Comments on: A brief note on web video formats, Mozilla, Theora, and H.264 in light of WebM

By: voracity

voracity — Fri, 21 May 2010 11:09:27 +0000

Here’s a very simple reason why Mozilla helped make this happen.

Had Mozilla said “we’ll support H.264″, then Mozilla, Microsoft, Apple and Google would have all had support for one codec. Opera would have had to fall in line with the giants, and that would have been that.

Can people try to think a little less in black and white? Google did a great thing, which will also contribute to its own interests *based* on the climate it finds itself in. Mozilla (and Opera) did a gutsy thing that was also in its own interests and it changed the course of the discussion. Microsoft could have been petty, but they weren’t. It really is possibly for these kinds of thing to happen.

By: Damian

Damian — Fri, 21 May 2010 04:12:12 +0000

You don’t think this would of happened without Mozilla why exactly?

For Google it’s a simple rational. The more people move to the Internet the more they win. Therefore HTML5 and it’s video goodness helps people move more and more to the Internet. If it wasn’t for Mozilla there:

a) wouldn’t likely be HTML5 (or competition or as much moving to the internet)

b) if (a) wasn’t true then there would at least likely not be a big split in video codecs. Almost everyone (Microsoft, Apple and Google) would just adopt h.264 and be done with it. It’s only because Mozilla has pushed for openness that has forced Google’s hand to come up with a “best of both worlds” solution and push HTML5 forward even more.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 20 May 2010 23:13:18 +0000

Just to note, I never mentioned anything about religion in the post. It was the point of the linked article, but it was not the point of this post. I also think you misunderstand Mozilla’s ultimate goal here. Beyond this, I feel no need to respond to the rest of your comment.

By: Jack

Jack — Thu, 20 May 2010 21:38:17 +0000

You try to make a case but fail. And you still have time to mix in religion…

Why do you fail?

–It was never a case of faith. It was a pragmatic decision based on business and development models, it was a case of defending its principles. It was also the “right” thing to do.

–Mozilla didn’t accomplish what it wanted. If it wasn’t for Google trowing out 150million the web would be without a standard video codec and in the real world the result would be 99% h264 vs 1% for others.

–This way a open codec might have a chance. Still never underestimate the power of greed!

–Also this would have happened even if Mozilla didn’t existed and had made that stand. This is strategic move by Google. Close environments like Microsoft’s and Apple’s would be very damaging for Google.

Why people keep writing stupid quotes without context. In this case a very stupid one.
Saying that there are scientific absolutists is like saying that open source creates monopolies.