When the Google JXL controversy first went down, I found that Google's commit rejecting JXL was authored by someone with AOMedia contributions, and that the manager who signed off and commented on it had some interview about the benefits of AV1.<p>The links are buried somewhere on Phoronix, I am looking... But what I am saying is Google's rejection of JXL seems to be as bad as it looks.
From the browser makers' point of view there's quite a bit of risk with introducing a new image format. libjxl is written in C++ so undoubtedly will be full of undiscovered security issues. I'm sure that someone will write a decoder in a safer language, but that work still needs to be done and/or finished, and then integrated with the browser. At the same time there are to 5 significant places probably 0% of websites that host .jxl files. So at the start it's all downside and almost no upside.<p>(Chicken and egg problem here of course which is no one will create the websites until there is wide browser support.)
To see how deep this is madness :<p><a href="https://github.com/web-platform-tests/interop/issues/430#issuecomment-1745728757">https://github.com/web-platform-tests/interop/issues/430#iss...</a><p>And Microsoft seems to be interested and want to integrate it into Windows :
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39163181">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39163181</a>
This only points to one things: developers strictly don't understand how politics work.<p>They keep harping about JXL's technical superiority (who disagrees btw?) when at this point it is utterly clear that the choice to boot it from browsers have precisely nothing to do with technical concerns.
Google has been acting even stupider than usual lately, but snubbing JXL goes beyond stupidity - it's clearly malicious, it must be, otherwise I really can't even fathom the rationale behind such a moronic decision may ever be.
Related discussion:<p>JPEG XL support has officially been removed from Chromium
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33933208">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33933208</a>
(292 points, 378 comments)
Edit: Nevermind, Mac & Safari support both formats now. Good to hear.<p>Original comment: Ironically, .JXL opens natively on the Mac, but can't open in any browser. It's the exact opposite of .WEBP which can't open on Mac but too many websites seem to use it. <a href="https://jpegxl.info/test-page/" rel="nofollow">https://jpegxl.info/test-page/</a>
> "But instead this was just another development thread Google single-handedly stopped out of nothing but ego?"<p>There's a reasonable cost/benefit argument against standardizing JPEG XL in browsers. You don't have to agree with it, but JPEG XL proponents shouldn't just ignore it.<p>The argument is: (1) the cost is large -- implementation and maintenance of a complex image codec takes time, and image codecs are high-risk from a security perspective. (2) the benefit is relatively small -- it needs to provide a clear advantage over existing alternatives like jpg, png, webp, avif in some significant general use cases.<p>Now, you don't have to agree with that argument -- e.g. you can argue the cost isn't that high, or that there are valuable advantages to jxl for significant use cases that aren't covered by existing alternative.<p>But you do need to engage that argument.<p>Otherwise what else do you have? Popular demand isn't going to work, because you're in a chicken-and-egg situation. I suppose you can try to bribe and/or bully key decision makers for all the major browsers, though I hope that wouldn't work.
> The Firefox maker said it's neutral with regard to the technology, citing cost<p>Since they pay their CEO $7MM per year, this is a profoundly infuriating argument.
This isn’t some conspiracy, it’s about money. JPEG XL is likely patent encumbered and this including it may require paying licensing fees. The companies involved can’t admit that because if they do, they’d be willfully infringing if they do end up including it at some point…