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Ars Thinks Google Takes a Step Backwards For Openness

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the logic-has-many-letters dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Over at Ars Technica, Peter (not so) Bright gives a long-winded four pages of FUD about how Chrome dropping support for H.264 is a slight against openness. 'The promise of HTML5's video tag was a simple one: to allow web pages to contain embedded video without the need for plugins. With the decision to remove support for the widespread H.264 codec from future versions of Chrome, Google has undermined this widely-anticipated feature. The company is claiming that it wants to support "open codecs" instead, and so from now on will support only two formats: its own WebM codec, and Theora. ... The reason Google has given for this change is that WebM (which pairs VP8 video with Vorbis audio) and Theora are "open codecs" and H.264 apparently isn't. ... H.264 is unambiguously open.'"

3 of 663 comments (clear)

  1. excuse me by unity100 · · Score: -1, Troll

    cut bullshit. a standard that is not open, and subject to licensing fees, is NOT open. you cant redefine open.

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    1. Re:excuse me by unity100 · · Score: -1, Troll

      no, its not an open standard. because, some party retains the ownership of that standard, so they can collect fees from it. that relegates the ownership of that standard to that party. that means, that party can do anything with that standard at any given point in time, and you cant object to it.

      that is NOWHERE near the definition of 'open'.

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  2. Re:Putting the snideness of the summary aside... by Exitar · · Score: -1, Troll

    Another option is going back to IE.
    I use the browser that gives me more features/performance/whatever (I went years ago from IE to Netscape, then back to IE, then Firefox and finally I'm using Chrome).
    If I'll find both FF & Chrome lacking something I "need" in everyday internet surfing, I'll simply switch browser to one that have the missing feature.