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Ars Thinks Google Takes a Step Backwards For Openness
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.'"
Peter (not so) Bright gives a long winded, read 4 pages of FUD
I come to slashdot for the articles but stay for one-sided submission summaries.
Not that I support Google's move but, come on, this is summary is a troll unto itself.
Trolling is a art,
I think that the original editorial does have a point in one regard. The height of "openness" and freedom to me is the ability for me, as the user, to CHOOSE whatever format I want to watch or use for myself. Now, I'm sure that there will be some extension for Chrome that allows for H.264 support. But, having said that, I still never feel more "free" when someone REMOVES support for a format.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
RARRR WTF, so much FUD blah blah blah... (continue raging in the way that the submitter is hoping for)
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
not open but, its open ?
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The stupid ad hominem attacks by the anonymous submitter aside, Peter Bright isn't really that far off the mark. He is quite correct in the claims he makes, which essentially boild down to two points: One, H.264 is an open standard, where "open" needs to be read in the context of standards, and none of the other are (though they are "open" in other senses of the word). And two, the move is more about having a free-as-in-beer standard than a free-as-in-speech one.
I don't really think that Google is the least bit worried about a few million bucks, so I am doubtful of his 2nd argument as far as it regards Chrome. But there are a couple good points in his first argument, especially when it comes to the question of control.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The specifications are fully open for anyone to -freely- implement both coding and decoding for. The specifications were fully open in the sense that not a single commercial entity was responsible for drafting and controlling it, but any company that wanted to partake; so-called open participation. These are undisputable facts about the MPEG codecs. The problem here isn't that H.264 isn't as open as Google wants it to be - the problem is that it isn't as FREE as they want it to be. In order to make use of the MPEG "technology" in a _commercial_ context, you need to pay, and Google does not want to pay.
I just don't understand the bit of reasoning Peter Bright made about why Google dropping H.264 is a bad thing because they may incur licensing fees. Especially this last bit:
It's not as if Google can't afford the $6.5 million a year, and by paying that money the company would enable web users to view open, standards-compliant, H.264 video.
What, just because a company can afford the licensing fees means that it MUST pay the licensing fees, especially in the face of other open source alternatives that doesn't require them?
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
You can argue that it is a step backwards for "openness", or, you can argue that Google is digging their feet in to ensure that their own 'truly open' video format will become the standard. Both POV's have validity but WebM is probably better for consumers in the long run.
H264 is not open, it is patent encumbered, it will not be open until all relevant (a word which has become very stretched recently) patents have expired. The Ars article tries to address this by claiming that there are no royalties that need to be paid for videos that can be accessed without a paywall; yet the document they cite says this is only for "0 - 100,000 units" which clearly creates a problem for libre software that has millions of users. Furthermore, the line that the licensing terms draws for "(a)" and "(b)" sublicensing is artificial and wholly incompatible with free software licensing.
Palm trees and 8
This must be the most biggoted summary ever!
Regardless... Google's decision is BAD plain and simple: You support openness by ADDING, not REMOVING.
Who put Google on the position to tell us right from wrong, open from closed? Can't we have a say? They are obviously leveraging Chrome's rising popularity to enforce whatever they think is open, which somehow happens to be the best for their PROFITS.
WebM is an open 'proprietary' implementation. It can easily be retroactively declared a standard, or achieve defacto standard status, but it is a technology championed by a single company without a standards body overseeing it. This is not necessarily a bad thing (and can even be a good thing, standards bodies frequently mess things up). It is unarguably open, but it isn't standard.
One could make the case that h264 is not 'open', because of the royalties, but it *is* a standard because the work was done with the standards bodies to make it so.
He does point out the obvious that the rhetoric of 'we believe in open' is really better read as 'we are too cheap for licensing decoders for a free browser', but that one sentence was really all that needed to be said on the matter and most people immediately realized that.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
cut bullshit. a standard that is not open, and subject to licensing fees, is NOT open. you cant redefine open.
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the licensing fees eventually reflect on the end users through development costs and proliferation rate of applications/services. free, is good for me, the end user.
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the specs can be implemented in software by anyone, without paying a dime, as long as the resulting product is non-commercial. you just can't bundle "h.264 technology" in a commercial application without paying for it. google's problem is just that. they don't want to pay a dime.
Summary rant aside, how would it affect x.264? Isn't that an open-standard of the h264 spec? If not, just use x264.
Trolling is a art,
Just come out with one standard codec or include all codecs to every browser...problem solved.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I'm glad Mods can't give summaries or the arstechnica.com website a (-1) Troll like they did to my posts (yesterday) saying I disagree with removing MPEG4 from Chrome.
They probably would mod Ars Technica (-1) censored if they could get away with it, simply because Ars opposes Google's decision.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
I SEE THREE PAGES!
so there is nothing left to talk about. i am creeped out like any one else about google's increasing ability to know everything about our lives, but in this case, google did the right thing in the name of openness by denying H.264
good job google, thank you. ignore the paid prostitutes howling about not including H.264. we who have genuine opinions, not opinions derived from corporate pay, are on your side, and support your decision. thank you
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This is more bastardization of the term "open". Refer to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Definition
If he wants to pay Chrome's licensing fees for H.264, then he can have his support back.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
what kind of bullshit you are smoking ?
so, its better to pay for a closed proprietary standard AND also pay the development fees ? are you aware of the issues and problems flash generates in video formats, browsers, content delivery, for example ?
with proprietary standard, you have to wait for the owner to come up with solutions. with an open standard, your developer, who you are paying for its time, can do anything you want.
if you see no advantage in this for web anything 'in general', quit your i.t. job and start selling real estate or something.
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it is precisely as thus - ars technica is redefining 'open', in order to make it not open, despite being called open, so that proprietary sources can retain custody of standards, mooching money off of it to the detriment of end users and internet proliferation by raising costs as thus.
no, i dont have the moral obligation to pay any third party for anything i do on the web, while open standards are available, neither as a startup, nor as an end users to which costs are reflecting on indirectly. and if anyone tries to redefine open, like the moron in ars technica does, i will take that person not only as 'not bright', but also an enemy of my freedom and interest as a citizen.
open is open. if any party retains custody of something in the form of ownership, then it means that thing is NOT OPEN. actually the anonymous submitter was quite level headed in his inflammatory summary. i would have directly labeled someone who tried to redefine open, for supporting private interests, as a paid whore.
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Just as free as in speech is not the same as free as in beer, open as in standards is not the same
as open as in source.
H.264 is an open, international standard. Indeed, there is nothing left to talk about.
Free != "open"
Open source != "open" (in this context)
This has nothing to do with "paid prostitutes". The reason H.264 costs money is that there is a shitload of patents that all have been dealt with as part of the patent pool. WebM may be encumbered, it may not — but we don't know. It's it's most certainly not an open standard in the same way the MPEG family of international standards are.
One of whome is Microsoft, who stands to make a lot of money from it.
that explains it all for me.
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It seems to me some OSS types get a little hypocritical in that they talk about OSS being all about openness as in source. They claim that the idea is that you can share improvements and so on. It isn't about money, it is about information.
Well, H.264 is open in that way. It is a standard open to anyone that wishes to implement it under fixed terms. The x264 project is a great example. If you want to see a working H.264 implementation, and try your hand at improving it, well then have at it. The code is there for the taking. Of course if you then wish to make use of it in certain contexts, like implementing it in video editing software, you'll need to pay licensing fees. It isn't free, however it is open.
However it seems that the OSS types then get mad that any money is being charged. All of a sudden openness isn't what it is about. It is no longer a matter of "free as in speech" it is "free as in I want to sleep on your couch for a year." Only things which cost nothing are acceptable, for some reason "open but not zero cost," isn't ok anymore.
In the case of browser H.264 support I think Google is wrong to force WebM. I'm not at all unhappy that there is the WebM standard, I think it is great that a completely free format is out there because face it, we can't all pay royalties. However H.264 is superior in terms of quality per bit and thus has a reason to be used. So the option should be offered.
If it is an issue of money, which I can accept since Chrome is free (though you are right it isn't a big deal to Google) then all they should do is use the system's H.264 codec, if it has one. Windows 7 and OS-X ship with an H.264 decoder, and you can get H.264 decoders for older versions of Windows and I presume for Linux. So just use them if present, and don't play it if not.
Really I think that's the right way for browsers to do HTML 5 video period. Simply pass the request on to the OS's media layer. That way any format the OS knows how to play, you play.
While others focus on the definition of "open", I want to focus on the definitions of bright, long-winded and FUD. In defining these terms, I think you are a bit confused. You seem to be using the "bright" to imply having a reasonable amount of information or insight. After reading Mr. Bright's article, I learned a handful of things that I didn't know before, so I guess I would have to consider him at least a little bright. I imagine the rolling of your eyes while reading his article made you a bit dizzy, preventing you from having a similar experience. Or maybe you just know a lot more than I do.
When you define FUD, perhaps you mean that he has a different opinion than you. No matter which side of this argument a person is on, I think that it is easy to agree that this is going to make implementation of the video tag by web developers more difficult and less likely to happen in the next couple of years.
When you define long-winded, perhaps you mean "taking the time to build his position". Clearly from your submission, you are a man of few words. I can admire someone like you that doesn't let information get in the way of expression. I can only wish that life was that easy for me. I keep getting bogged down in considering positions other than my own.
One thing I can say that Mr. Bright has on you though... he was willing to put his name on his position. For all the effort you put into adding your own brand of color to your submission, I just can't understand why you wouldn't want to take full credit.
I summed up some arguments to Ars' art here: http://lwb.elka.pw.edu.pl/trac/lwb/blog/rysiek/2011/01/13/on_google_h264_and_openness In short, h264 is a "standard" but a patented, "trojan" one; Google should just submit WebM to ISO and be done with it.
I have to agree with Peter on this. I certainly don't begrudge Google creating and supporting the WebM standard. I think WebM is a good thing, and will foster further open source video codec advancements. But h264 is a solid video standard. I don't like the royalty/patent burden, but that it has already been embraced by many browsers makes it the incumbent codec. I support choice for video encoders and viewers alike, and that means more options rather than fewer. In cutting out the largest codec Google will be limiting choice and eliminating the only standardized codec. Google controls WebM development, whereas h264 is controlled by a standards body, not by any one technology patent holder.
this sort of discussion, especially given the mental limitations of websites, media outlets and media consumers, always gets bogged down in the morass of non-free vs defacto vs dejure vs license pools, etc.
the fact is that when we talk about "standard" in a good sense, it is open _and_ free, or not at all. for instance TCP/IP is a real standard precisely because it is both open and free. HTTP/HTML. javascript is, but java isn't. linux is and windows isn't. you get the idea.
in a meaningful sense, GNU caused part of the problem, because it conflates RMS's ideology with this basically simple "standard=open+free" model. (and before any RMSista object: GPL is popular as a flag of convenience - operating under GPL does not mean allegiance to RMS's politics...)
I think the article is well thought out and interesting.
For openness, I'd have Chrome take the fully open road ... (like suggested in the article)
- No MP3 playback
- No AAC playback
- No Flash playback
- No WebM or Theora until they are processed by a national standard body.
There might be other patent-encumbered or proprietary technologies in Chrome. I'd make sure they are off too.
Drawback: by default, it would cut itself from most of the modern multimedia world.
Advantage: hey, there are always plugins anyways...
One could make the case that h264 is not 'open', because of the royalties
It's not open because of the patents, without which there would be no royalties. The royalties are merely the consequence of the real problem: the law. If it wasn't for the existence of software patents, then nobody would have a reason not to use H.264. Is this REALLY that difficult to understand?
Let's play a little game of true or false.
You, as a software developer, can freely design and implement your own video player using the H.264 specs. That's true! Yay!
You, as the software developer, can freely distribute this program to others without petitioning authority. FALSE. Uh oh. Strike one.
The end user of your program can freely distribute the program to others, modified or not, without petitioning authority. FALSE. Strike two.
You, as the owner of a video streaming website, for-profit or otherwise, can freely implement and employ the H.264 "standard" without petitioning authority. FALSE. It's not looking like much of a "standard" now, is it?
So there we have it: H.264 is completely unusable to the open source community -- not because they don't WANT to use it, but because the law says they cannot. Period. Furthermore, H.264 is unusable to anyone wishing to provide H.264 services to others, freely or otherwise, without petitioning authority.
There, that wasn't so hard, was it?
Having a register of all valid licenses for videos created also has a downside when it comes to privacy. If a h.264 video is put on the Internet anonymously, it can be taken down easily by pointing out it has no valid license. Even if that license is free, it might be dangerous to register such a license for organization and individuals depending on the content of the video. This can also be a cost, a human cost. It's what the economists call externalities. MPEG LA is a client of the American legal system, and sometimes the legal system in USA is dysfunctional.
If h.264 videos are seen as the file-format that will have the most widespread support for the video-tag, then I will consider HTML5 a failure. And HTML is one of the key-technologies that drives the Internet. Both Thomas Jefferson and Voltaire was fierce opponents of making h.264 de-facto standards for video on the web. It's all about the free speech.
Does anybody remember what happened when Unisys enforced their patent on the compression in GIF ??
Do we really have to repeat this period of history again ??
Like Google or Not, Like Mozilla or Not we can not allow that piece of history to repeat itself
Will I need to dump my GPU/laptop/phone to the landfill in 2 years if I want stable HD streaming because only new hardware support WebM? Can we stick with what is already working great without generating more e-waste?
Can someone point me to the open source projects for encoding H.264? Or at least to the spec that I can use to start such a project? I assume a BSD license will be ok if I start a project.
If the author means that playback is a trivial amount of money per customer and creating content is a trivial amount of money for the app that comes with my camera (but I can only use that app to edit), then we have different definitions of "open".
Open, Shmopen. A cartel of mega-corporations submitted a format to ISO - An organisation that lost credibility when it approved OpenXML, which not even MS adhered to at the time of approval.
The market will ultimately decide what codecs they'll support but a mandated spec of *required* formats ought only include those patent and royalty free, is the point being made here.
A better validation of openness - does H.264 meet the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG)? No, it doesn't.
This is a battle for the future of the Internet, and Google should be praised for their decision! The moment HTML standard starts depending on a non-free patented technology is the moment internet freedom dies. It is just a simple as that.
Of course, trying to enforce a new open and free standard with all those whining bunch of MPEG owners, their spindoctors, trolls, sympathizers and people confused by MPEG propaganda is not going to be easy. But VP8 (WebM) was specifically designed to avoid MPEG patent violations. The Google backing, WebM has been added to a lot of software and hardware products already. And even more are on their way! Even if MPEG-LA drags Google to court (they would not be the first, nor the last), Google is not a small bunch of software developers that can't afford legal fees, so it would not be easy by any means. Also, if any such patent violations proved to exist, they can be removed in future codec versions with new technology and various workarounds.
So please give a big pat on Google's shoulder for their decision and help promote WebM!
I predict YouYube will switch exclusively to WebM late this year. At that point, most people will either get a plugin or already have a browser that supports it natively. After that, there is no reason but legacy video support for anyone to use H.264. And there will be zero incentive for anyone to switch to the new patented codec that will replace 264.
The problem is that H.264's license structure is based around traditional producer-consumer relationships, which is not compatible with the concept behind free software. Royalty payments are inherently incompatible with the free software model, because it prevents people from liberally copying and sharing software. Note that royalties are the problem; other payment models are perfectly fine (I can, for example, charge you money for copies of Debian -- prior to widely available broadband connections, this sort of thing was not so uncommon).
Palm trees and 8
How come no one is talking about the Unisys GIF Compression patent? Have we not learned from history, that having a single standard always ends with some company controlling what we do ? I may not love Google, or Apple or Microsoft, but I absolutely hate patents on "standards", they always raise the price I pay as a developer, I am always afraid my company will end up being sued. So just on that basis I laud Google for being the bad guy in the short run, and creating an environment where Open source standards provide an alternative. REMEMBER UNISYS, FIGHT FOR NONPATENTED STANDARDS
This is a myth. H.264 is free for free streaming. But there is a licensing fee for every encoder and decoder regardless of whether the software is open or closed source, commercial of given away for free. Said licensing fee costs Google US$6.5 million a year. Mozilla would be forced to pay the same to add support to Firefox.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
you are probably aware that 'much more open' compared to 'more closed', still does not mean open.
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Peter Bright Microsoft Contributor Peter Bright dropped out of university after about five minutes to work as a software developer writing C++ and C#. After several years of Java development in the financial services industry, he joined the British Library, where he worked to preserve the ever-growing legacy of digital information. When not musing about the future of Microsoft, he enjoys programming for fun, burritos, and photography.
Make your own conclusion about the author... Hint: not exactly a defender of "openness", they should've added cool-aid drinker to that list.
Here we go again!
And most of the rhetoric only mentions one, and open means too many things.
There is standard versus nonstandard (.doc vs appleworks).
There is open versus proprietary (C++ versus Java).
There is open source versus closed source (x264 versus apple's H.264 coder)
There is unencumbered versus encumbered by patents and license fees.
We have formats across all forms that are varying degrees of all of these. The thing that the h.264 people are saying is look - h.264 is the better half in almost all of those cases! It is a standard that was agreed upon by a standards board, not by a single company. The spec is out there and available for everyone to implement, not controlled by a single company. It is free to license for most uses! And it is supported by everyone and everything.
From all business perspectives outside of the open source mindset, it is a *great* standard. You don't have to worry about Apple, Microsoft, or Adobe changing it, or wait on them to make their decoder not suck. It is attached to so many different businesses that there is a huge incentive to keep licensing fees from becoming ridiculous. And it works everywhere.
Do people remember .mov and .wmv files? Do you remember real media's proprietary standards? From a *use* standpoint and a consumer standpoint, h.264 is a great and "open" standard.
The problem is when you run up against the open source concerns about infrastructure. It *is* controlled by somebody. It does have patents, so if you don't have money you can't make a business out of it. It is not "free" - either as beer or speech.
I think the argument the article makes is that perfect is the enemy of good. H.264 is *vastly* more open, consumer, and business friendly than that which it replaces - proprietary, nonstandard, closed video players from Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, and Real. Going to it as a web standard would be a huge boon for consumers and businesses, and it already has real momentum to do that.
WebM would be better, from a "free" perspective... but, argues the author, it's much less likely to succeed, as it isn't a standard, and it isn't ubiquitous. And so we should go with something that is already a huge improvement over the status quo instead of hoping for some "perfect" free solution. Getting to an open standard is already a major victory for nearly everyone involved. Or is installing a plugin to add h.264 support so much more odious than already installing one for flash? At least you can have your choice of which h.264 implementation you want to use.
Good suggestion. Something like this?
h.264 is open for busniess, while WebM is open for free use.
I dont really get why people are getting so up in arms google dropping h.264 from chrome. They're essentially coming out in support of things like mozilla and opera, but they market share for the browser is not astronomical.
It really is a non-event because if people wanted to be able to support tag on their servers and be able to support say IE and firefox (the majority of browsers i believe?), they'd already have to produce both formats. Irrelevant of what google do with chrome.
Now, if google came out and said "we'll only have webm on youtube for the tag in html5", that would be a very different story, and one worth talking about.
I think the article is written by a cretin personally (the ars article), but alot of people are getting up in arms about a non-event.
We (most of us) are idiots for encoding video in something we have no rights to.
Mp4 is not open.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
It is far from been open standard AND its actually uses H264 under the hood. I will not congratulate Google on been Champion of Open Source until Chrome will stop having Flash EMBEDDED into it.
It's (probably) deliberate, but the continued confusion of orthogonal axes really doesn't help the debate.
H.264 is open, anyone may contribute to ISO/ITU projects (including those holding patents). WebM is closed, it was developed and is owned by On2/Google.
H.264 costs money to license and deploy; it is not free. On2/Google are currently the only bona-fide identified owners of the technology in WebM (as far as I know), and they do not charge for it.
There are open-source implementations of H.264 and other royalty-bearing codecs. I am aware of at least one codec (which I can't name) which had a free license but for which the source was only available on agreement; it was closed-source.
So, open/proprietary usually refers to the development process and the ownership and control of the specification. Open-source/closed-source refers to the availability and visibility of the source code. Royalty-free/royalty-bearing refer to whether payment has to be made to patent owners in order to deploy. I suspect that almost any combination of these choices is possible.
So, if I understand this right, if Microsoft honestly felt that H.264 is the best standard for the internet, they could simply release everything (including patents) for free, relinquish all control and legally open H.264. Then Google would happily support H.264 again.
So why don't they? If they are being open and honest, they have said they don't ever plan to 'clamp down' on their H.264 rights, so they are losing nothing. Of course, if they are completely lying, and fully plan to milk it for every dollar as soon as it becomes the standard, then I guess they would do exactly what they are doing now...
1. Dump H.264 ... (or convince Adobe to do it). Goog has $33B cash on hand. Adobe market cap is $16B.
2. Buy Adobe, open up flash, push as a standard, make it free,
3. Create ARM processor for next gen Google appliances, phones, etc... with HW support for Flash and WebM, etc... H.264 removed from Android.
4. Fail, because Facebook now controls the thoughts and minds of the masses. Facebook video to squash YouTube.
5. Fail, because the open source community flags Google on their Android open source violations.
Google, how is removing choice "not being evil"? This is clearly an attack on Apple (who has no "evil" policy). Don't kid yourself kids, Google envies Apple. At least Google investors do.
Personally I don't care. I prefer reading to watching videos.
but when you are walking the wrong path, you cannot simply keep walking and get to the right path. You need to back up. So yes, I agree with Peter as well. But stepping back is often a good thing. Mozilla came when IE was the standard, and much FUD was spread back then too, and it was a step back, but we are much better now. But don't be fooled by the term "standards body." I could care less about market speak any more. We need something Free as in Freedom. VP8 is. H264 is not.
Hmmm. Nice FUD article at ars. Folks are seriously confusing the word "open". "Open" is becoming a buzz word and everyone is starting to use it for their own purposes.
H.264 is clearly a "published" standard, but following a standards process does not make something "open". ODF, on the other hand, followed the standards process and *also* made it open. Patents are also "published", but we know that doesn't make them "open".
My very simplistic view of "open"? Is the spec and/or source available, and everyone implement it without a fee. It is really not about patents.
As for this whole browser codec noise. Why is everyone putting limits on codecs for embedded video other than staging a holy war. Browsers should have an extensible API to allow registering various codecs. In Linux or windows, when I click on a video, if the codec is installed, it plays. Simple. So, I would be fine if they only support particular codecs and you would need to install the others.
Given the stranglehold that MPEG has on the video, it may be time for a holy war and that is why this is happening and having google on side for this "is good thing".
Just don't argue for H.264 and claim "open". That is just silly.
A standard can be openly documented, but heavily patented and licensed. A competing standard can be almost documented and a work-in-progress, but free to use. Which is better? H.264 would be a poor choice going forward; not because of openness or technical capability, but because the IP owners are luring implementers in, in the hope that early adopters will be irrevocably committed to a patented technology when the usage terms start to become a cash cow. What we need is good abstraction, so that we can freely switch between adopters of the standard interface: like having a graphics API that lets you use Direct-X or OpenGL just by flipping a switch.
Google does have one rather large bullet in their arsenal.... YouTube.
I've been interested in seeing the advances they have made in getting h.264 video and the HTML5 video tag to work over at YouTube sans Flash, and was pretty sure that's the direction things were going.
Now if Google shifts away from this format, will they drop support over at YouTube?
And will they stop streaming to mobile devices like the iphone that have built in YouTube players and hardware h.264 video support?
That seems like a bigger deal than Chrome, which seems to be a nice developer browser, but doesn't have huge enough market share to matter.
The browser market share in Europe is FF 38.11%, Chrome 14.58%, Opera 4.57%, all of which either support or will support WebM. That's 57% of the browser market, and if YouTube goes WebM IE and Safari will have no choice but to support it as well.
Also since FF cannot include H.264 that means encoding your video in H.264 instead of WebM costs you nearly 40% of users.
My UID is prime. Hah!
This is pretty bad for an Ars Technica article. They usually do a good job examining both sides and avoid favoring one side heavily. This piece completely dismisses everything said by the other side. No mention of the possibility of raised fees, ignoring the burden on OSS developers, parroting Gruber's lines about how support Flash is hypocritical, etc. It's a sad day for the standard of Ars Technica's writing.
Not really but as MP3 is also a patent encumbered format (and is supported in the audio tag) it is the very logical next step to do not ?
Mod me down but you can't mod down the truth is that a company that is doing this move about openness should ban all non patent encumbered formats...
Google; believed by many to be the salvation of proprietary wares on the net becomes large enough to claim they "run the net" by limiting choices to their approved list. Sounds to me like they have become the 800 pound gorilla and are doing exactly what they said they were here to end. So whose next in line to tout the "free bird" mentality so we can jump on their bandwagon.
This is what the outcome will be - arguments for removing support for H.264 fall flat since Google knows this is what will eventually happen (especially now that Chrome has become much more popular). The end result will be that fewer web sites will be iOS-compatible thereby strengthening Android, since it does support Flash. This is Google playing corporate BS games using "openness" as a guise, plain and simple... Guess they took some lessons from Apple.
PeterB (Peter Bright) of arstechnica (who also goes by Dr. Pizza here and elsewhere online as his alternate username) is nothing more than a "battlefront" forums moderator over at arstechnica.com who dropped out of collegiate academia because he couldn't handle it. So, did you expect better material from the likes of that ilk? Arstechnica: "the under-achievers of the internet".
PeterB (Peter Bright) of arstechnica (who also goes by Dr. Pizza here and elsewhere online as his alternate username) is nothing more than a "battlefront" forums moderator over at arstechnica.com who dropped out of collegiate academia because he couldn't handle it. So, did you expect better material from the likes of that ilk? Peter Bright is proof that Arstechnica's really the home of "the under-achievers of the internet"!
PeterB (Peter Bright) of arstechnica (who also goes by Dr. Pizza here and elsewhere online as his alternate username) is nothing more than a "battlefront" forums moderator over at arstechnica.com who dropped out of collegiate academia because he couldn't handle it. So, did you expect better material from the likes of that ilk? Peter Bright is proof that Arstechnica's really the home of "the under-achievers of the internet".
PeterB (Peter Bright) of arstechnica (who also goes by Dr. Pizza here and elsewhere online as his alternate username) is nothing more than a "battlefront" forums moderator over at arstechnica.com who dropped out of collegiate academia because he couldn't handle it. So, did you expect better material from the likes of that ilk? Peter Bright is proof that Arstechnica's really the home of "the under-achievers of the internet"....
I fully support Google dropping h.264 from their browser because I want an open an accessible Internet for everyone. I think it will be good for the Internet in the long term to have full open and free options available.
I do wonder why Google made no mention of Chrome's support for MP3, which is just as much patented and non-free as h.264. Sure Google wants to see WebM take off, and dropping h.264 is the first step along those lines, but it seems disingenuous to say they're dropping it because it's not open when they're still supporting MP3. You can't have either one if you want to champion freedom and openness.
Seriously MP3 needs to look at having its patents seriously inspected. Those things run out in 2017. I think the open web would benefit a great deal from having a patent free implementation of MP3.
MP3 patents started expiring in 2007 and will all have expired by 2017. *Sigh* I wish US patents expired in 5 years.
Most people don't know that in order to support EVERY video format for HTML5, you still have to encode a video 3 different times. But this site has a great explanation on which browsers support what, this history of the video formats, and even describes the history of licensing HTML5(i.e. went from paying for encoders, players, AND transmitting to just paying for encoders to players).
http://www.diveintohtml5.org/video.html
Tell you what, removing support for H.264 renders a browser almost completely useless for me. Looks like I'll be using Safari and IE from now on. If people want open source software (browsers, etc) to be successful, they have to support the industry standard formats in use, whether or not those standards are "open." Adios Chrome, it was nice know ing you.
If they support H.264, which was their previous position, open source people will cry foul.
If they support WebM, fans of H.264 will whine about the loss of quality.
If they support both, HTML 5 video tag will be standardize sometime in 2027, when all of H.264's patents run out, invoking the wrath the open source Flash-hating population.
I think you'll find it's Steve Hand Jobs
"The promise of HTML5's video tag was a simple one: to allow web pages to contain embedded video without the need for plugins..."
But by making it use H.264, I will HAVE to use a plugin to get it to work on Linux. With WebM, I won't.
So why do they think this move is going to be a BAD thing?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epCLAsI_ocA
> This makes H.264 an open standard in the same way as, for example, JPEG still images, or the C++ programming language, or the ISO 9660 filesystem used on CD-ROMs?
All of these are royalty free standards. So these are unusual comparisons to make a case.
The definition of "open" has changed a bit over the years due to open source.
"Open" in "OpenWindows" released by Sun in 1989, is quite different than the "Open" in "OpenOffice" released by Sun in 2000, or the 2006 "OpenDocument" format.
if YouTube goes WebM IE and Safari will have no choice but to support it as well.
It's a good thing that YouTube can't be perceived to have a monopoly on online video distribution or that might be a dangerous strategy.
That is the case, isn't it?
Ars does get overly-haughty. Perhaps over-use of Latin can leave one with delusions of being a Roman Senator.
However, it is also covered by hundreds of patents, which means you can't actually use any of that information without getting a license from the patent holders. One of whom is Microsoft, who stands to make a lot of money from it. Others include Sony and Apple, who stand to make a lot too.
The 30-odd H.264 licensors are - with a bare handful of exceptions - are global giants in manufacturing. Companies like Mitsubishi Electric, Samsung. JVC, Panasonic, Philips and Toshiba.
They are in the business of selling HD hardware - in the consumer market. Studio production. Broadcast, cable and satellite distribution.
Industrial security and military applications. Medicine.
there is a fear that if x264 were to become so established it were impossible to do without it then there would be a temptation for them to start milking more money from those patents.
Too late:
List of video services using H.264/MPEG-4 AVC
I don't see why the H.264 patent holders can't just grant an irrevocable free license to anybody for displaying H.264 content. Make their money on the production side. Charge more on that end if that's what it takes. Yeah, some producers may opt for a cheaper format, but as it is, they may end up losing the whole game.
Ultimately, internet technologies are healthiest when the consuming end is free (in every sense of the word). And it's not really necessary to attempt to collect royalties from the consumer. They're not making the choice to use the technology - they're just trying to consume what's out there. The producer chooses the technology, and the producer should bear any royalty costs.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
H.264 is a real standard, developed and governed by a multi-party process, recognized by international standards organizations, and extensively documented.
That is all well and good, but, the fact stands that it is impossible to legally create an open source H.264 enabled browser (in countries where patents are valid). Because of that, H.264 is simply not suitable as a standard for the open web - if only closed-source browsers can view the web, it is no longer open.
To clarify that point: Even if Google or Mozilla paid MPEG-LA royalties for their own browsers, the browsers would not be freely redistributable, which violates a fundamental principle of free and open source software. MPEG-LA's current business model is simply not compatible with open source software and the open web.
The interesting question would be, what would happen if MPEG-LA made an exception for open source implementations of H.264. Total guess, but I suspect Google approached MPEG-LA with that or something similar, got rebuffed, and went through on their bluff to remove H.264 from Chrome. MPEG-LA's next move will be interesting (remember that they already made H.264's licensing more lenient several times, in response to Google's previous moves of buying On2 and announcing WebM).
"free as in I want to sleep on your couch for a year."
google is more like "i don't want to sleep on the couch if you say it's yours".
On the one hand, the fact you've posted this a bunch of times to the thread is a surefire sign that you're APK.
On the other hand, the grammar and punctuation are at least vaguely sane. So I have to wonder; APK, have you been medicated?
This is a (long) summary of my feelings on HTML5 video and H.264:
- H.264 is not something everyone is allowed to implement
- H.264 streaming of paid-for content requires royalty payments
- Decoding and encoding of H.264 requires licensing
How can communication be free (in both the sense of "speech" and "cost") with H.264 if not everyone is free to implement it? One of the greatest things about the internet is that it is the "great equalizer"... everyone, regardless of means, can have a voice, compete against the biggest players, and have a chance to succeed. Never before has any medium allowed for such wide-reaching open communication and expression by ANYONE.
Can you imagine if a person had to get licenses for every file format type used on the web? For GIF images, that's one license... for JPEG, that's another... same goes for PNG, HTML, CSS, Javascript, SVG, etc. With HTML video, I think everyone would like it to become as ubiquitous as those existing formats. By allowing H.264 to become an acceptable format for the web, a worrisome precedent is set. As new formats and types of content appear and the web integrates them, how many more licenses will a person need? How much will need to be paid in royalties? In the long run, even the amount to be paid for licensing and royalties could be minor compared to the complexity of simply making sure you or your organization stay within the letter of the law with all of the content you provide.
Innovation on the internet has been driven by the ability of ANYONE to be able to implement the standards used on the web and the ability of ANYONE to be able to use those standards to share their ideas with. The internet would not be where it is today without that. Firefox could never have existed without that. Chrome probably would never have existed without that. Even Safari probably would never have existed without that.
Something that the Arstechnica article seems to miss however is that the likelihood of VP8 infringing on H.264 patents is just as great as H.264 infringing on VP8 patents. The patent infringement guessing game is something that really can't be played here. No one seems to be able to say say with any confidence that any given codec doesn't infringe on any patents. MPEG-LA seems afraid to bring infringement charges against either Theora or VP8 which leads to the conclusion that they don't really have a case against Theora or VP8, the patents they are claiming Theora or VP8 are infringing on are weak and are likely to be thrown out, that they maybe counter-sued for infringement of VP8 patents, or a combination of any of those things.
Google seems to be receiving a lot of flack about including Flash with Chrome however; people are crying "hypocrite!" at the top of their lungs. Keeping Flash bundled with Chrome however, with the web in its current state, is a pragmatic decision. Only a small fraction of the web is currently using the HTML video tag while Flash is already deeply rooted. Google made their move with the video tag at a time when it was still feasible, while Flash can't be dropped nearly so easily. The use of MP3 and AAC in the HTML audio tag is however a different matter; this is a case where I will agree with most that if Google is dropping support for H.264 over the matter of openness and freeness, MP3 and AAC should go as well.
Other people are arguing that this move will stop big content providers from supporting the HTML video tag, but they seem to forget a critical thing: big content owners/providers such as Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu INSIST on DRM. There is currently nothing in any proposed HTML standard, let alone any implementation, that meets this requirement. While the debate on if DRM is truly needed is for another time, the fact of the matter is that these content providers will continue to use Flash or Silverlight as their delivery mechanism until they are satisfied that HTML can provide them with the DRM they feel is necessary, so in no way is this move detracting from the openness of the web.
seriously? google will not ship h264 with chrome due to 'lack of openess' but will happily include flash with chrome (which, incidentally has no problems playing h264 videos - what do you think iplayer, youtube, etc. are serving?) ? hypocritical much?
It seems to me some OSS types get a little hypocritical in that they talk about OSS being all about openness as in source.
The analogy is quite straightforward:
Open source = you get the source, you can compile it, run it, and distribute the source and the binaries you create without paying anybody (however, you can charge people if you like)
Open standard = you get the specification, you can implement it, run it, and distribute your implementations without paying anybody (however, you can charge people if you like).
If either the source or the standard is patent-encumbered, i.e., if you can't use it or distribute it without patent restrictions, the thing ceases to be open.
So, the meaning of the term "open" is used quite consistently. And just like software under "shared source", "non-commercial", or "research" licenses is not considered open source, so standards under RAND terms (like H.264) haven't traditionally been considered "open standards".
Since people pretty quickly realized that open standards were better than proprietary standards, a number of companies have been trying to muddy the waters and redefine "open standard" to mean "formal standard with RAND licensing terms". But that's like oil companies trying to project a "green" image; it's marketing fluff.
Only things which cost nothing are acceptable, for some reason "open but not zero cost," isn't ok anymore.
Money isn't the issue. You are free to charge for the distribution of open source software, and many people do. What you cannot do is restrict the ability of other people to redistribute. That's the defining characteristic of "open source". A consequence of that is that you can't derive a mandatory licensing fee from downstream distribution. But that's not because people begrudge you the money, it's because that would give you control over downstream distribution, and that is incompatible with openness.
And H.264 is an example of how dangerous such restrictions get, because H.264 licenses don't just say "you have to pay us $1 for every instance", they impose a complex set of restrictions on the content you can create with the technology. That's what makes H.264 lack of openness dangerous in a way that goes beyond just a little money.
I think the sooner H.264 dies, the better: it's a piece of proprietary software that nobody needs given that there are good open alternatives.
However, sometimes for the adoption of FOSS, it's important to support proprietary standards. Ubuntu works so well for many people because it support a few proprietary components, like nVidia. The result of the uptake of such successful Linux distributions is that vendors don't think you're completely crazy anymore when you ask about Linux support.
One has to watch out that incorporating some proprietary components doesn't become a slippery slope. But usually, things go the other way: proprietary components get replaced with open ones as vendors start seeing the benefits, and patents expire, turning patented standards into open ones.
Chrome should encourage the use of WebM and other open standards. Maybe Chrome could even go as far and pop up a dialog first time H.264 is used to alert users, and from then on show a little scary logo on the player controls for proprietary codecs. But it should be able to play H.264 fairly unencumbered because otherwise, it will make the life in FOSS environments unnecessarily harder.
That is all well and good, but, the fact stands that it is impossible to legally create an open source H.264 enabled browser
BZZZZT!!! WRONG! You can use a browser that supports playing any media content for which your host computer has a codec. It isn't even particularly difficult to do so. You can therefore play any H.264 content you wish in your open source browser. You won't even have to pay a licensing fee.
No magic required, just no need to rule the world like Google wants to. H.264 is, with some margin, the only modern and open standard for video available. It is also the codec in which all the content producers are going to publish their content. I hope you prefer You Tube kittens over ESPN and Comedy Central.
Wrong. H.264 was created to create a STANDARD.
Great. If they want a standard, they're welcome to it. And if the members of the patent pool want the pool to protect their intellectual property and mine the value, then that's their privilege.
If they want a *web* standard, though, that's different.
You do not have a open web -- in the free/libre sense -- when its clients can't be freely implemented and re-implemented. Imagine a world where HTML itself was controlled by a patent association that charged fees to anyone who implemented authoring or rendering software and you start to get the idea. Yet some people are apparently OK with playing exactly that game with a key piece of the HTML5 spec.
WebM is a step away from that.
I wish people would just stop drinking the Google Cool-Aid and think about WHY they are making this move. It's not about the money. it's not about openess. It's about trying to make the standard that they bought the standard for video on the web. Next thing, they will limit the licensing to their competitors so that they can't do everything they are doing with video on the web.
Google has granted a perpetual, royalty-free patent license to VP8/WebM.
Who's drinking kool-aid again?
Tweet, tweet.
it IS AN OPEN STANDARD. It's just not free as in beer.
It's not free as in libre either if you can't freely re-implement.
Imagine a world where HTML itself was controlled by a patent association that charged fees to anyone who implemented authoring or rendering software.
You're essentially arguing for that.
Tweet, tweet.
I asked MPEG-LA what I would need to do to correctly license an open source h264 implementation. They fedexed me a massive contract:
http://trog.qgl.org/20110114/the-mpeg-la-license-agreement/
I'm not interested in reading that whole thing. I would happily give them some money to get a "correctly" licensed ffmpeg thing for commercial use.
Could MPEG-LA package up a version of ffpmeg/x264 and sell it off their site or would that violate the license of those software packages, I wonder...?
Using the codecs on the computer leaves the choice to the user, that is freedom. What FF and Google are doing is the opposite of freedom, they force the user to use what the FF and Google teams are mandating.
If Devs from FF and Opera have issues with using codecs on the existing computer they are just being lazy. The main issue with doing this is control and the ability to "pre-approve" a codec for a specific browser. Again, FF and Chrome are limiting the choice for the user. How that is freedom and openness is not entirely clear. It is like the old Ford "saying": You can have your car in any color you want, as long as it is black.
> He isnt being informative. He is being dishonest.
He is informative. It's just that you did not realize that Google is granting third parties a licence. Google is not granting itself a licence. And why should they? They own the copyright.
And even if they did, I am not sure it's legally possible for Google to revoke a licence to itself.
And even if it could, Google would need to take someone else to court, claiming VP8 violates, to quote, "direct or contributory patent infringement, or inducement of patent infringement."
None of this makes sense. Not in the least.
That is all well and good, but, the fact stands that it is impossible to legally create an open source H.264 enabled browser
Nonsense. There are many Open Source licenses. Not all of them are Free Software. It would be perfectly possible to do so.
To clarify that point: Even if Google or Mozilla paid MPEG-LA royalties for their own browsers, the browsers would not be freely redistributable, which violates a fundamental principle of free and open source software.
No, it's not. The principle of Open Source is about having the source code available. It has nothing to do with not charging money for the software. Even the GPL allows you to charge money for software.
It's amazing how many people here pontificate about FOSS, without even understand the most basic principles. It's not about free beer at all.
... and then they built the supercollider.
You are correct that not all open source licenses are free software. I intended FOSS and not just open source, I apologize if that was not clear.
You are also correct that the GPL allows you to charge money for software. However it is important to be clear - you would still be providing the software under the GPL, which gives the users all the regular software freedoms.
To be more specific, H.264's business model is incompatible with the the W3C, with the GPL, with Debian's policies on openness, etc. For those reasons I think H.264 is not suitable for the open web.
It seems to boil down to definition of openess. That is "open" ? And this is not a " what is 'is' " type of question - this is relevant.
For me "open format" means being able to adopt, interoperate or reimplement format without unnecessary hurdles of any kind and then use it without restrictions. Open source or not. It's not just lack of documentation that limits openess. Other problems might be: too much documentation (eg. CORBA), patents or vendor changing format too frequently, lack of useful reference implementation etc. From this point of view H.264 is not open regardless how fancy documentation they provide and how many chairmen their standardizing commitee consisted of.
Open source happens to be a pretty good benchmark of openness. Usually when it is possible to implement an open source implementation of a format and use it without restrictions, it may be considered as open. Unfortunately, latest Oracle/Java fiasco somewhat blurs this distinction.
Also, it's funny to see how big business is trying to redefine "openess" to fit their agendas. With all this OpenXML, OpenJDK and other encumbered crap with "Open" in its name, corporations succeeded in creating such a mess in what open means, that Mr. Goebbels should be proud of.
By open source, you mean GPL? Yes, GPL forbids usng patented ideas, but not all open-souce liceneses do.
You are correct, I should have been more clear.
It is at odds with the GPL, MPL, etc., and for that matter the DFSG, and even the W3C. That makes it unusable for the open web IMHO.