FSF Announces Support For WebM 333
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."
Let the flame war begin! (Score:2, Insightful)
It doesn't matter how this free / not free debate goes. One is a formal ISO standard, the other is whatever Google decides. How that makes H.264 somehow not open escapes me, but...
If I'm engineering a hardware codec, I want the standard that's set down in stone, just like my design is going to be (well, silicon, but you know what I mean).
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Considering a large part of Google's strategy relies on Android, they will make sure your hardware codec works. Mobile phones would be far less viable for web video if they didn't have hardware support for video codecs.
Also, OOXML is a ISO standard. Being an ISO standard apparently doesn't mean much nowadays.
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Yes it is. You can't redefine the term "open standard" just because you don't think it should mean what it means.
Open source =/= open standard
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It doesn't matter how this free / not free debate goes. One is a formal ISO standard, the other is whatever Google decides. How that makes H.264 somehow not open escapes me, but...
Here's my personal view on the issue. Abstract words without a proper definition mean nothing. What I find essential from a video format for the web is to be a "Free and Open Standard" based on this definition [digistan.org] (main points: vendor neutral, freely available, no-patents). Ideally I would like such a standard to be published by W3C and included in the HTML5 spec (which currently does not specify a video format, so the "video" tag is essentially useless).
H.264 is clearly not a free and open standard. WebM is cl
End of the world? (Score:2)
Motherfucker! Mine is more open; no MINE is; no they BOTH are; no NEITHER one is; take THAT; BIFF, BANG, POW, SLAP. I have never seen so much bickering since the last time Democrats and Republicans were in the same room together. The world will end not with a bang, nor with a whimper - it will end with everybody savagely attacking each other over every single issue.
Horse shit (Score:2)
H264 decoding is a one time payment. If google decides to start fucking with webm licesning then we are fucked if we go to webm.
Otoh. The h264 codec is so encumbered with everyone else fighting it that open source developers are going to skate by and only hardware vendors are going to pay h264 costs. Software other than big names like adobe and apple are going to pay.
No more Open Standard/Content arguments, PLEASE!!! (Score:2)
Please realize some of you are talking about open STANDARD and others are talking about open CONTENT !!
No more discussion about wich is more "open", I can't take it anymore !
Ugh if I was Google... (Score:2)
I'd be keeping quite about support from the idealistic FSF cos its sort of a kiss of death. I mean lets not forget the roaring success their other golden boy, .ogg!
What stops Google from total control? (Score:4, Insightful)
What stops Google from total control?
This is a serious question.
Google owns both WebM and VP8 - their only licensing obligation is to keep some of the source viewable.
Google now defines how VP8 encoded and decoding works and the quality, etc.
Google defines what specific features and version of WebM and VP8 that Chrome will support.
No matter how 'open' WebM and VP8 are now, what Google says and what Google supports is now the 'standard' and will be the single controlling voice for all video on the web.
This is more power than any other company has tried to obtain.
What prevents Google from changing WebM so that in two years, it breaks compatibility with previous versions, rendering hardware absolete?
What prevents Google from defining the quality of the codecs used for their own purposes?
What prevents Google from getting this accepted by the world, and then adding in advertising data and decoders that report information back to Google?
I understand that WebM and VP8 are 'open', but if Google only supports what they want, they are the sole voice in the format and standard, as anything outside their 'supported' guidelines will fail to work in Chrome/Android/etc.
Right now, this looks like another Google project that uses the work of others and then takes control and sells it at a good thing because it was based in open software.
Even Microsoft with WMV turned it over to a standards body to oversee the format that ensures compatibility and consistency - something I don't see Google doing, and WMV is a closed format 'standard' aka VC1. At least we are assured that a VC1 encoded BluRay Disc will always play, as Microsoft can't monkey with VC1 and destroy compatibility or mess up quality, etc.
I am seriously looking for some good answers, as this has me a bit scared to the level of control Google is getting if people blindly accept this.
Re:What stops Google from total control? (Score:5, Insightful)
Google owns both WebM and VP8 - their only licensing obligation is to keep some of the source viewable.
Do you understand what 'open source' means?
You don't have the VP8 source 'viewable', you have an irrevocable license to edit it and distribute it. If Google starts screwing up and adding advertisements or reporting information to them*, a VP8 fork will appear. Google only has control over VP8 if while people like it.
H.264 For Dummies (Score:3)
It seems necessarty here to insert a reminder about what H.264 is and where it comes from:
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC is a block-oriented motion-compensation-based codec standard developed by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) together with the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). It was the product of a partnership effort known as the Joint Video Team (JVT).
H.264 is perhaps best known as being one of the codec standards for Blu-ray Discs; all Blu-ray players must be able to decode H.264. It is also widely used by streaming internet sources, such as videos from Vimeo, YouTube and the iTunes Store, web software such as the Adobe Flash Player and Microsoft Silverlight, broadcast services for DVB and SBTVD, direct-broadcast satellite television services, cable television services, and real-time videoconferencing.
The H.264 video format has a very broad application range that covers all forms of digital compressed video from low bit-rate Internet streaming applications to HDTV broadcast and Digital Cinema applications with nearly lossless coding. With the use of H.264, bit rate savings of 50% or more are reported. For example, H.264 has been reported to give the same Digital Satellite TV quality as current MPEG-2 implementations with less than half the bitrate, with current MPEG-2 implementations working at around 3.5 Mbit/s and H.264 at only 1.5 Mbit/s.
The Digital Video Broadcast project (DVB) approved the use of H.264/AVC for broadcast television in late 2004.
The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) standards body in the United States approved the use of H.264/AVC for broadcast television in July 2008, although the standard is not yet used for fixed ATSC broadcasts within the United States. It has also been approved for use with the more recent ATSC-M/H (Mobile/Handheld) standard, using the AVC and SVC portions of H.264.
The CCTV (Close Circuit TV) or Video Surveillance market has included the technology in many products. The introduction of H.264 to the video surveillance industry has meant the ability to stream high resolution at lower bit rates has substantially improved. H.264/MPEG-4 AVC [wikipedia.org], List of video services using H.264/MPEF-4_AVC [wikipedia.org]
The implications for the global hardware manufactuer - the OEM - are clear:
Whatever the fate of WebM, you will be licensing H.264 and HVEC/H.265 across your entire product line. This is not a problem for companies the size of Mitsubishi Electric, Panasonic, Philips, JVC, Sony, or Samsung.
Not a problem for AMD, ARM, Apple, Intel, NVIDIA or Microsoft.
Google is the new kid on the block. HVEC should be final in about two or three years.
HEVC aims to substantially improve coding efficiency compared to AVC High Profile, i.e. reduce bitrate requirements by half with comparable image quality, probably at the expense of increased computational complexity. Depending on the application requirements, HEVC should be able to trade off computational complexity, compression rate, robustness to errors and processing delay time.
HEVC is targeted at next-generation HDTV displays and content capture systems which feature progressive scanned frame rates and display resolutions from QVGA (320x240) up to 1080p and Ultra HDTV (7680x4320), as well as improved picture quality in terms of noise level, color gamut and dynamic range. High Efficiency Video Coding [wikipedia.org]
The implications for the content provider are also clear.
WebM is not a theatrical production codec.
It is not a theatrical, broadcast, cable or sattelite distribution codec. It does not support content protection.
The H.264 base Netflix client is baked into every HDTV set, video player and video game console sold in the U.S.
There are clients for th
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Re:Riding coattails! (Score:4, Interesting)
The choir may be the WC3 over here at MIT. The FSF putting a stamp of approval on WebM helps allay one of the big hurdles for making it the HTML 5 video standard: questions of quality. While the average consumer may not care, if WebM gets baked into the standard, that would have a large effect on how we get video on the web (and how free it is).
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The video tag had a solid reason behind it, you didn't have to expend efforts working with annoying Flash video wrappers. But Google has gone and tossed that down the drain in favor of forcing a standard on the world at a time they lack the power to do so - and in the process KILLED open video on the web by bringing us all back to the dark ages of Flash video players everywhere.
How did Google kill open video? It's possible that WebM won't matter and therefore Google's action won't help to open video, but it won't kill it, because we never had any alternative for open video anyway.
Or did you see Ogg Theora as a serious contender? As part of the HTML 5 standard, is was dead already. It's h264 or WebM, and Google supporting an open format can only help open video.
I certainly appreciate Google's solidarity with the less wealthy players on the browser market.
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Re:Riding coattails! (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Riding coattails! (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems more likely to me that is some kind of power play. They want to piss on Apple & Microsoft's parade by forcing them to dance to a tune played by Google. Google will be stewards of this codec and if it becomes a web standard they may force their competitors to support it (e.g. in their browsers & desktop / phone operating systems) or risk looking "non standard". It diminishes their competitors offerings just like supporting Flash in Android did.
Secondly, if Google have such an enormous ongoing investment in H264 then they must be paying a pretty penny to MPEG-LA and possibly a lot more when certain web moratoriums are up. I would not be surprised if they are waving this codec around to threaten MPEG-LA to either drop or modify their existing licensing agreement.
So I don't think Google are doing this for reasons for altruism and I don't believe they'll never support H264. WebM is just a stick and they may well do an about face when it serves its purpose.
Why give up before we've started? (Score:3)
Over 20 Hardware vendors are working on WebM hardware acceleration right how, including Broadcom and Qualcomm.
Now figure in the amount the OEMs have invested in all those H.264 chips, along with the fact that all those consumer devices will have to be chunked (great for the environment) thanks to WebM killing the battery,
No, it means developers will have to support those devices until they fade out. Considering that most people replace their phone every 2-3 years anyway, that won't take too long. The only real problem here is if Apple refused to implement WebM even after hardware acceleration is available.
Three years ago, H.264 support on mobile devices was all but non-existent as well. There is no reason why WebM c
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In addition to the Rockchip that was mentioned, Broadcom has an FPGA-based chip on the market that has WebM support [broadcom.com]. The other hardware companies have not announced specific product details yet.
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Not in a million years. You're talking new silicon.
Of course if Google ran banks of GPGPUs or Cell processors they could always change them to support WebM.
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I do think that the codec could be vulnerable to a patent battle. Unless Google are indemnifying WebM, you may well find that MPEG-LA or indiv
Re:Riding coattails! (Score:5, Informative)
Hardware acceleration means a wide range of things. It can mean implementing the entire algorithm in hardware - feed in an H.264 bitstream and get out decoded frames. It usually doesn't. Hardware makers are much more keen on code reuse than software makers, because bugs are much more expensive, and most hardware acceleration for video playback already needs to support multiple codecs (H.264, MPEG-4 ASP, MPEG-2).
In a typical device, 'hardware acceleration' for H.264 means two things:
The 'hardware decoder' is actually a software decoder that runs in the DSP and uses the specialised accelerator units. For something like VP8, it's relatively simple for to provide a firmware upgrade that adds a decoder using the existing hardware. For something like Dirac (which uses DWT instead of DCT, for example), it's much harder.
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Which word in "hardware accelleration" do you not understand? If the on-chip parallel decoding lines aren't WebM compatible, a "firmware" patch isn't going to do a damn thing.
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Wouldn't you, as a video host, much rather have to worry about supporting two open, royalty-free formats than several closed ones?
Which two formats are you referring to here?
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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 becomi
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You probably want to do both because it would be a bad buisness decision to have all your eggs in one basket.
Both have potential legal/economic threats:
H264 is an open standard and if you pay your money you won't be sued by the patent pool.
The side effect is you are at the wims of mpegla who may increase the fees to use thair format in the future.
WebM is an open formaat with a licence on patents owned by google.
There are no licence fees on using the format but perhaps a risk on getting sued by mepgla.
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The post I was responding to said that the two formats which should be supported are WebM and Ogg Theora. Not H.264.
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Yep, MPEG-LA will raise the royalty by no more than 10% in every 5-year licensing period. This gives you a very easy-to-budget number.
I'd say it's almost a guarantee that MPEG-LA will be pursuing legal action if WebM looks like it's going to actually take off. Whether or not they can win remains to be seen, bu
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So basically MPEGLA is the 800 pound gorilla in the room and it would be less risky not to piss it off.
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There are no 800 pound gorillas. Very obese gorillas held in captivity may top out at 600 lbs at most. A healthy, strong, alpha gorilla out in the wild would weigh no more than 350-400 lbs. 800 pound gorillas are pure fantasy.
Two men are flying in a hot air balloon and realise they are lost. They see a man on the ground, and shout down to him to him, "Can you tell us where we are?"
The man on the ground replies, "You're in a hot air balloon, two hundred and forty feet off the ground, heading due West."
One of the men in the balloon says to his companion: "That guy must be an actuary: his information is completely accurate, but entirely useless."
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H264 is an open standard and if you pay your money you won't be sued by the patent pool.
If you need permission to use it, is it really open? I think that's the main point people seem to disagree on here.
Re:Riding coattails! (Score:5, Insightful)
H264 is an open standard and if you pay your money you won't be sued by the patent pool.
If you need permission to use it, is it really open? I think that's the main point people seem to disagree on here.
Yes -- this question really cuts to the heart of the issue for me. Personally, I object to describing a standard as "free and open" unless it is possible to write and distribute a GPL implementation in such a way that Linux distributions can safely package and include it. WebM is open (the specifications are available to anyone and anyone is permitted to implement them) and free (anyone can obtain a non-exclusive, perpetual, sub-licensable license to all of the necessary patents).
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As a video host, I won't do this. I'll leave my video in H.264 format, and serve it up via flash to the browsers that don't want to support H.264 playback via the HTML5 video tag.
The only thing that started breaking Flash's stranglehold was Apple's decision to say "NO FLASH on our iOS devices." Why? Because the bulk of "video hosts" don't give a shit about "openness," they give a shit about "how many people can watch my video," and the iOS devices represented an affluent demographic that video hosts *wan
Re:Riding coattails! (Score:4, Informative)
I think you underestimate the size of YouTube. It's way bigger than all other video hosts put together. If a WebM browser gives you the best YouTube experience, that's what people will want. And with Firefox's sizable market share on the desktop, and Chrome's market share on smartphones, I'd say WebM cannot be ignored.
And if YouTube offers video in either HTML5+WebM or Flash+H264, iDevice users definitely have a problem.
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As a video host I would be more concerned of the non-existence of hardware that supported those formats and did live transcoding. I would ultimately conclude that I can just stream H264 anyway by embedding a Flash plugin in the page. In other words it wouldn't change a thing other than make Flash more entrenched than it already is.
Re:Misguided (Score:5, Insightful)
1. They've made Chrome users eat HTML5 video on YouTube in the past. If their objective is to get people to use Chrome (it is! my dear, cynical friend, it is! they want to advertise to your brain cells!) then this is strong evidence that they believe HTML5 is the right way to go.
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 (see the origin of TrueType for one example), and, once again, my dear, cynical friend, it obstructs their ability to know what the user is doing because it is an externality.
I think if there's any reason Google delays in making motions to kill Flash, it's because they're waiting for everyone else to be ready for it. A huge (HUGE [webmproject.org]) number of companies support WebM, both hardware and software—in fact, at this point, Apple and Microsoft are sticking out like sore thumbs by being absent from the list. The writing's on the wall that WebM is going to be the de facto video currency in the next few years, because Google is such an aggressive player—and because the format isn't proprietary [webmproject.org], contrary to what you said.
You lying, thieving, cheating, scum-sucking, dog-licking, spit-swimming, spider-eating, goat-hugging, dung-smearing, pig-kissing, frog-swallowing, mud-biting, cow-tipping, toilet-swabbing, cud-chewing, window-washing, half-warped, apple-polishing, worm-witted, chicken-hearted, lamb-lusting, nefarious, untrustworthy nasty person!
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I wish I had some mod points for you.
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All this dithering over H264 just hands Adobe a gift which is a field of mutually incompatible browsers. What happens when a site wants to play a video to some browser and be sure it will play? Well they'll embed a Flash plugin of course.
Re:Misguided (Score:5, Insightful)
H.264 is less of an open standard than even OOXML. The H.264 specification was developed by a standards body which is only open in the sense that anyone who can pay the $40k per person per meeting fee to get a voting seat can participate. The H.264 specification is hideously complex and terribly expensive. There are no free software implementations of the complete specification, and certainly none which are legally licensed. Unlikely other areas of software, the patents over H.264 are actively and aggressively enforced both in the US and all across Europe.
Flash is far from a paragon of openness. But they too have releases specifications— and for free, if not all that complete. When it comes down to it, the internet doesn't need that much of a push to get off flash, it's going to happen naturally. The only question is what will we have when flash is gone? An web encumbered by proprietary technology (which is absolutely what H.264 is— it is owned and controlled by a single managing agency) or an open and freely licensed web?
So go on, keep spreading that FUD. If you get really good at it perhaps MPEG-LA start cutting buying you houses in Hawaii with their spoils.
Re:Misguided (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean, except x264, which is by most accounts, one of the most *full-featured* H.264 implementations available... right?
That's understatement by a mile. Flash is a closed, proprietary standard. There is nothing "open" about it.
That's correct - Apple's refusal to put Flash on iOS devices signalled the end of Flash as the ubiquitous video playback wrapper on the web. Google's refusal to continue supporting H.264 has simply prolonged Flash's lifespan by a few years.
Let's be very clear here: H.264 is an "open standard" - anyone may get a copy of the spec and implement it, and expect that their encoder/decoder will interoperate well with any other piece of software or hardware that implements the H.264 standard. What H.264 is *not* is a "free standard" - it's got patents, and royalty fees required for some uses of the standard- basically, if you're making money off of H.264, you need to pay a fee to the MPEG-LA consortium. There is nothing preventing Google from allowing its browser to support both types of video for playback via an HTML5 video tag, but only providing WebM-encoded videos on their hosting services. You can't say that you're dropping H.264 support in the interests of "freedom" while continuing to embed & support Flash - at least, not with a straight face.
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Feature-wise it's good, yes, but it's not legally licensed and thus it's actually illegal to use in many places, most notably the US.
x264 is not illegal to use in US - you just need to pay the usual license fees to MPEG LA (which may well be $0 if your product is free and you distribute less than a certain number of copies).
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There are no free software implementations of the complete specification, and certainly none which are legally licensed.
You mean, except x264, which is by most accounts, one of the most *full-featured* H.264 implementations available... right?
I guess you missed the free part.
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Flash is a closed, proprietary standard. There is nothing "open" about it.
SWF is actually very open, according to what I've read, since May 2008. Even RTMP is part of the open spec now.
Re:Misguided (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah yes, the famous open, patented, royalty-encumbered standard. Except for the open part
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It *is* an open standard. It may be patented, but that does not change the fact that it is an open standard, just like something like GSM.
Open standard =/= Open source
For a technology site, people seem to conflate and confuse those two things so much.
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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.
The MPEG-LA? Well...
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>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.
More than that - google has actively PLACED WebM under a free patent license that is GPL compatible - it says so right in the article (yeah I know, nobody reads those). Which means they CAN'T change their minds later. A patent license is a contract and you cannot unilaterally and retroactively change a contract.
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If google released it to the public domain, then their implementation would be prior art, invalidating any subsequent attempt to patent the technology.
My concern with the patents on WebM boil down to the simple fact that Google won't indemnify users. They're flogging their pet standard, but it seems they're not confident enough in it to say, "and we'll help you if anybody comes after you." If they're not confident enough in their patent status to say that... why should anybody else be? It's a pretty huge
Re:Misguided (Score:5, Insightful)
My concern with the patents on WebM boil down to the simple fact that Google won't indemnify users.
MPEG-LA won't indemnify you either. If someone outside their patent pool sues you, they're not going to be helping.
Re:Misguided (Score:5, Insightful)
but if I somebody brings a suit against me tomorrow, I may have to spend way more than I ever would have spent on H.264 royalties to defend myself.
So what is the difference to H.264 ? They also don't indemnify their users, so there is NO reason to prefer one over the other, the risks are identical.
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You are assuming the patent system actually works. In practice many patents would be granted - indeed, are granted - for things where prior art not only exists but is widely known. It then falls on the defendents to spend millions of dollars in court to fight the patents.
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My concern with the patents on WebM boil down to the simple fact that Google won't indemnify users. They're flogging their pet standard, but it seems they're not confident enough in it to say, "and we'll help you if anybody comes after you." If they're not confident enough in their patent status to say that... why should anybody else be? It's a pretty huge risk they're asking everybody else to take.
It is an even bigger risk for open source software. You need only _one_ patent that WebM infringes on, and where the patent owner cannot be convinced or bribed or paid to allow use in any open source software, and no legal GPL v.3 implementation is possible. And since WebM is substantially similar to h.264, there can be no doubt whatsoever that it will be infringing on some h.264 patents.
And since this is all not about "free software", but about the fight between Google, Microsoft, and Apple, I can't fee
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The difference, though, is that no-one has threatened to sue over H.264, and there are no suspects who have ground to do so; whereas MPEG LA has pretty much explicitly threatened to sue over VP8, and there has already been talk about sufficient similarity of the codecs (some coming from WebM supporters, in fact - when talking about hardware acceleration, I've heard the argument that "VP8 has many common algorithms that can directly re-use hardware capable of accelerating H.264").
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It's fairly well known that VP8 (the video codec in WebM) infringes on H.264 patents
I believe the expression is 'put up or shut up'. VP8 was created by On2 to work around H.264 patents, and sacrificed some quality in doing so. If you can cite a patent that is infringed by VP8, please do so.
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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.
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Ah yes, the famous open, patented, royalty-encumbered standard. Except for the open part
It is open.
In what way exactly is it open? The specs may be freely available, but if I want to actually use it, I need special permission. And that permission is not automatic; it may cost money. I already have permission to use WebM however I like.
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Because it's supported in more places, more stable, and faster?
And it's not part of an unfinished standard. There's that too (not that it stopped anyone else).
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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).
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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?
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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?
Re:Misguided (Score:5, Insightful)
>while Google continues to support Flash.
The day youtube stops serving flash and requires WebM will be the day Flash dies.
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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.
Re:Misguided (Score:4, Insightful)
It might just be late, but I have no idea how you are reaching this conclusion. Are you aware that Adobe is one of the companies that has pledged to support WebM?
The fight to adopt WebM has nothing to do with WebM vs Flash. The fight is h264/html5 vs WebM/html5. Take a quick look at this page:
http://www.youtube.com/html5 [youtube.com]
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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-n
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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.
HTML5 is codec neutral, it ca
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And how do we make sure that whichever one gets picked doesn't have one of the committee members hiding submarine patents on it up its sleeve?
Awareness (Score:2)
It might just be late, but I have no idea how you are reaching this conclusion. Are you aware that Adobe is one of the companies that has pledged to support WebM?
Are you aware how many mobile devices today can only play h.264 when Flash is not present?
So Adobe is supporting VP8 playback in Flash, it means nothing - because anyone encoding video will say "if I encode in h.264 it will work in all browsers, across all devices". What is the incentive to also encode in WebM/VP8? There is none.
So as stated, wha
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Re:Well that's great because... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm... I'd call GCC pretty successful...
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I think GP was referring more to various "oolitical" FSF campaigns, like the one against "tivoization", or against Win7. Which this one seems to be as well.
GCC is just a product, it's not like FSF specifically endorses it over proprietary options (rather than just generally saying "free software is better", which applies to all FOSS).
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They hear "FSF" and envision a large, bearded hippie with his middle finger raised in their direction
Your post seemed more rant then substance, but this made me chuckle.
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Worse, the people who need to be excited about WebM (big corporate media) will actively be repulsed by the FSF's stamp of approval.
...
The FSF putting their stamp on it is just the final nail in WebM's coffin. Stick a fork in it. It's done. Google has really screwed the pooch on this one.
Not true. I know that yer average Slashdot MS fanboy hates the FSF and the GPL with a passion, but they don't really represent reality.
Despite the FSF's political positions, boycotts, etc, these simply aren't the sort of thing that register on a corporation -- corporations don't care about anything that doesn't affect them, and these activities by the FSF, while intended to have some effect ... largely don't. Neither do they care about RMS's hairstyle; not only are they very unlikely to have noticed it,
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Video compression is a patent minefield, and indemnity is pretty much an absolute requirement these days if you expect to be taken seriously.
MPEG-LA will not stand behind h.264 with indemnity from patent suits, so clearly your assertion is false and indemnity is not an "absolute requirement... if you expect to be taken seriously."
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Video compression is a patent minefield, and indemnity is pretty much an absolute requirement these days if you expect to be taken seriously.
Alright then, name one format that does offer indemnity.
Here's some help: MPEG LA doesn't.
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I don't think anybody really equates the FSF with piracy.
You're not up to date - apparently, if a country standardizes on FOSS in government, it "fails to build respect for intellectual property rights" [nationalreview.com], and is considered by US businesses to be sufficient reason to put that country on the Special 301 [wikipedia.org] report (which means that the country does not provide "adequate and effective" protection of US intellectual property rights).
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Right when somebody implements the codec on OpenCL or something, I guess...
Re:hardware (Score:4, Informative)
Key word "will" (Score:2)
The original post was asking WHERE he get a chip that plays WebM, not WHEN. As there are not even any chips to be had WebM looks to have a very long and hard road ahead to gain any traction - even (or especially?) with Google pushing it.
The truth is that today if you encode in h.264 it will work in any browser. It will work on iOS devices with hardware accelleration. It will work in Mozilla and Chrome using the Flash player. It will work in Safari and IE directly.
Unless you shut off h.264 support in Fl
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And where's the MPEG-LA's patent indemnification to protect the chip makers from Google (or any other) patent suits? Oh, that's right. MPEG-LA has so far refused to do so. Good luck with that.
Sort of right, but between Open and Closed (Score:2, Interesting)
The real battle is between Apple and Adobe
That is true from the standpoint of Apple fighting for open technologies backed by large groups of companies (HTML5, h.264) where Adobe is fighting for maintaining control over the stronghold of Web Video, where they are the ones who provide players everyone needs to operate universally.
That's why Google, Apple and Microsoft were together in supporting the video tag. But then Google got greedy, and thought "Why can't I have Adobe's position"? So under the guise of
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But then again this Slashdot - new for people with delusions and where everything is black and white.
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Replacing flash with an other monopoly on a non free standard isn't a good solution. I far prefer Google's stance on the matter.
> But then Google got greedy, and thought
> "Why can't I have Adobe's position"?
That is an opinion not a fact.
> So under the guise of being open, Google is pushing for a standard controlled by them.
That is also an opinion, not a fact.
Google is pushing an open standard. Yes. Fact
Google may try to control the video format on the web. Like Apple, like Microsoft before.
My readi
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But then Google got greedy, and thought "Why can't I have Adobe's position"
Has Adobe open sourced the Flash player under a permissive license since last time I was looking? Because failing that, Google can't be trying for Adobe's position. Personally, I'm confident the video tag will win over flash, even if the latter stays as a backup solution.
And Google's push is pretty weak - Youtube still pushes H.264, Android still plays it.
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Blackmail threats discouraging you from taking action when they're doing something illegal? Could you imagine if your local electricity company threatening to cut you off if you take action over their overbilling (especially if they're the only supplier in your area) ?