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Wikipedia's Assault On Patent-Encumbered Codecs

Posted by timothy on from the because-they-hate-the-march-of-progress dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Open Video Alliance is launching a campaign today called Let's Get Video on Wikipedia, asking people to create and post videos to Wikipedia articles. (Good, encyclopedia-style videos only!) Because all video must be in patent-free codecs (theora for now), this will make Wikipedia by far the most likely site for an average internet user to have a truly free and open video experience. The campaign seeks to 'strike a blow for freedom' against a wave of h.264 adoption in otherwise open HTML5 video implementations."

2 of 428 comments (clear)

  1. Re:HTML5 Video by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    The cost is still paid by the average user, it's just tacked onto the cost of the O/S or whatever you buy from Apple, MS, etc.

    So they pay a fraction of a penny more? Oh noes! That's gonna break the bank!

  2. Strike a blow for Freedom, indeed! by davevr · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Consumers are most interested in freedom from buggy, hard-to-install, hard-to-configure, don't-play-my-youtubes, unsupported-by-my-PC-maker codecs.