[whatwg] Google's use of FFmpeg in Chromium and Chrome

[Chris DiBona]

I'm okay with Flak, and I really do believe in shipping
free/unemcumbered software (see our lgpl discussion earlier). That
said, I dislike when I'm accused of being reprehensible by another
browser vendor. It seems unfairly nasty to me.

Thinking out loud: One thing that was mentioned in an earlier post:
Vorbis. I am also of the mind that Vorbis is of higher quality/mb/sec
and statically than is mp3. The only real problem is that people don't
pirate with it, so the demand isn't there, but I think it is a
superior codec. For video, I worry that for theora to become 'better'
than h264, it will need to infringe on the same patents it is designed
to avoid.

That said, I feel like I've been threadjacking this list for too long
now, and for that I apologize, it seems like we're gong down a codec
rathole that may or may not have any relevance for the spec in the
end.

Chris

On Mon, Jun 8, 2009 at 10:10 AM, Robert O'Callahan<robert at ocallahan.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 8, 2009 at 12:42 PM, Chris DiBona <cdibona at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I'm perfectly calm, what people need to realize is that this issue is
>> actually not about submarined patents (more like aircraft carrier
>> patents) or tricky corner cases for the lgpl., but that the internet
>> users prefer more quality in their codecs/megabyte/second. So long as
>> this is true this issue will not be resolvable cleanly and the kind of
>> puritism that Robert mentioned is achievable only upon expiration of
>> said patents or dramatic quality improvements of the free codecs.
>>
>> You can claim Humians as much as you like, the rest of us are trying
>> to ship software here.
>
>
> Historically a lot of the Web standards community, even many people at large
> for-profit companies, have felt it very important that Web standards be
> usable royalty-free. There were big battles when that situation was
> threatened in the past. I personally care about it just as much as "shipping
> software". In that context, helping make H.264 an essential part of "the
> open Web" is reprehensible.
>
> If your only goal is to ship software with the best bitrate/quality
> tradeoff, OK, but you can't complain when you get flak.
>
> Rob
> --
> "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
> the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are
> healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his
> own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." [Isaiah
> 53:5-6]
>



-- 
Open Source Programs Manager, Google Inc.
Google's Open Source program can be found at http://code.google.com
Personal Weblog: http://dibona.com