Not in context of web standards, W3C says patent encumbered isn't open enough for the web.
Therefore, WebM also isn't open enough for the web, as it is also patent encumbered. In fact, this would disqualify every digital video CODEC, as they are all subject to patents.
You can not be sued for using the VP8 patents in a VP8 implementation, because Google has explicitly granted a royalty-free perpetual license for their use.
That doesn't indemnify you (or Google) from being sued. How about I grant you, TheRaven64, a royalty-free perpetual license to murder anybody you like? Do you really think that will make you immune to laws against murder? Google, as much as many may think, is not above the laws of the land.
You mean like GMail, Maps, Google Earth, GDocs, etc?
No, I mean like Wave, Buzz, Google Video and a thousand other "Labs" and beta products that quickly fade away. They just throw shit at the wall and see what sticks. Yes, they have had successes, but it's been pretty random.
Apple just sells goods and that's it? You couldn't be more wrong. If you were right, Apple wouldn't mind porn apps in their app store, they wouldn't mind people jailbreaking the hardware they already paid for. They wouldn't mind people using Adobe tools to develop apps. They wouldn't mind people selling alternatives to their own apps. But they do.
I said that Apple sells quality goods. That kind of quality control is the kind of thing you do when you sell quality goods and want to control your brand.
They're no mere Toshiba or Samsung.
Toshiba and Samsung sell commodity goods, not quality goods. They're the technology equivalent of selling auto parts.
What reeks of conspiracy theory is your idea that Google released WebM only to benefit Adobe.
Do you have reading comprehension problems? My argument is not that Google intentionally did this this to benefit Adobe, it's that that is what the result will be, regardless of Google's intentions.
Google's intentions remain unclear. They claim to be doing this in the name of openness, but if that is true, then shouldn't they also be slapping down Flash, which is less open than H.264?
Furthermore, the simple, undeniable facts are that the standard was pretty much settled on Theora until Apple raised a bitchfest,
That's simply not true. It was never intended for there to be one single format supported by the video tag. And painting Apple as the instigator of foment over this issue is just bullshit. Do you ever let facts get in the way of your fantasy world?
I've seen claims like this from Microsoft numerous times and I have to wonder: Where do they get their numbers?
Ballmer just makes up a number in his head, and goes with it. Seriously, have you seen this guy in action? He doesn't give serious consideration to anything, especially facts.
I don't know what you're smoking, but your analysis reeks of conspiracy theories, when reality is so much simpler. H.264 is an industry standard, and it works really well, and is widely supported in chipsets. Apple would be making an insignificant amount of money from H.264 royalties. Also, there is no "barrier to entry" with H.264. It's very affordable, even the cheapest Chinese hardware has support for it.
The sad thing is that Google is trying to ruin a good thing. We finally got a great open video standard that is ubiquitous. After years and years of competing formats, and horrible proprietary ones. Remember when most video on the web was RealPlayer? And then when it was Windows Media?
Finally, we get rid of all that bullshit, and Google decides to start another format war which only benefits Adobe. Great.
As someone who works in video, a standard like H.264 that is actually adopted is something we've dreamed of for years. Why does Google want to fuck with it?
Adobe: makes tools. Tools for making graphical stuff, mostly. Video, games, other interactive graphical stuff
This makes me laugh. And I'm a long-term customer and user of Adobe's tools. Are you not aware that Adobe has changed massively over the last 10 or so years? Idiot business executives are now in charge, and the company actively thumbs its nose at the creative tool-users who built the company's fortune.
Now they are all about "integrated business solutions" (Flash, PDF forms, DRM, eBooks) and don't care much about making good tools. They also seem to be trying to move into lame online services. I can just imagine some Adobe executive say "what if we put Photoshop on the cloud... you know, cloudify it."
Google: doesn't care about money, or anything short-term, really
Too funny for words. Google is the biggest short-term thinker in the industry - exemplified by all their ridiculous "beta" products that never last.
With respect to H.264 - Google wants to be in "web apps." So, when their online video editing service launches, are users going to have to convert their video to WebM first? Because what's coming out of their video camera is H.264. It's not going to be very user-friendly if they reject that.
Apple: wants complete control over their own walled garden. They don't care what people do outside, but inside, they need to play by Apple's rules. Apple sells the Apple experience
Again, another quite amusing misreading of the market. Apple doesn't sell "experiences." Apple sells products. Actual physical products that you pay actual money for (as well as software that you pay for). It's very straightforward. In fact, it's so straightforward that people often over-analyze Apple, because they've gotten to used to bizarre and twisted business models that try to be free or "sell eyeballs" or whatever, that a plain old-fashioned business of making quality products completely baffles them.
Apple cares about what makes a good product that it can sell to customers for a profit. That's it! The whole deep, dark secret of Apple.
And Google's push is pretty weak - Youtube still pushes H.264, Android still plays it.
This is probably the most interesting part. What does that mean?
Google's statements about WebM are just hot air and bluster?
They are serious about it, and soon Chrome, Youtube and Android will remove all H.264 support?
Google is a dysfunctional company much like Sony or Microsoft, where the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing, and there is no cohesive direction among divisions?
The only option that would look good for the company would be the second, but I doubt they are that serious about it.
The idea that the masses would just ditch YouTube because they have to install a plugin is nonsensical.
That's not what I argued. Try reading my post, particularly the bit where I said "or there is little interest in Youtube."
It has so much content and such branding that it is simply not realistic, there is no current competitor to YouTube on the web. The closest thing, was Google Video!
That may be true today, but not necessarily in the future. MySpace used to be the hottest and biggest social network. But who cares about MySpace today? Things change, you know.
Saying that people will ditch YouTube because they have to install a plugin, is like saying people will ditch their favorite cereal because you change the box art. It just IS NOT going to happen.
That's good, because I never said that was going to happen.
Personally, I think change doesn't happen in sudden revolutions. Things tend to slowly die out. There are shifts and momentum. Sometimes a change accelerates rapidly when there is a critical mass (e.g: Google, Facebook) but the old ways still remain to an extent. Hell, I've seen current commercial applications that still use MS-DOS!
Wow just wow . How about adapting and embracing new technology instead of moving a step backwards ?
If "adapting and embracing new technology" is a bunch of idiots taking photos and videos on their phones, then I think stepping backwards might not be such a bad idea.
Don't mix apples and oranges. FSF is concerned about Free Software, Open Source, not Open Standard bodies. This is not the primary goal of the FSF to support everything from the Open Standard bodies. So, this move makes sense provided the goals of the FSF and the community
Yet the result of this statement from the FSF, and of Google's actions is to promote proprietary software in the form of Flash. How is it in the FSF's interests to promote Flash?
Well, maybe not so much "faster" as "more optimized". It's definitely more mature.
No. It's neither more optimized or mature. Most Flash video is just H.264 wrapped in a proprietary player that makes it slower and less efficient. Especially on mobile devices, where Flash video barely works at all, but plain H.264 in HTML works just fine.
And openness isn't necessarily Google's only reason for doing it (and, in fact, the publicized reason for anything is rarely the only reason).
Nobody is arguing this because everything will be HTML5 eventually. I linked you to youtube's page where you can test drive their HTML5 player with h264 content or WebM content depending on your browser. Google owns Youtube.
Have you completely missed what this article is about? Google announced that it plans to drop support for H.264 in favor of WebM.
HTML5 is codec neutral, it can embed h264 or webm content. The debate is what to embed.
And Google is trying to push against embedding H.264 in favor of WebM. And its public arguments are that HTML shouldn't support H.264.
Because it's supported in more places, more stable, and faster?
While it might be supported in more places, your claim that it is faster and more stable are laughable. Flash is notorious for being unstable and slow. Haven't you ever used it?
Performance aside, Google announced that it was dropping support for H.264 in the interests of openness, not performance. Yet H.264 is an open standard, and Flash is proprietary. So, Google's stated intentions don't make any sense. If this are all about openness, why didn't they also drop Flash support?
Google won't act on those patents, though. They've said it time and time again and, most importantly, they have no interest in doing so.
It doesn't matter what they say, the format is subject to patents. Therefore, it is patent-encumbered. It is not only vulnerable to to enforcement by Google, it is also vulnerable to legal attacks from outside parties.
The only way something could not be patent-encumbered would for no patents to apply to it, for all of its technology to be in the public domain.
I'm also not sure why you trust Google's position not to change. We've just seen Google's executive management change hands. There's no guarantee that future executives and owners will uphold previous promises. None of which are legally binding.
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.
Are you aware that Adobe is one of the companies that has pledged to support WebM?
Only as a means of prolonging their Flash player. I wasn't aware that Adobe makes a web browser, so I'm not sure why we should care about Adobe's position. Also, Adobe has been very hostile to open formats, so again, why should we take those statements seriously?
The fight to adopt WebM has nothing to do with WebM vs Flash. The fight is h264/html5 vs WebM/html5.
That's fucking ridiculous. The argument should be HTML5 versus proprietary plugins. This is the whole point. Google (among others) is trying to re-frame the debate as a war between different video CODECs, when HTML5, as a standard, should be CODEC-neutral.
Basically, partisan forces are fucking with HTML5, and HTML5 will suffer because of it.
The day youtube stops serving flash and requires WebM will be the day Flash dies.
That depends on when that happens. If it is at a time when there is little support for WebM, or little interest in Youtube, it might be the day that Youtube dies.
As a video host, why would you want to support two different formats, neither of which is widely used or supported in hardware or software, over one format that is both ubiquitous and open? The goal of video hosts is for their videos to be viewed - not to languish in obscurity.
Also, I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that Ogg Theora is being discussed - this article is about WebM vs H.264. The person you were replying to was discussing the FSF's marketing techniques, not the potential for Ogg becoming a widespread video standard (which is nil).
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.
Slashdot Mirror
Not in context of web standards, W3C says patent encumbered isn't open enough for the web.
Therefore, WebM also isn't open enough for the web, as it is also patent encumbered. In fact, this would disqualify every digital video CODEC, as they are all subject to patents.
You can not be sued for using the VP8 patents in a VP8 implementation, because Google has explicitly granted a royalty-free perpetual license for their use.
That doesn't indemnify you (or Google) from being sued. How about I grant you, TheRaven64, a royalty-free perpetual license to murder anybody you like? Do you really think that will make you immune to laws against murder? Google, as much as many may think, is not above the laws of the land.
You mean like GMail, Maps, Google Earth, GDocs, etc?
No, I mean like Wave, Buzz, Google Video and a thousand other "Labs" and beta products that quickly fade away. They just throw shit at the wall and see what sticks. Yes, they have had successes, but it's been pretty random.
Apple just sells goods and that's it? You couldn't be more wrong. If you were right, Apple wouldn't mind porn apps in their app store, they wouldn't mind people jailbreaking the hardware they already paid for. They wouldn't mind people using Adobe tools to develop apps. They wouldn't mind people selling alternatives to their own apps. But they do.
I said that Apple sells quality goods. That kind of quality control is the kind of thing you do when you sell quality goods and want to control your brand.
They're no mere Toshiba or Samsung.
Toshiba and Samsung sell commodity goods, not quality goods. They're the technology equivalent of selling auto parts.
What reeks of conspiracy theory is your idea that Google released WebM only to benefit Adobe.
Do you have reading comprehension problems? My argument is not that Google intentionally did this this to benefit Adobe, it's that that is what the result will be, regardless of Google's intentions.
Google's intentions remain unclear. They claim to be doing this in the name of openness, but if that is true, then shouldn't they also be slapping down Flash, which is less open than H.264?
Furthermore, the simple, undeniable facts are that the standard was pretty much settled on Theora until Apple raised a bitchfest,
That's simply not true. It was never intended for there to be one single format supported by the video tag. And painting Apple as the instigator of foment over this issue is just bullshit. Do you ever let facts get in the way of your fantasy world?
Maybe if a single copy of Windows didn't cost an entire month's wages for 90% of Chinese software users they wouldn't pirate it so much.
Maybe if a Lamborghini Murciélago didn't cost an entire 10 years of an average American's wages, people wouldn't steal them so much?
I've seen claims like this from Microsoft numerous times and I have to wonder: Where do they get their numbers?
Ballmer just makes up a number in his head, and goes with it. Seriously, have you seen this guy in action? He doesn't give serious consideration to anything, especially facts.
I don't know what you're smoking, but your analysis reeks of conspiracy theories, when reality is so much simpler. H.264 is an industry standard, and it works really well, and is widely supported in chipsets. Apple would be making an insignificant amount of money from H.264 royalties. Also, there is no "barrier to entry" with H.264. It's very affordable, even the cheapest Chinese hardware has support for it.
The sad thing is that Google is trying to ruin a good thing. We finally got a great open video standard that is ubiquitous. After years and years of competing formats, and horrible proprietary ones. Remember when most video on the web was RealPlayer? And then when it was Windows Media?
Finally, we get rid of all that bullshit, and Google decides to start another format war which only benefits Adobe. Great.
As someone who works in video, a standard like H.264 that is actually adopted is something we've dreamed of for years. Why does Google want to fuck with it?
Adobe: makes tools. Tools for making graphical stuff, mostly. Video, games, other interactive graphical stuff
This makes me laugh. And I'm a long-term customer and user of Adobe's tools. Are you not aware that Adobe has changed massively over the last 10 or so years? Idiot business executives are now in charge, and the company actively thumbs its nose at the creative tool-users who built the company's fortune.
Now they are all about "integrated business solutions" (Flash, PDF forms, DRM, eBooks) and don't care much about making good tools. They also seem to be trying to move into lame online services. I can just imagine some Adobe executive say "what if we put Photoshop on the cloud... you know, cloudify it."
Google: doesn't care about money, or anything short-term, really
Too funny for words. Google is the biggest short-term thinker in the industry - exemplified by all their ridiculous "beta" products that never last.
With respect to H.264 - Google wants to be in "web apps." So, when their online video editing service launches, are users going to have to convert their video to WebM first? Because what's coming out of their video camera is H.264. It's not going to be very user-friendly if they reject that.
Apple: wants complete control over their own walled garden. They don't care what people do outside, but inside, they need to play by Apple's rules. Apple sells the Apple experience
Again, another quite amusing misreading of the market. Apple doesn't sell "experiences." Apple sells products. Actual physical products that you pay actual money for (as well as software that you pay for). It's very straightforward. In fact, it's so straightforward that people often over-analyze Apple, because they've gotten to used to bizarre and twisted business models that try to be free or "sell eyeballs" or whatever, that a plain old-fashioned business of making quality products completely baffles them.
Apple cares about what makes a good product that it can sell to customers for a profit. That's it! The whole deep, dark secret of Apple.
And Google's push is pretty weak - Youtube still pushes H.264, Android still plays it.
This is probably the most interesting part. What does that mean?
The only option that would look good for the company would be the second, but I doubt they are that serious about it.
The idea that the masses would just ditch YouTube because they have to install a plugin is nonsensical.
That's not what I argued. Try reading my post, particularly the bit where I said "or there is little interest in Youtube."
It has so much content and such branding that it is simply not realistic, there is no current competitor to YouTube on the web. The closest thing, was Google Video!
That may be true today, but not necessarily in the future. MySpace used to be the hottest and biggest social network. But who cares about MySpace today? Things change, you know.
Saying that people will ditch YouTube because they have to install a plugin, is like saying people will ditch their favorite cereal because you change the box art. It just IS NOT going to happen.
That's good, because I never said that was going to happen.
Personally, I think change doesn't happen in sudden revolutions. Things tend to slowly die out. There are shifts and momentum. Sometimes a change accelerates rapidly when there is a critical mass (e.g: Google, Facebook) but the old ways still remain to an extent. Hell, I've seen current commercial applications that still use MS-DOS!
In what way exactly is it open?
It's an open standard. There are plenty of open standards which aren't free to use. You're confusing your terminology.
I already have permission to use WebM however I like.
No you don't. You only have permission to use it under the conditions of the license.
They provide no burden or impediment, unlike the H.264 patents, for which you must buy a license from the MPEG-LA.
They provide the burden of potentially being sued for using them.
Wow just wow . How about adapting and embracing new technology instead of moving a step backwards ?
If "adapting and embracing new technology" is a bunch of idiots taking photos and videos on their phones, then I think stepping backwards might not be such a bad idea.
Don't mix apples and oranges. FSF is concerned about Free Software, Open Source, not Open Standard bodies. This is not the primary goal of the FSF to support everything from the Open Standard bodies. So, this move makes sense provided the goals of the FSF and the community
Yet the result of this statement from the FSF, and of Google's actions is to promote proprietary software in the form of Flash. How is it in the FSF's interests to promote Flash?
WebM may be patented, but is it encumbered? Not if Google doesn't sue someone for using it.
Anything that is patented is patent-encumbered. Even if Google doesn't sue you for using it, it is still encumbered by patents.
Well, maybe not so much "faster" as "more optimized". It's definitely more mature.
No. It's neither more optimized or mature. Most Flash video is just H.264 wrapped in a proprietary player that makes it slower and less efficient. Especially on mobile devices, where Flash video barely works at all, but plain H.264 in HTML works just fine.
And openness isn't necessarily Google's only reason for doing it (and, in fact, the publicized reason for anything is rarely the only reason).
So, what's the reason for not telling us?
Nobody is arguing this because everything will be HTML5 eventually. I linked you to youtube's page where you can test drive their HTML5 player with h264 content or WebM content depending on your browser. Google owns Youtube.
Have you completely missed what this article is about? Google announced that it plans to drop support for H.264 in favor of WebM.
HTML5 is codec neutral, it can embed h264 or webm content. The debate is what to embed.
And Google is trying to push against embedding H.264 in favor of WebM. And its public arguments are that HTML shouldn't support H.264.
Because it's supported in more places, more stable, and faster?
While it might be supported in more places, your claim that it is faster and more stable are laughable. Flash is notorious for being unstable and slow. Haven't you ever used it?
Performance aside, Google announced that it was dropping support for H.264 in the interests of openness, not performance. Yet H.264 is an open standard, and Flash is proprietary. So, Google's stated intentions don't make any sense. If this are all about openness, why didn't they also drop Flash support?
The post I was responding to said that the two formats which should be supported are WebM and Ogg Theora. Not H.264.
Google won't act on those patents, though. They've said it time and time again and, most importantly, they have no interest in doing so.
It doesn't matter what they say, the format is subject to patents. Therefore, it is patent-encumbered. It is not only vulnerable to to enforcement by Google, it is also vulnerable to legal attacks from outside parties.
The only way something could not be patent-encumbered would for no patents to apply to it, for all of its technology to be in the public domain.
I'm also not sure why you trust Google's position not to change. We've just seen Google's executive management change hands. There's no guarantee that future executives and owners will uphold previous promises. None of which are legally binding.
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.
Are you aware that Adobe is one of the companies that has pledged to support WebM?
Only as a means of prolonging their Flash player. I wasn't aware that Adobe makes a web browser, so I'm not sure why we should care about Adobe's position. Also, Adobe has been very hostile to open formats, so again, why should we take those statements seriously?
The fight to adopt WebM has nothing to do with WebM vs Flash. The fight is h264/html5 vs WebM/html5.
That's fucking ridiculous. The argument should be HTML5 versus proprietary plugins. This is the whole point. Google (among others) is trying to re-frame the debate as a war between different video CODECs, when HTML5, as a standard, should be CODEC-neutral.
Basically, partisan forces are fucking with HTML5, and HTML5 will suffer because of it.
The day youtube stops serving flash and requires WebM will be the day Flash dies.
That depends on when that happens. If it is at a time when there is little support for WebM, or little interest in Youtube, it might be the day that Youtube dies.
Ogg Theora and WebM—the two being discussed.
As a video host, why would you want to support two different formats, neither of which is widely used or supported in hardware or software, over one format that is both ubiquitous and open? The goal of video hosts is for their videos to be viewed - not to languish in obscurity.
Also, I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that Ogg Theora is being discussed - this article is about WebM vs H.264. The person you were replying to was discussing the FSF's marketing techniques, not the potential for Ogg becoming a widespread video standard (which is nil).
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.