I value the runtime on my battery operated devices enough to pay $0.20 for an efficiently decoded format.

(Maybe that is more than $0.20. Depending on volume the H.264 is $0.00, $0.20, or $0.10, but I think there is a base license also required that I can't find. In any event, adding H.264 to a computer probably costs less than half a can of beer.)

http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Documents/AVC_TermsS...

And remember, I am still allowed to do anything I want with the code. I just have to give MPEG-LA half a can of beer do it.

But I think it is going to be cheaper for them to spend a 100 million or so and buy out a top-end video codec developer and release the codec as open source.... or did they ?

"And remember, I am still allowed to do anything I want with the code. I just have to give MPEG-LA half a can of beer do it." Then free software would'nt be ablo to be free software. You cannot preserve freedom this way.

This is the problem right here; you used a term without bothering to mention that you're using a very specific definition of that term. In your view "freedom" does not mean maximizing my rights to do things with the software; instead, it involves deliberately limiting my rights in order to force me to pass along (your definition of) "freedom" to others.

There are definitions of freedom, many surprisingly common, which do not include that little quirk, and you'll find that "give up some of your freedom for someone else's sake" is, to many people, like saying "pay higher taxes so someone else can benefit".

The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale."

Let me be clear: I welcome your rebuttal, and I will read it with an open mind. What I will not do, for you, for Mozilla, or any of the multitude in the Free Software movement and elsewhere that use this tactic is sit and wring my hands about how I'm no longer in the freedom-valuer's club or try to claw my way back into proper thought by hemming and hawing and qualifying my opinion until it is meaningless.

How using H.264 would be beneficial to free software and open standards?

This is really about how much you value your freedom. About at what point you will abandon your freedom for any other advantage, such as hardware support (proprietary drivers in the linux kernel for instance) or performance (h.264 vs theora in this case). So this more about being willing to sacrifice a little bit of performance for your freedom than looking for best performances at all costs. Theora is getting continuously improved and is catching up little by little. They may also be some other company releasing some other codecs under free software-friendly licenses, who knows? But in the mean time, what is more important to you (as a user, in general): performance or freedom?

So if you don't care about your freedom, it is understandable you wouldn't care less about theora vs h.264. If you would care a little bit more, you would be ready to compromise on some parts, and if you have a long beard, you wouldn't compromise at all.

And I am also wondering, if mozilla starts accepting patented or proprietary technologies, where would you draw the line? How would you ensure Mozilla's products remain free (as in freedom)

I don't know what to make of most of your second paragraph, as I've made no argument about performance. I'm talking about the simple fact that Firefox users cannot view certain content that is being deployed on the web today (h.264 in <video>) because Mozilla has chosen to use the size of its user base to "encourage" the adoption of Theora. This is not freedom. This is stupid.

if mozilla starts accepting patented or proprietary technologies

Nobody is saying they have to. There are a half dozen other comments in this thread explaining better than I could that Mozilla could support other codecs without tainting their own products if they chose to. The problem is that they are choosing not to and that hurts users to no good end.

Repeating "stupid" and "dumb" over and over will not make it real. They don't restrict anyone either, they just stick to their values.

They don't restrict anyone either

They do. They have chosen to implement <video> in such a way that users are unable to use it in conjunction with any other format than Theora. Not because users asked for it, not because it's useful, but because they want to push Theora.

they just stick to their values

I'm not passing judgement on their values. I'm passing judgement on their actions.

Newsflash: everybody's do. That doesn't automatically excuse them from doing stupid things in the name of those values. This is why again and again I keep pointing to the fact that I am criticizing their actions and not their values. You keep assuming that the values that Mozilla espouses can lead to one and only one possible course of action and that that is automatically the right one. I am saying that this is not so, and I'm pointing to the fact that users are being harmed and no good is coming of it as a sign that it wasn't the right choice.

how would you qualify apple by not supporting theora in safari?

The difference is that with Safari you can install Theora on your system (http://www.xiph.org/quicktime/) and it works just fine in <video> and everywhere else (and yes, it works on Wikipedia.) Apple simply doesn't ship Theora which is a much more benign way of "not supporting" something than disabling it altogether. Mozilla, on the other hand, has specifically chosen to prevent users from using anything other than Theora in conjunction with <video>, and not because it's not possible to do it any other way.

Blaming the user is not a strategy the results in good software. I contend that it does much to hurt the cause it it supposed to promote. You're also blaming the user for something they can't control: the format of the content they're trying to view.

Moreover, it isn't simply a patent-encumbrance issue, as Mozilla's choice has been to equally block other patent-free formats. It's Theora or nothing. Read that again and then tell me it's all about freedom.

Simple as that.

It isn't, in fact. Most of the video content on the web today is in patent-encumbered formats, specifically h.264. You're saying that users should not want to continue to be able to view the content is already out there.

It is not the place of a web browser vendor to punish users for wanting to use the web normally. In fact, quite the opposite.

There already been enough mess by formats supported by browser X but not Y.

...and Mozilla is demonstrably perpetuating that mess by only supporting a format that nobody uses and nobody wants to use. Meanwhile all major operating systems currently support h.264 natively, all major video sites use h.264, and all other <video>-supporting browsers support h.264. If Mozilla wants to help clear the mess, they're doing exactly the wrong thing.

I agree that ironically they could still use flash to access youtube (even though they eem to take all the votes for theora in consideration), but there are also big websites using theora such as dailymotion or wikipedia. But there is a huge differene between a html tag and a plug-in.

The burden of what? Deciding what video content is acceptable? Like I said before, that should not be Mozilla's role, but it's the one they've taken on.

they wouldn't be aware of patent issues and wouldn't care

Restricting them to Theora doesn't change this, as sites will continue to deliver h.264 through Flash to user agents that don't support it natively. I contend that Mozilla's approach to "educating" users about these issues is a bad one that fails to educate.

there are also big websites using theora such as dailymotion or wikipedia

DailyMotion also uses h.264 for every other platform. Wikipedia's reasons for using Ogg are very specific to Wikipedia's aims. Neither of these constitute a good reason to artificially restrict users to only Theora.

But there is a huge differene between a html tag and a plug-in.

Yes...and? What's your point?

The burden of dealing with patent encumbered formats. Someone would have to pay or it would remain illegal. As Firefox developers develop Firefox, they have their say in what do or don't do Firefox. And even if they pay it wouldn't be free since there would be strings attached.

"Yes...and? What's your point?"

My point is simple and has remained the same from the very beginning: h.264 is not compatible with an open and free (as in freedom) internet. Therefore implementing h.264 is either not compatible with free software, not an issue in countries where software patents don't exists, or done in an illegal manner. So here we go again: How much would someone value his freedom?

This guy explains it in much better terms than I could: http://shaver.off.net/diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codec...

They already do this by letting users install Flash -- in fact, they make it particularly easy to do so, patent-encumbered though it is. And as I've pointed out before, they use Flash to play h.264 video anyway. The difference with <video> is that Mozilla is actively forbidding users from passing that supposed burden onto the operating system vendor, who in the case of Windows and Mac OS X, have already licensed h.264. In the case of free software operating systems, users can choose whether they want to have support for h.264 or not, just as they have for years with any number of other patent-encumbered formats.

And once again, we're not merely talking about patent-encumbered formats, as Mozilla prevents users from using non-Ogg patent-free formats like Dirac and Flac.

My point is simple...

You didn't actually answer my question. You keep mentioning things and then forgetting them entirely. Please just make a coherent argument or stop replying. If you're not going to talk sense, you're wasting time for both of us.

Therefore implementing h.264...

It has been made abundantly clear that they don't have to in order to allow users to use it of their own free will. Just as Apple did not have to implement Theora in order to allow users to view Theora content in <video> if they choose to do so.

This guy explains it in much better terms...

He didn't, actually. He made a lot of emotional appeals that fly in the face of reality and then breezily dismissed every other argument in a single concluding paragraph. I know this because I already read it: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1073718

Flash (or any other proprietary thing such as activex) is not part of the html or maintained by W3C. It is controlled by a private company. Flash is a proprietary technology installed as an extension for browser. What flash does is irrelevant. If people wish to only published information under proprietary extensions and limit the scope of their work, that's their problem. But introducing non-free (as in freedom) part in basic protocols is another story. Internet should be open to anyone. So please, don't mix up proprietary extensions and standards published bu W3C, which should remain open.

Regardind Mozilla's choice, it is their choice to not support patent encumbered formats. Some approve (like me), some don't. If you wish to fork it, go ahead, code is free.

About other patent-free formats: "Dirac is great. At some point we'll probably add Dirac support. However, at typical Web bit rates, Dirac doesn't currently perform as well as Theora. The patent situation with Dirac is also currently less clear than with Theora. We'll keep an eye on it." from a mozilla developer.

"You didn't actually answer my question. You keep mentioning things and then forgetting them entirely. Please just make a coherent argument or stop replying. If you're not going to talk sense, you're wasting time for both of us."

I am not here to answer all your questions :) I don't like to waste my time either so I only answer interesting parts.

"It has been made abundantly clear that they don't have to in order to allow users to use it of their own free will. Just as Apple did not have to implement Theora in order to allow users to view Theora content in <video> if they choose to do so."

And as it has also been made abundantly clear (but not enough apparently), Mozilla is fighting to keep an open web. So yes, it tries to weight in and try to keep out patent encumbered formats in core protocols. But that's why Mozilla exist: http://www.mozilla.org/causes/ and http://www.mozilla.org/causes/better.html

"He didn't, actually. He made a lot of emotional appeals that fly in the face of reality and then breezily dismissed every other argument in a single concluding paragraph. I know this because I already read it: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1073718

"He didn't, actually. He made a lot of emotional appeals that fly in the face of reality and then breezily dismissed every other argument in a single concluding paragraph. I know this because I already read it: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1073718

Would have it been easier for you if he had he written "I want to make sure that for anyone, there isn’t a big piece of it (video) that they can’t afford to participate in." ?

What on earth are you talking about? The issue as it pertains to the spec was decided over six months ago. Here is the post by the editor of the spec saying so: http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-Jun... Neither h.264 or Theora are part of the HTML5 spec. The spec is open. Nobody is trying to force a proprietary format into the spec. For that matter, I don't recall anybody ever trying to get h.264 made part of the spec. <video> was format-agnostic from the start, just like <img>. Honestly, I have no idea where you got the idea that anybody was trying to add proprietary extensions to the spec--even Mozilla hasn't claimed that--you really don't seem to be familiar with the subject at all.

You also completely missed the point with Dirac. The point is that they are actively blocking their users from using it along with every other format except Theora. Nobody gives a shit about whether Mozilla implements it--they just want to be able to use whatever formats they like without having Mozilla play the role of Daddy--a role that nobody asked them to play and which does not follow naturally from their previously espoused values.

Mozilla is fighting to keep an open web

You're doing that thing again where you pretend that everything Mozilla does is automatically the right thing just because they claim it helps freedom. I am saying that that this mistaken, and have cited a very specific thing that they have done and many specific reasons why I think so.

All you have done here is repeat your first comment, which was bullshit fanaticism that has more to do with scaring people than it does reality.

try to keep out patent encumbered formats in core protocols

Nobody is trying to put h.264 in HTML5. Where did you get that idea?

You also completely missed the point with Dirac. The point is that they are actively blocking their users from using it along with every other format except Theora. Nobody gives a shit about whether Mozilla implements it--they just want to be able to use whatever formats they like without having Mozilla play the role of Daddy--a role that nobody asked them to play and which does not follow naturally from their previously espoused values."

If you would stop twisting what I say, that would really help conversation. Where did I say h.264 is part of any spec? How is it difficult to understand the difference between flash and codecs for <video>?

You may not give a shit about what Mozilla role is but "Mozilla believes the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all." And they intend to keep it that way.

"You're doing that thing again where you pretend that everything Mozilla does is automatically the right thing just because they claim it helps freedom. I am saying that that this mistaken, and have cited a very specific thing that they have done and many specific reasons why I think so."

So far, you have only talked about how stupid it is because it's not their role (despite it's written in big on their website), people would use flash (which is not to be confused with html) or users cannot view h.264 content (how surprising). So what is your universal solution? How could you ensure any software (or even browsers derivating from Firefox) will be able to freely access all content on Internet? Just using whatever backend available isn't enough in USA.

"All you have done here is repeat your first comment, which was bullshit fanaticism that has more to do with scaring people than it does reality."

Of course it's easier to call other names than providing actual facts and logical reasoning. Again, as it is written in big on Mozilla's website: "Mozilla believes the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all." So unsurprisingly, they push back patent encumbered format because there is no good way to guarantee "the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all" with patent encumbered formats. If you have a solution for that, don't hesitate to share it, it would be very welcome by everyone.

Perhaps no one remembers 8hz-enc or why the LAME project doesn't distribute binaries (or at least didn't for a long time; I've not looked lately). The story for MP3 players wasn't a super happy one either at one time.

I'm not an adobe defender by any means, but the practical consequence of this is that there exists a lot of Free Software that supports PDF and PostScript (like Ghostscript) and ships with all distros. The situation for H.264 is hardly similar.