Well, close. Firefox will be unable to include the decoding of h264 right into the browser. But there is already work underway to simply hand over the video to an underlaying OS system, (Gstreamer for Linux, as example.).
Last I heard from Mozilla was "we could, but we'll do no such thing to protect your freedoms". Has that changed recently, or are you talking about a patched version that won't come with Firefox's trademark?
Hopefully. Personally, I'd rather have the freedom to choose h.264 and the freedom to finally dump flash than the freedom to examine the Mozilla codebase (which I've never done nor do I plan on ever doing). But, you know, I'm a tool and all that.
HTML5 isn't going to change things unless browser vendors agree on a common codec.
The "common codec" is all but decided, but it wasn't a decision left to browser vendors. Popular video sites already support HTML5, and they've chosen h.264. Browsers which choose not to implement h.264 for their HTML5 will just make their users keep using Flash, which will undoubtedly continue to be supported for the foreseeable future, but don't hold your breath for YouTube and friends to transcode their libraries into Theora.
Oh the irony. It doesn't seem like you realize that Apple has been encouraging and rewarding outstanding developers for longer than Google has been a company. Check out the Apple Design Awards. Regardless, the point is to disassociate Apple with this particular contest, since in fact Apple didn't have anything to do with it. In my opinion, it's overly paranoid, but it certainly isn't anticompetitive unless you believe competing grocery stores should be able to plaster their ads on their competitor's store.
However this is a really plain-as-day example of how patent trolls are ruining business for everyone.
Please don't dilute the term "patent troll." It has a specific meaning and certainly doesn't apply to a patent pool packager like MPEG-LA. Everybody adopted h.264 with full knowledge that it was covered by several patents. This is certainly not a case of some junk firm patenting prior art and suing everybody. Nobody coerced anyone into using h.264; it just happened to actually be a good codec, so it was adopted by the industry. Nor is it "ruining business for everyone," so I'm not even sure what your point is. Your own anecdotal evidence doesn't lead to this conclusion.
Is it disappointing that we didn't have a comparable patent-free codec at the time when people started adopting h.264? Yeah, it's too bad. Unfortunately, no amount of sour grapes is going to change what happened.
Or the recommendations of government just reflect position on the issue of large enough portion of society (you know that govs are ultimatelly a reflection of society, right?).
Yeah, I just didn't know I had to state the obvious. None of that is at odds with the fact that government policies and announcements undoubtedly have helped adoption of alternative browsers in Germany. I would never say that this is a the most significant cause, but, like I said, it helps.
Firefox won out over IE not by "hey, we have a clone of IE" but by being -better- than IE.
It also helps that the government seems to be actively engaged in getting people to ditch IE. In other parts of the world, the uptake of Firefox has been slow at best and has stalled in some cases. Frowny face.
Apple prohibits any apps that complete with their offerings. So no browsers other than Safari.
Actually, that's not at all accurate. There are several other browsers in the App Store. The catch, of course, is that Apple won't allow interpreters, so you would just need to use the system Javascript library which Safari uses. I can understand how this would be too restrictive for Mozilla to spend much effort on an iPhone port, but to say that Apple doesn't allow browsers because they compete with their own offerings is clearly not true.
Computer processing speed has increased well over an hundredfold over the past decades; so what do we do with all the extra power? We rewrite games we played many years ago on top of so many layers of abstraction that they're no longer playable, even on our modern hardware. Hurray for progress.
These FSF "campaigns" are so ugly and so ineffective. From what I understand, only half a dozen or so showed up at the Apple event; I'm fairly certain they didn't leave people with a positive impression of free software which would have been their main objective.
But the worst thing is how misguided these protests and product-bashing websites are. It's all about trying to convince people that they really don't want supposedly "locked down" gadgets, when in fact (sadly for the FSF) that's not what people care about at all. They just want something cool, that works, that's easy to use, that's useful, etc.
The FSF is supposed to encourage and promote "freedom" and choice, yet their approach reeks of lecturing people what they should and should not want. The FSF should be working exclusively on constructive projects that build up free software rather than trying to tear down what other people have created just because they think it's bad. These sideshows are really not helping the cause.
Will Adobe even be invited on board to write a plugin?
Hopefully not. I don't know of any products with worse security records than Acrobat Reader and Flash. It's time for Flash to just go away. Fortunately, unlike FF, Safari does support h.264 which will surely be supported by hulu et al. eventually.
I noticed that Firefox / Mozilla was left out of the title list of insecure plugins. I'm certain this problem applies to it as well (particularly since it gets mentioned in the summary below). Innocent slip or ulterior motive of the anti-IE crowd?
Probably not so much anti-IE as pro-Firefox, seeing as how that was pretty much the only browser missing from the list in the title, which should have read "Insecure Plugins a Problem for Browsers."
It is so utterly archaic and unfair that this is allowed to continue; MPEG-LA have the industry by its consumers by their collective balls.
Err, not really. Nobody forced anyone to adopt h.264; it just happens that it did get adopted because it actually is a good codec. There are alternatives of varying quality and success, and even if there weren't, nothing is stopping someone from designing one and marketing it.
My prediction? Canonical will fork it as Mark Shuttleworth's vision of Ubuntu is that "it just works".
Haha, yeah right. Anyway, I'm not sure what you're talking about with regards to the US software industry having disappeared into a black hole or become irrelevant. Last I checked, the software industry here is still very much active and relevant, and I haven't seen any real evidence to suggest that that will change any time soon.
Another question I have is about whether Chromium also can't play h264.
Google only licensed h.264 for Chrome. I believe you can get Chromium to play h.264 by making it use a version of ffmpeg with that codec built-in, but that's certainly not something Google distributes.
You guys are forgetting that Mozilla owns the copyright to the code, and none of the 3rd-party code they use is GPL. As owner, they are the licensor, and the licensor is not bound to the same conditions as the licensees. Ultimately, they will have to include h.264 support in their official binaries just like Google has done with Chrome. The rights won't extend to those who build custom binaries like Ubuntu, but that's what the distinction between free and non-free is for.
Naw, there's obviously a way to get it done, and it's not that difficult either. It's not really an issue that's very different from distributions allowing users to install "non-free" packages.
Google licenses h.264 for use in Chrome. Obviously that doesn't extend to Chromium, but it doesn't really need to. It's clear that if you want h.264 support, you'll need to run the Google binary since they've paid the royalties. There's no reason Mozilla couldn't license h.264 for their officials builds. Ubuntu/etc can continue to include their own completely free, pseudo-branded Firefox build and simply put up a "non-free Firefox" package in a repository. It's been done many times for other useful, non-free packages... it's not like this is some new process we're figuring out for the first time.
Furthermore, the GPL isn't an issue here because Mozilla is the copyright holder of the codebase. That means they can build and distribute a binary mixed with patented/proprietary code, though distributing that source code would clearly be at odds with both the GPL and the h.264 license conditions. However, as the copyright holder, they are not bound by the restrictions of the GPL, including the restriction of binary distribution. The GPL is a license and licenses are for licensees. They are not required to release all the source code they link with their GPL-licensed code. Indeed, Mozilla doesn't even release their binaries under GPL conditions, but rather under their own MPL (see bottom).
None of this may be convenient, but it is abundantly clear to most of us (for better or worse) that h.264 has won for now. Mozilla may think they have some clout because of their market share, but at the end of the day, it's the likes of YouTube and other online content providers that really have the last word, and they have chosen h.264.
but anyone who recommends that path has not been personally burned by vendors supporting extensions to different levels. Writing code that uses extensions that only work on Nvidia and not ATi (or vice versa) is NOT what GL is about
It doesn't take long to figure out and know which extensions work reliably across all relevant cards. If you're writing any code before you know this stuff, you're doing it wrong. You'll end up spending a lot of time debugging nvidia's and/or ATI's drivers for them. Just stick with the extensions which are known to be reliable. It's not that difficult.
OpenGL is clearly behind DirectX, but it is still very capable if you know what you're doing. Besides, it is the API if you're targeting more than just Microsoft's platforms, so rest assured it's definitely not going away.
There isn't anything wrong with a one-button mouse. They are hardly any less functional than multi-button mice, but those who tried to use one (and even those who didn't) with prior experience with 2+ buttons deemed them "inferior" and therefore some kind of failure of Apple's.
Why would it be intuitive? I don't think MS intended for people to be using it...
Another name for parts of software which go unused is "bloat." If the traditional interface is lacking, fix it. If this new interface adds value, polish it and document it as a feature.
I swear that sometimes the future is stupidly obvious and these big dumb corporations adamantly try to refuse it..
Or perhaps they're a lot more clever than you realize. Why release the "future" today when you can build up to it, releasing other stuff in the meantime while making a profit all along the way?
Slashdot Mirror
Well, close. Firefox will be unable to include the decoding of h264 right into the browser. But there is already work underway to simply hand over the video to an underlaying OS system, (Gstreamer for Linux, as example.).
Last I heard from Mozilla was "we could, but we'll do no such thing to protect your freedoms". Has that changed recently, or are you talking about a patched version that won't come with Firefox's trademark?
Hopefully. Personally, I'd rather have the freedom to choose h.264 and the freedom to finally dump flash than the freedom to examine the Mozilla codebase (which I've never done nor do I plan on ever doing). But, you know, I'm a tool and all that.
HTML5 isn't going to change things unless browser vendors agree on a common codec.
The "common codec" is all but decided, but it wasn't a decision left to browser vendors. Popular video sites already support HTML5, and they've chosen h.264. Browsers which choose not to implement h.264 for their HTML5 will just make their users keep using Flash, which will undoubtedly continue to be supported for the foreseeable future, but don't hold your breath for YouTube and friends to transcode their libraries into Theora.
Oh the irony. It doesn't seem like you realize that Apple has been encouraging and rewarding outstanding developers for longer than Google has been a company. Check out the Apple Design Awards. Regardless, the point is to disassociate Apple with this particular contest, since in fact Apple didn't have anything to do with it. In my opinion, it's overly paranoid, but it certainly isn't anticompetitive unless you believe competing grocery stores should be able to plaster their ads on their competitor's store.
However this is a really plain-as-day example of how patent trolls are ruining business for everyone.
Please don't dilute the term "patent troll." It has a specific meaning and certainly doesn't apply to a patent pool packager like MPEG-LA. Everybody adopted h.264 with full knowledge that it was covered by several patents. This is certainly not a case of some junk firm patenting prior art and suing everybody. Nobody coerced anyone into using h.264; it just happened to actually be a good codec, so it was adopted by the industry. Nor is it "ruining business for everyone," so I'm not even sure what your point is. Your own anecdotal evidence doesn't lead to this conclusion.
Is it disappointing that we didn't have a comparable patent-free codec at the time when people started adopting h.264? Yeah, it's too bad. Unfortunately, no amount of sour grapes is going to change what happened.
Or the recommendations of government just reflect position on the issue of large enough portion of society (you know that govs are ultimatelly a reflection of society, right?).
Yeah, I just didn't know I had to state the obvious. None of that is at odds with the fact that government policies and announcements undoubtedly have helped adoption of alternative browsers in Germany. I would never say that this is a the most significant cause, but, like I said, it helps.
Firefox won out over IE not by "hey, we have a clone of IE" but by being -better- than IE.
It also helps that the government seems to be actively engaged in getting people to ditch IE. In other parts of the world, the uptake of Firefox has been slow at best and has stalled in some cases. Frowny face.
Apple prohibits any apps that complete with their offerings. So no browsers other than Safari.
Actually, that's not at all accurate. There are several other browsers in the App Store. The catch, of course, is that Apple won't allow interpreters, so you would just need to use the system Javascript library which Safari uses. I can understand how this would be too restrictive for Mozilla to spend much effort on an iPhone port, but to say that Apple doesn't allow browsers because they compete with their own offerings is clearly not true.
Computer processing speed has increased well over an hundredfold over the past decades; so what do we do with all the extra power? We rewrite games we played many years ago on top of so many layers of abstraction that they're no longer playable, even on our modern hardware. Hurray for progress.
These FSF "campaigns" are so ugly and so ineffective. From what I understand, only half a dozen or so showed up at the Apple event; I'm fairly certain they didn't leave people with a positive impression of free software which would have been their main objective.
But the worst thing is how misguided these protests and product-bashing websites are. It's all about trying to convince people that they really don't want supposedly "locked down" gadgets, when in fact (sadly for the FSF) that's not what people care about at all. They just want something cool, that works, that's easy to use, that's useful, etc.
The FSF is supposed to encourage and promote "freedom" and choice, yet their approach reeks of lecturing people what they should and should not want. The FSF should be working exclusively on constructive projects that build up free software rather than trying to tear down what other people have created just because they think it's bad. These sideshows are really not helping the cause.
Will Adobe even be invited on board to write a plugin?
Hopefully not. I don't know of any products with worse security records than Acrobat Reader and Flash. It's time for Flash to just go away. Fortunately, unlike FF, Safari does support h.264 which will surely be supported by hulu et al. eventually.
Hmm. I'm hungry.
I noticed that Firefox / Mozilla was left out of the title list of insecure plugins. I'm certain this problem applies to it as well (particularly since it gets mentioned in the summary below). Innocent slip or ulterior motive of the anti-IE crowd?
Probably not so much anti-IE as pro-Firefox, seeing as how that was pretty much the only browser missing from the list in the title, which should have read "Insecure Plugins a Problem for Browsers."
It is so utterly archaic and unfair that this is allowed to continue; MPEG-LA have the industry by its consumers by their collective balls.
Err, not really. Nobody forced anyone to adopt h.264; it just happens that it did get adopted because it actually is a good codec. There are alternatives of varying quality and success, and even if there weren't, nothing is stopping someone from designing one and marketing it.
My prediction? Canonical will fork it as Mark Shuttleworth's vision of Ubuntu is that "it just works".
Haha, yeah right. Anyway, I'm not sure what you're talking about with regards to the US software industry having disappeared into a black hole or become irrelevant. Last I checked, the software industry here is still very much active and relevant, and I haven't seen any real evidence to suggest that that will change any time soon.
I don't think the kind of censorship in America is at all comparable to the censorship in China.
Another question I have is about whether Chromium also can't play h264.
Google only licensed h.264 for Chrome. I believe you can get Chromium to play h.264 by making it use a version of ffmpeg with that codec built-in, but that's certainly not something Google distributes.
You guys are forgetting that Mozilla owns the copyright to the code, and none of the 3rd-party code they use is GPL. As owner, they are the licensor, and the licensor is not bound to the same conditions as the licensees. Ultimately, they will have to include h.264 support in their official binaries just like Google has done with Chrome. The rights won't extend to those who build custom binaries like Ubuntu, but that's what the distinction between free and non-free is for.
Naw, there's obviously a way to get it done, and it's not that difficult either. It's not really an issue that's very different from distributions allowing users to install "non-free" packages.
Google licenses h.264 for use in Chrome. Obviously that doesn't extend to Chromium, but it doesn't really need to. It's clear that if you want h.264 support, you'll need to run the Google binary since they've paid the royalties. There's no reason Mozilla couldn't license h.264 for their officials builds. Ubuntu/etc can continue to include their own completely free, pseudo-branded Firefox build and simply put up a "non-free Firefox" package in a repository. It's been done many times for other useful, non-free packages... it's not like this is some new process we're figuring out for the first time.
Furthermore, the GPL isn't an issue here because Mozilla is the copyright holder of the codebase. That means they can build and distribute a binary mixed with patented/proprietary code, though distributing that source code would clearly be at odds with both the GPL and the h.264 license conditions. However, as the copyright holder, they are not bound by the restrictions of the GPL, including the restriction of binary distribution. The GPL is a license and licenses are for licensees. They are not required to release all the source code they link with their GPL-licensed code. Indeed, Mozilla doesn't even release their binaries under GPL conditions, but rather under their own MPL (see bottom).
None of this may be convenient, but it is abundantly clear to most of us (for better or worse) that h.264 has won for now. Mozilla may think they have some clout because of their market share, but at the end of the day, it's the likes of YouTube and other online content providers that really have the last word, and they have chosen h.264.
Mozilla's ass wouldn't be on the line if they would just pay for the necessary licenses from MPEG LA like everybody else.
Otherwise, Firefox will become the browser for those who just really like Flash.
but anyone who recommends that path has not been personally burned by vendors supporting extensions to different levels. Writing code that uses extensions that only work on Nvidia and not ATi (or vice versa) is NOT what GL is about
It doesn't take long to figure out and know which extensions work reliably across all relevant cards. If you're writing any code before you know this stuff, you're doing it wrong. You'll end up spending a lot of time debugging nvidia's and/or ATI's drivers for them. Just stick with the extensions which are known to be reliable. It's not that difficult.
OpenGL is clearly behind DirectX, but it is still very capable if you know what you're doing. Besides, it is the API if you're targeting more than just Microsoft's platforms, so rest assured it's definitely not going away.
There isn't anything wrong with a one-button mouse. They are hardly any less functional than multi-button mice, but those who tried to use one (and even those who didn't) with prior experience with 2+ buttons deemed them "inferior" and therefore some kind of failure of Apple's.
Apple tries a lot of things and they fail more often than they succeed.
Really? You've only listed seven things Apple has tried which have not been huge successes in the market, yet
You'll need to expand your list significantly if you want to approach proving your point. I would love my company to "fail" as much as Apple has.
Why would it be intuitive? I don't think MS intended for people to be using it...
Another name for parts of software which go unused is "bloat." If the traditional interface is lacking, fix it. If this new interface adds value, polish it and document it as a feature.
I swear that sometimes the future is stupidly obvious and these big dumb corporations adamantly try to refuse it..
Or perhaps they're a lot more clever than you realize. Why release the "future" today when you can build up to it, releasing other stuff in the meantime while making a profit all along the way?
... the only software they make is variations of OS X for all their hardware devices
Um, no... Apple produces a lot of different software products.