<link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
<atom:link href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/index.rss" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
+ <item>
+ <title>Chrome plan to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt;</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Chrome_plan_to_drop_H_264_support_for_HTML5__lt_video_gt_.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Chrome_plan_to_drop_H_264_support_for_HTML5__lt_video_gt_.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Wed, 12 Jan 2011 22:10:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description>
+<p>Today I discovered
+<a href="http://www.digi.no/860070/google-dropper-h264-stotten-i-chrome">via
+digi.no</a> that the Chrome developers, in a surprising announcement,
+<a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html">yesterday
+announced</a> plans to drop H.264 support for HTML5 &lt;video&gt; 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
+"<a href="http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/">H.264 – Not The Kind Of
+Free That Matters</a>". 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
+<a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24243/Google_To_Drop_H264_Support_from_Chrome">OSnews</a>.
+A good read. :)</p>
+
+<p>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
+<a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg Theora</a> and
+<a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a>
+(<a href="http://www.diracvideo.org/">Dirac</a> 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 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video">an
+updated summary</a> of the current browser support.</p>
+
+<p>Not surprising, several people would prefer Google to keep
+promoting H.264, and John Gruber
+<a href="http://daringfireball.net/2011/01/simple_questions">presents
+the mind set</a> of these people quite well. His rhetorical questions
+provoked a reply from Thom Holwerda with another set of questions
+<a href="http://www.osnews.com/story/24245/10_Questions_for_John_Gruber_Regarding_H_264_WebM">presenting
+the issues with H.264</a>. Both are worth a read.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/01/google-and-h264---far-from-hypocritical/index.htm">todays
+blog post</a>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+</description>
+ </item>
+
<item>
<title>Skolelinux-intervju: Viggo Fedreheim</title>
<link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Skolelinux_intervju__Viggo_Fedreheim.html</link>
</description>
</item>
- <item>
- <title>Is Ogg Theora a free and open standard?</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Sat, 25 Dec 2010 20:25:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description>
-<p><a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
-Digistan definition</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
-as follows:</p>
-
-<ol>
-
-<li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
-in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
-freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.</li>
-
-<li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
-organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
-open decision-making procedure available to all interested
-parties.</li>
-
-<li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
-document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
-distribute, and use it freely.</li>
-
-<li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
-irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.</li>
-
-<li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
-
-</ol>
-
-<p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
-measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
-products based on the standard.</p>
-</blockquote>
-
-<p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
-and open standard according to this definition. Here is a short
-writeup of what I have been able to gather so far. I brought up the
-topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
-<a href="http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
-July 2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
-According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
-the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Free from vendor capture?</strong></p>
-
-<p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
-Ogg Theora specification. It can be argued that the
-<a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation</A> is such vendor, but
-given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
-making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
-obvious that this is a real risk. One issue with the Xiph
-foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
-control the foundation) are not easily available on the web. I've
-been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
-seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
-where is is spent in the foundation. It is thus not obvious for an
-external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
-it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
-specification. But it seem unlikely.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?</strong></p>
-
-<p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
-claim it to be, this point is fulfilled. If Xiph foundation is
-controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
-documentation indicating this.</p>
-
-<p>According to
-<a href="http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report</a>
-prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
-government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
-the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
-Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
-report is correct.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Specification freely available?</strong></p>
-
-<p>The specification for the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
-container format</a> and both the
-<a href="http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis</a> and
-<a href="http://theora.org/doc/">Theora</a> codeces are available on
-the web. This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
-
-<blockquote>
-
-Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
-specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
-capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
-the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
-specification compliance.
-
-</blockquote>
-
-<p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
-<a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC 3533</a>, and
-this is the term:<p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
-others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
-or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
-distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
-provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
-included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this
-document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
-the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
-Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
-Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
-in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
-translate it into languages other than English.</p>
-
-<p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
-revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.</p>
-</blockquote>
-
-<p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
-this term seem to be fulfilled. There might be a problem with the
-missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
-thus reuse it in other specifications. Not quite sure if that is a
-requirement for the Digistan definition.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Royalty-free?</strong></p>
-
-<p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
-Theora format.
-<a href="http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA</a>
-and
-<a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
-Jobs</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
-patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
-them. Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
-this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
-without paying any royalties. For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
-Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
-than any real problem with Ogg Theora.</p>
-
-<p><strong>No constraints on re-use?</strong></p>
-
-<p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
-
-<p>3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
-depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation. Given the
-background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
-safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
-would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
-this.</p>
-
-<p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
-see if they are free and open standards.</p>
-</description>
- </item>
-
</channel>
</rss>
projects / homepage.git / blobdiff