[whatwg] The issue of interoperability of the <video> element

[Silvia Pfeiffer]

Such a development is a clear sign to change the spec to require
theora/vorbis support instead of just recommending it. A baseline
codec has to be a requirement.

Thus, I suggest to change the wording to "User agents must support
Theora video and Vorbis audio, as well as the Ogg container format".

Best Regards,
Silvia.

On 6/24/07, Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves <justivo at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear WHATWG members,
>
> It has come to my attention that Apple developers behind the WebKit
> platform, which powers the web browser Safari, apparently intend to
> support the video element of the HTML 5 spec, section 3.14.7.  It's
> all fine and well, but not a victory for web interoperability, as they
> do not intend to follow the "User agents should support Theora video
> and Vorbis audio, as well as the Ogg container format" part.  In their
> own words: "should support in a spec does not denote a requirement.
> We could have a perfectly suitable implementation of audio and video
> as seen in this draft spec without having theora/vorbis codecs
> available".[1]
>
> What this means, in my opinion, is that they will push for QuickTime
> video, in spite of the effort of the Opera developers to push Theora
> forward as the de facto standard for web video.  Even if Mozilla and
> the KDE team prepare their web browsers to support Theora, by choosing
> to alienate it, Apple is allowing Microsoft to put WMV support alone
> in their Internet Explorer, for if Apple, one of the big players,
> shuns Theora, so will Microsoft.  Considering the statistics, Internet
> Explorer being currently the web browser with bigger market share, it
> will force pretty much every web designer/programmer to stick to WMV
> only.
>
> As everyone is aware, WMV is not an open specification, nor a proper
> documented video format.  Instead, it is heavily patented and locked
> in one single vendor: Microsoft.  This will force vendors to either
> pay a license to legaly use WMV in their platforms, or to reverse
> engineer support for it, infriging on software patents in certain
> nations.
>
> This message is mostly an open letter to the Apple developers behind
> WebKit and to every other browser/UA developer.  Please, do not shun
> Theora, or one of the following two things will happen:
> 1) either the video element will become unrelevant and non-successful,
> which is a shame considering its potential to revolutionize the web,
> 2) or everyone will be locked in whatever new version of WMV Microsoft
> releases in the following years--and expect some of these to be
> incompatible between each other.
>
> Best regards,
> Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves
>
> [1] http://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13708
>