[html5] OGG in HTML5

[Jon Barnett]

On Dec 11, 2007 2:06 PM, Dan Dorman <dan.dorman at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Dec 11, 2007 9:06 AM, Joseph Harry <jharry at lapcat.org> wrote:
> > One thing to remember, HTML is created
> > by people who can be bought, and it is clearly what has happened here.
>
> Hey, let's not get carried away. Ian et al. have been working
> tirelessly and scrupulously on this spec; there's no reason to cast
> aspersions on anyone's character.
>
> :Dan Dorman
>

It's a tragedy that this issue hit the front page of Digg (or the
front Tech page of Digg) today, and that explains the sudden influx of
emails.  It's clear that most people commenting on the subject haven't
bothered to read enough history to realize the actual reason for this
decision: patent fears.

Even though OGG is open source, no one is sure there's not a rogue
patent troll waiting to sue the first browser vendor to implement HTML
5's requirement.  If it can be undoubtedly proven there is no patent
out there that might be construed to cover something in OGG, then OGG
will make it back in.  Until then, we should be trying to find such a
patent, or we should be trying to find another format that's open and
assuredly patent-free (for example, a format that is so old, any
patent will have expired).

I hope this summarizes the issue correctly.  It should also be noted
that messages to this list and the HTML WG list are publicly available
in an online archive.

-- 
Jon Barnett