Firefox With H.264 HTML 5 Support = Wild Fox

Elledan writes "Two countries have software patents which make it impossible to freely use video codecs such as AVC (H.264). This has led to projects such as Firefox not including AVC support with the HTML 5 video tag in their releases, which makes the rest of the world suffer indirectly the effects of software patents as well. To rectify this situation at least somewhat, I have created the Wild Fox project, which aims to release Firefox builds with the features previously excluded due to software patents. This software will be available to those in non-software-patent-encumbered countries. Any developers who wish to join the project are more than welcome."

Comments

End of Firefox?

[sopssa]

Now first of all to the Wild Fox project maintainers, this is the right move. Fight to win the whole war, not one battle. Don't die as a martyr and lose it all just by demanding something to happen right now.

Additionally, it looks like Firefox is actually starting to lose support even from the Open Source front. Even Ubuntu is probably changing to Chronium and dropping Firefox. It kind of looks like Firefox lost the track of what they were doing a long time ago.

Apparently Ubuntu, the most popular Linux distribution, is considering dropping Firefox for Chrome. ...
it could be a sign that people are starting to feel less, um, “loyalty” to Firefox.

Not that I'm anymore happier Google's products taking over everything...

Re:End of Firefox?

[hairyfeet]

Just because you have FF does NOT mean you can play Theora, okay? I'm typing this on my "nettop" which is a circa 2005 Sempron 1.8Ghz, and I'm typing this in FF. I can watch full screen SD H.264 flash and it plays beautifully. Theora? Even in a window it is a jerky mess. And this Sempron is certainly more powerful than those single core Atom netbooks I see everyone carrying.

So I'm sorry, but Theora sucks on older or low power devices. Not to mention I can slap a $50 AGP card and get full hardware accelerated H.264, and many devices from cell phones on up have hardware H.264 support. Is there ANYBODY offering hardware Theora support?

While I don't like MPEG-LA, I'm also a realist. The only chance we have to tell MPEG-LA to shove it is Google releasing the On2 codecs, because VP6 plays nicely on low power and slower devices like this Sempron, and I'm betting VP8 will be even better. Theora is just gonna end up another Vorbis, a teeny tiny niche nobody but a few FOSS geeks use, just like how everyone plays MP3s even though they are patent encumbered.

Re:End of Firefox?

[ultranova]

Why? It capitulates to a non-free standard, and if H.264 becomes the defacto standard for HTML5 it effectively destroys the ability of any free browsers without deep pockets behind them to compete in the market.

H.264 is a free standard in most of the world. That's the point: why should the rest of us suffer from USAs bad laws?

Google Chrome will be fine, as will Apple Safari and Microsoft Internet Explorer, but Mozilla may well be toast, and any other free alternatives that want to operate in a country that respects software patents.

So don't operate in a country that "respects" software patents. Operate in an area where it's impossible to patent a file format, such as the EU.

You don't fight a war by giving ground at every turn. Eventually you have to make a stand.

Well, moving operations out of a country where the local laws inhibit competition certainly seems like taking a stand to me. It's just a stand that happens to be inconvenient to US citizens. Maybe you should talk to your congresscritters about it?

Meanwhile, here in the free world, h.264 is an open standard, as are all file formats, so...

Re:End of Firefox?

[nloop]

When a product runs faster via wine than its native code, I'm not too excited about running it.

For <audio> tag

[figleaf]

Please include support for mp3 and aac.

Thanks for creating this project. Support H.264 for the <video> tag is the right thing to do.
Good luck for your effort.

New 'video' tag without standardized codec

[FlorianMueller]

It's true that the new <video> tag in HTML 5 would suggest that a standardized codec be used by all browsers claiming to be fully HTML 5 compatible.

However, the new tag could also be used (even though in a less useful way than otherwise) if there is, which is unfortunately the most likely scenario, no industry consensus on a single codec. Assuming that there are two camps (H.264 and Theora; or maybe three if Google pushes for VP8), web servers could then provide different Uniform Resource Identifiers for the files, based on the browser that makes the web page request; or the file names (thus the URIs) could be identical but dependent on which browser is in use, a different file could be provided.

I have discussed the HTML 5 aspects of this in a recent blog post, "Video codecs: The HTML 5 dimension". While I am against software patents (I founded the European NoSoftwarePatents campaign in 2004, I just try to take a realistic perspective on the fact that software patents exist and get enforced all around the globe (as far as codecs go, there's aggressiv enforcement even in Europe, such as dozens of search warrants and confiscations every year at the CeBIT trade show.

Can't say no to H.264 without reliable alternative

[FlorianMueller]

As much as I regret to say it (btw, I founded the European NoSoftwarePatents campaign in 2004), I don't think this kind of resistance to H.264 is going to lead to a solution in the event some of the patents in the MPEG LA pool (just the H.264 pool contains 1,135 patents, and they have more pools under management there) get infringed by an alternative format that everyone would advocate, be it Theora or VP8. In that case, "the lawyers" would come out anyway to collect royalties and impose other terms and conditions.

As a result, whatever alternative that infringes on those patents would end up being unfree (neither free beer nor free speech) anyway.

The call for resistance to H.264 will make a great deal of sense if and when there is a reasonably reliable basis on which it can be assumed that a format such as Theora and/or VP8 doesn't infringe patents. While it's impossible to check on every one of the millions of software patents that exist around the globe, at the very least the proponents of Theora or VP8 (which Google might opensource very soon) should make a well-documented patent clearance effort with respect to the patents held by the MPEG LA consortium and explain why they their preferred codec doesn't infringe on those. Companies like Google or a deep-pocket non-profit such as the Mozilla Foundation could certainly do so if they wanted. I explained this thinking in a recent blog post.