<div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 4:41 AM, Anne van Kesteren <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:annevk@opera.com">annevk@opera.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="im">On Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:39:05 +0200, Peter Kasting <<a href="mailto:pkasting@google.com" target="_blank">pkasting@google.com</a>> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
There is no other reason to put a codec in the spec -- the primary reason to spec a behavior (to document vendor consensus) does not apply. "Some<br>
vendors agreed, and some objected violently" is not "consensus".<br>
</blockquote>
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The "vendor consensus" line of argument seems like a very dangerous slippery slope. It would mean that whenever a vendor refuses to implement something it has to be taken out of the specification. I.e. giving a single vendor veto power over the documentation of the Web Platform. Not good at all in my opinion.<br>
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-- <br>
Anne van Kesteren<br>
<a href="http://annevankesteren.nl/" target="_blank">http://annevankesteren.nl/</a><br>
</font></blockquote></div><br><div>We had a vendor majority, right? Of the four major vendors of browsers participating (Mozilla, Google, Opera, Apple), three have committed to including the codecs in one form or another for usage with the <video> and <audio> tags (Mozilla, Opera, Google). I agree it would have been better would a full consensus, but the fact is that all of these companies look towards their goals. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Mozilla wants to move towards its vision of the Open Web (which I personally agree with), Opera has said some time back they plan to support it, Google is fence-sitting by including ffmpeg due to their ideal of being universal (and doing a good job of it too), and Apple's vision of an Apple-centric world means they use the MPEG4 stuff, because it fits more with their current offerings of iPod, iPhone, Macs, and the Apple TV without exerting more effort to comply. </div>
<div><br></div><div>We would never get everyone to agree. However, Apple didn't shut the Theora stuff out entirely. They left it open through QuickTime, which is fine. If we went through and put the Theora and Vorbis recommendation through, and the browsers implement it, then pressure would eventually make Apple somehow concede and do something about the situation. At the very least, add the XiphQT codec pack to the listing of codecs when QuickTime errors out and opens Safari to a list of codecs.</div>
<div><br></div><div>If we push through it with the codecs, I don't think there will be too much of a problem at all.</div>