[ Thanks to Steven J.
Vaughan-Nichols for this link. ]
“In some technology circles, you’d think Google was
proposing throwing cats into a wood-chipper from the way some
people are reacting to Google’s announcement that it was focusing
its support on its own open VP8/WebM and Theora video codecs, and
dropping support for H.264. This is not a step back for openness;
any kind of new road-block for HTML5; nor is it going to ruin the
Chrome browser. It’s just another chapter in the Web’s video
standard wars.“Let’s start from the top: How can Google’s move be a step back
for openness when both WebM and Theora are the only video codecs
that actually are open source? H.264 while extremely popular is a
proprietary format and its encumbered by patents held by MPEG LA, a
patent holding company. Historically, MPEG LA hasn’t charged much
for the use of H.264, but who’s to say that MPEG LA is always going
to stay that generous?”