[whatwg] Removal of Ogg is *preposterous*

[Henry Mason]

On Dec 11, 2007, at 1:21 PM, Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) wrote:

> I actually think this Slashdot comment summarizes the sentiment  
> perfectly:
>
> "Methinks you are being a bit myopic here. Where would we be today  
> if the HTML
> spec didn't specify jpg, gif, and png as baseline standards for the  
> image
> tag? Can you imagine a huge mishmash of competing proprietary image
> standards, many of which wouldn't even render in free software  
> browsers like
> Firefox? That would be a nightmare, but unfortunately, that's what's
> currently happening with video. Much like the image standard in  
> HTML means
> that any browser can display anything in an image tag, so too must  
> the video
> standard in HTML guarantee that any browser can display anything in  
> a video
> tag. That's what the proposed specification is about."

That's interesting, because none of the HTML specifications up until  
now have actually mandated *ANY* format for "baseline standards".  
Really. Go check out the HTML 4.01 specs: http://www.w3.org/TR/ 
html401/struct/objects.html

All that's said is "Examples of widely recognized image formats  
include GIF, JPEG, and PNG."

Now HTML5 may very well change this, but the argument that the HTML  
specification mandated JPEG/GIF/PNG and this what made image  
rendering standards work on the web is fundamentally flawed; the  
specification mandated no such thing.


-Henry