FSF Announces Support For WebM

An anonymous reader writes "The Free Software Foundation has signed up as a supporter of the WebM Project. They write, 'Last week, Google announced that it plans to remove support for the H.264 video codec from its browsers, in favor of the WebM codec that they recently made free. Since then, there's been a lot of discussion about how this change will affect the Web going forward, as HTML5 standards like the video tag mature. We applaud Google for this change; it's a positive step for free software, its users, and everyone who uses the Web.' The FSF's PlayOgg campaign will be revamped to become PlayFreedom."

Comments

Re:Misguided

[dangitman]

Google wants to kill Flash

Except there is no evidence for that. They publicly attacked an open standard (H.264) and plan to remove support for it, while continuing to bundle Flash with Chrome, and encode videos on YouTube for Flash.

then this is strong evidence that they believe HTML5 is the right way to go.

So, why is the default YouTube delivery in Flash, and not HTML5?

2. Google likes Chrome being clean and minimal. They don't like Flash getting in the way—it's hideously unstable, Adobe has never been on good terms with the rest of the industry

And yet Google chooses Flash over H.264 in Chrome, and issues public statements supporting Adobe over H.264.

because Google is such an aggressive player—and because the format isn't proprietary [webmproject.org], contrary to what you said.

Huh? I never said that WebM is proprietary. I said that Flash is.

Re:Misguided

[dangitman]

Ah yes, the famous open, patented, royalty-encumbered standard. Except for the open part

It is open. And if you;re bothered by patents, then WebM is also patent-encumbered. So, isn't WebM equally suspect/legitimate? They are both open standards, and they are both patent-encumbered.