[whatwg] Reasons for moving Ogg to MUST status (was Re: HTML 5, OGG, competition, civil rights, and persons with disabilities)

[Andrew Sidwell]

Manuel Amador (Rudd-O) wrote:
>> That's not unreasonable, but you have yet to give a solid technical
>> reason for reverting to the old text,
> 
> Reasons to put the Ogg tech suite back on the spec:
> 
> - it's Free (who here hates beer or freedom?)

This is a false dichotomy.  (You characterise that if you don't want Ogg 
in the spec right now, you're against freedom.  This is not actually the 
case.)

> - it's patent-unencumbered (this is a FACT)

Appending FACT to something which is inherently uncertain does not make 
it a fact.

> - it's technically very good (Theora) or even superb (Vorbis and FLAC)

Unsure what relevance FLAC has here.  Theora is not as good as many 
other codecs.  (If it was technically very good, in environments where 
codec choice has nothing to do with IP constraints -- e.g. illegal movie 
torrents -- then it would be used.  It's not.)

> - it's widely available and readily installable

If this is the case, then it makes little difference if it's a SHOULD 
requirement or not, since small authors can use it and have it easily 
installed when a user comes across content that uses it.

> - it's being integrated in popular Web browsers RIGHT NOW
> - it enables little guys to produce content at minimal cost

Two fair points.


> This is not the year 2000. Mozilla and Opera are embedding Theora video.  
> That's a user base large enough to force the rest of the players to get with 
> the program.

I very much doubt it.  IE at least would have to support it before a 
majority of authors would use it seriously.

Andrew Sidwell