[whatwg] several messages regarding Ogg in HTML5

[Dave Singer]

At 17:30  -0500 11/12/07, Jeff McAdams wrote:
>  Apple and Nokia's stated reasons for objecting to Theora are crap...


I can't speak for Nokia.  But you are mis-characterizing Apple.  We 
have expressed concern, and suggested that perhaps someone who can be 
seen to be independent, and is competent in IPR issues and permitted 
to read patents and discuss licenses, look into the issue.

Folks, engineers are
* not patent experts (indeed, many companies don't allow their 
engineers to read patents unless instructed)
* not lawyers
* now always seen to be independent or neutral
* not generally involved in licenses

This is not a recipe for progress.

We'd be better off discussing technical issues that would inform a 
decision;  questions like
a) what compression ratio/quality is needed?  Is h.261 'good enough'? 
What about audio?
b) do we need alpha support?
c) what audio compression level is needed?  Is IMA 4:1 good enough? 
Could we live with uncompressed PCM?
d) what container format features are needed?  Incremental files? 
Seekability and indexing?  (These tend to be in conflict, by the way).
e) what audio channel count is needed?
f) what access protocols should be supported?  One assumes http; 
what about rtsp/rtp?  authentication in rtsp?  which rtsp?  shoutcast?

I am sure there are many other questions...
-- 
David Singer
Apple/QuickTime