Today I discovered -via -digi.no that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement, -yesterday -announced plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 <video> in -the browser. The argument used is that H.264 is not a "completely -open" codec technology. If you believe H.264 was free for everyone -to use, I recommend having a look at the essay -"H.264 â Not The Kind Of -Free That Matters". It is not free of cost for creators of video -tools, nor those of us that want to publish on the Internet, and the -terms provided by MPEG-LA excludes free software projects from -licensing the patents needed for H.264. Some background information -on the Google announcement is available from -OSnews. -A good read. :)
- -Personally, I believe it is great that Google is taking a stand to -promote equal terms for everyone when it comes to video publishing on -the Internet. This can only be done by publishing using free and open -standards, which is only possible if the web browsers provide support -for these free and open standards. At the moment there seem to be two -camps in the web browser world when it come to video support. Some -browsers support H.264, and others support -Ogg Theora and -WebM -(Dirac is not really an option -yet), forcing those of us that want to publish video on the Internet -and which can not accept the terms of use presented by MPEG-LA for -H.264 to not reach all potential viewers. -Wikipedia keep an -updated summary of the current browser support.
- -Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep -promoting H.264, and John Gruber -presents -the mind set of these people quite well. His rhetorical questions -provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions -presenting -the issues with H.264. Both are worth a read.
- -Some argue that if Google is dropping H.264 because it isn't free, -they should also drop support for the Adobe Flash plugin. This -argument was covered by Simon Phipps in -todays -blog post, which I find to put the issue in context. To me it -make perfect sense to drop native H.264 support for HTML5 in the -browser while still allowing plugins.
- -I suspect the reason this announcement make so many people protest, -is that all the users and promoters of H.264 suddenly get an uneasy -feeling that they might be backing the wrong horse. A lot of TV -broadcasters have been moving to H.264 the last few years, and a lot -of money has been invested in hardware based on the belief that they -could use the same video format for both broadcasting and web -publishing. Suddenly this belief is shaken.
- -An interesting question is why Google is doing this. While the -presented argument might be true enough, I believe Google would only -present the argument if the change make sense from a business -perspective. One reason might be that they are currently negotiating -with MPEG-LA over royalties or usage terms, and giving MPEG-LA the -feeling that dropping H.264 completely from Chroome, Youtube and -Google Video would improve the negotiation position of Google. -Another reason might be that Google want to save money by not having -to pay the video tax to MPEG-LA at all, and thus want to move to a -video format not requiring royalties at all. A third reason might be -that the Chrome development team simply want to avoid the -Chrome/Chromium split to get more help with the development of Chrome. -I guess time will tell.
+Jeg hadde anledning, så jeg deltok på +minnemarkeringen +på Stortinget i dag. Det var en fin markering, og jeg likte talene. +For meg er demokrati, åpenhet og humanitet fundert på frihet, som jeg +håper vi alle vil bidra til å beskytte i tiden som kommer. Jeg +registrerer at det i Danmark +diskuteres +å redusere friheten. Vi bør vite bedre her i Norge. Stoltenberg +berørte retten til å feile, og den er nært knyttet til muligheten til +å lykkes. Begge deler krever at en har friheten til å prøve, og den +er viktig i et samfunn. Friheten til å prøve begrenses når kontroll +innføres.
+ +Det at noen av stolene i stortingssalen var tomme ga en litt +uventet ramme til markeringen. Jeg hadde regnet med at +stortingsrepresentanter, regjeringsmedlemmer og kongehus til sammen +ville fylle alle setene. Vet ikke hvem som skulle sittet der det var +ledige plasser, men antar noen var opptatt andre steder. Kanskje i +begravelser, eller rett og slett var blitt drept (har ikke hørt at +noen i Stortinget ble drept, men kan ha gått glipp av noe). Det at +noen manglet synes jeg illustrerte minnestundens poeng godt. Vi +mangler noen som skulle ha vært blant oss. Det kan aldri gjøres om, +og bør aldri glemmes.