versions of their sites: a rich version for HTML5-enabled users, and a version for legacy browsers that falls back on outdated rendering tricks.'"
Big thanks to Apple for standing up to the Flash juggernaut and showing the world we could live without it, thereby paving the way for HTML 5.
And big thanks to Google for creating a non-Flash dependent version of YouTube to help Apple do it, and starting to move YouTube away from Flash in general.
While the situation RE: Software patents isn't really where Free software enthusiasts would like it(among others, it isn't hard to find people who think that software patents are a serious clusterfuck); there is big difference:
If something is done in flash, it is almost definitely done using a proprietary codec(either one of Adobe's weirdo legacy proprietary codecs, or h264), wrapped in Flash, a proprietary runtime for which no good-enough-to-be-particularly-useful implementations exist. If something is done with an HTML 5 video tag, it will(outside of nests of Free software idealists) almost certainly be h264. However, while the patent situation is a mess, good Free implementations of h264 exist, and Free browsers will be on the leading edge of HTML5 development.
With flash based stuff, it is essentially impossible to function on a Free stack, no matter where you live, what patent licences you either posses or are willing to ignore, or whatever. It just isn't possible. Gnash is Not There Yet, and even if you are willing to go proprietary, Flash pretty much sucks on anything that isn't 32-bit windows, and it's a pit of resource consumption and security flaws even there. Silverlight is incrementally better, with Moonlight covering a greater subset of Silverlight than Gnash does Flash, and it not sucking architecturally as much; but it still doesn't cover enough(and pretty much any Silverlight based media application will be using a patent encumbered codec and/or DRM in any event).
h264/HTML5 still suffers patent encumbrance; but anybody not subject to, or willing to ignore, those patents can have a very functional Free implementation more or less now. That counts for something.