The H.264 Debacle: We're Complaining to the Wrong People

This is complete nonsense.<p>Read this instead: <a href="http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-June/020620.html" rel="nofollow">http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-Jun...</a><p>Straight from the horses mouth, that is the state of HTML5 video and why we got there. The posted article is built on the idea that HTML5 requires H.264 when that is not the case at all. The spec does not specify a codec for use on the video tag, just as it doesn't for the img tag.<p>More importantly, the authors claim "we can cut to the chase and try to get the HTML5 spec fixed--in which case the commercial vendors would have to fix their implementations in order to be considered compliant." is bogus as well. The spec is a delicate balance. If something is spec'd out, but major vendors are not going to implement it, then you have accomplished nothing by putting it in the spec, and in fact, the spec actually harmful at that point because people will believe it is implemented correctly. The spec is only useful insofar as it is a set of things that all the players can agree to implement.<p>I do recommend reading through the email I linked to, in it Ian Hixie, by responding to emails he received, lays out a lot of the thinking that guided the making of the spec.

A lively discussion, but most seem to miss the fact that the spec did require Theora (though not exclusively, just as a baseline to ensure interoperability) and Apple, with a little help from Nokia, had it removed from the spec because they refused to implement it.<p>So if Apple aren't the right people to complain to, I don't know who is. (Probably if Microsoft had implemented Theora then it would have been added back to the spec, as Apple would have been in a clear minority then, so complain to them too).

W3C is in no way, shape or form "allowing H.264 to infiltrate its way". The HTML5 spec does not require or endorse h.264 or any other codec. Opera's, and Mozilla's I believe, attempt to sneak a codec requirement in the spec (Theora) was shot down, and rightly so, because it falls outside of the scope of HTML5, just as the encoding of image files displayed through the img tag is outside of its scope.

"""The fact is, the W3C is violating its own principles by allowing H.264 to infiltrate its way into the next HTML spec."""<p>I think this is a very valid point, w3c is suppose to promote open tools for the web of consumers and authors regardless their technology. A patented tool does not promote this.

Horse shit.<p>If the spec forbade "the" codec, the offending vendors will simply <i>violate</i> the spec and claim some kind of justification for it.<p>Yes, we're complaining to the wrong people. No, going to the W3C is not the answer.<p>I tend to think that if we can get people to stop <i>using</i> h.264 for <i>anything</i>, then freer codecs could gain traction - particularly On2's (now Google's) VP8.<p>Or, taking the bigger perspective, we should be complaining to the US Congress: patents are the problem, not Microsoft's choice in codecs. If there were no patents to license, this wouldn't be an issue at all.

The real fix would be to abolish software patents, and with it, the licences.