HTML5 a blessing for Linux?

[ghindo]

well if the license doesnt allow selling a license-enabled browser then I wouldnt call it free.

I'm not sure I understand your argument. When you say "the license," are you referring to the Theora license? Because Theora is under a permissive BSD license, which allows commercial use.

I call anyone that claims his code is 100% patentfree a liar. Patents get granted for the most obvious and stupid crap, I dont think its possible to write a couple hundreds lines of code without violating some of them.
Well, and "until proven" - you know why they are "submarine patents", right? Its because the owner stays quiet for a long time and sues only if the "violations" are widespread. Whats the point in suing Theora now?

I realize why they're called "submarine patents," but I still think that it's a very poor argument against Theora. The whole submarine patent argument is based on a lot of "What ifs." What if somebody holds a patent which Theora is infringing upon? Well, we don't really know if that's the case and won't really know until that person steps forward. What if that patent holder decides to sue? Well, sue who? Xiph.org? Mozilla? Opera?

I just think that the "submarine patents" argument is kind of a silly one because it's one without any real support; the entire argument is built upon hypothetical situations and to me, that's not a very strong argument.

[Closed_Port]

I just think that the "submarine patents" argument is kind of a silly one because it's one without any real support; the entire argument is built upon hypothetical situations and to me, that's not a very strong argument.

I fully agree.

And as an aside, h.264 isn't secure from submarine patents either.

[ghindo]

Sure I would prefer 1 standard, but Id also prefer if this would not be Theora. I dont see why I should settle for something worse.

Worse how? At the bitrates we would see streaming video, there's almost no discernible difference between H.264 and Theora, using the 1.1 encoder. The Theora encoder has seen incredible improvements over the last year or so, and we will continue to see improvements for a while to come.

Also, it's important to bear in mind that Theora is clearly superior to H.264 is in terms of licensing, and that is a very important factor when considering the HTML5 spec.

[Firestem4]

I'm not sure if this was mentioned but dailymotion is converting their entire website to ogg-based video's. You can access them at www.openvideo.dailymotion.com

Dailymotion is pretty damn popular too so don't think that HTML5 Ogg<video> support doesn't have any traction.

[geoken]

IMHO, the best would be to look at how GStreamer handles such license-issues... heck, even better just use GStreamer and notify the user to get a h264-component if the browser encounters such a file and the codec is missing

In other words, completely replicate the existing situation which led to Flash becoming the defacto standard.

We already have that. Every major browser on every major platform has the ability to play back video by embedding one of the platform's native media players in the browser. It's the codec runaround which this situation produced that led people towards using the ubiquitous flash plugin for video playback.

[Npl]

I don't want to come off as rude, but wouldn't spending 30 seconds on some research be a good idea before engaging in a discussion?

reading through the whole license would take more than that. It was more a hypothetical question tough as I dint/dont believe selling a h264-enabled Firefox could be an issue.

Selling a license is not the issue but incorporating the code in firefox. It is my understanding that this wouldn't be possible with the GPL but would be possible with the LGPL and the MPL.

AFAIK incorporating the code from eg. x264 wouldnt be an issue, providing binaries without paying for licenses would. Thats atleast how I understood it from the LAME project handled it. You see, this issue takes more than 30 seconds to research

I think that will eventually be the way that it is handled. However, this somehow defeats the purpose of the video-element which was meant to free browsers from plugins and external requirements.

clear format-specs are a huge step up from how its handled now, be it open or closed.

Hey, you answered your own question. ;-D

Why H264 is better than Ogg? Seriously, I dont know what you are refering to.

I'm not sure I understand your argument. When you say "the license," are you referring to the Theora license? Because Theora is under a permissive BSD license, which allows commercial use.

Was worded badly. I meant it should be possible to sell an (eventually optional) version of FF with h264-license.

I just think that the "submarine patents" argument is kind of a silly one because it's one without any real support; the entire argument is built upon hypothetical situations and to me, that's not a very strong argument.

Nope, but neither is the patent-freeness. Do you care about already paid license-fees if you buy an Phone? I dont and thus the only argument left would be submarine patents.
AFAIK neither Opera or Mozilla even negotiated about license-fees but flatout said "NAY".
Id have no prob paying for licenses directly or indirectly (for example through a GFX-Card). (You are already paying Theora and Firefox developers through advertising and thus price-markups even if you never touch a computer so dont tell me it must be gratis)

Worse how? At the bitrates we would see streaming video, there's almost no discernible difference between H.264 and Theora, using the 1.1 encoder. The Theora encoder has seen incredible improvements over the last year or so, and we will continue to see improvements for a while to come.

I havent seen indepth comparisons for a while, but as said... H264 is already proven and optimised from poststamp size to hi-def, was designed to be parallelizable and efficiently implementable in hardware. On top of that I already have a phone, a PSP and a gfx-card that natively support it.

Also, it's important to bear in mind that Theora is clearly superior to H.264 is in terms of licensing, and that is a very important factor when considering the HTML5 spec.

Which seems to be a bigger issue on this forum than everywhere else in the world (There are tons of people already using their (licensed) h264-enabled hardware without even thinking about how a licensefree codec would brighten up their life)
I understand the issues, but I`d rate the proven versatility and hardwaresupport way higher than that.

[Closed_Port]

reading through the whole license would take more than that. It was more a hypothetical question tough as I dint/dont believe selling a h264-enabled Firefox could be an issue.

I was referring to you not knowing the licenses firefox uses.

AFAIK incorporating the code from eg. x264 wouldnt be an issue, providing binaries without paying for licenses would.

It would be an issue, as firefox is (also) under the GPL. AFAIK including h.264 would break the GPL

Thats atleast how I understood it from the LAME project handled it. You see, this issue takes more than 30 seconds to research

But the problem is that mozilla provides binaries and has to provide binaries and if it's not mozilla itself providing binaries, it would be for example Ubuntu.

clear format-specs are a huge step up from how its handled now, be it open or closed.

I'll have to disagree here. Having a spec that many players in the market can't implement is useless at best. But that's exactly the situation we would find ourselves in if h.264 became part of the standard.

Why H264 is better than Ogg? Seriously, I dont know what you are refering to.

Oh, it was meant as a joke, but just to clear up the issue: In your first sentence you were bemoaning that Theora was behind h.264 when it comes to quality and asking how this could have happened. And in your second sentence you give a good reason that at least partially explains why it is the case: Having to code around patents.

Nope, but neither is the patent-freeness.

But then how are submarine patents an argument against Theora if h.264 suffers from the same problem?

Do you care about already paid license-fees if you buy an Phone? I dont and thus the only argument left would be submarine patents.

Sorry, but I can't follow you here. How are submarine patents the only argument left? How are they even an argument if both are not immune from them?

AFAIK neither Opera or Mozilla even negotiated about license-fees but flatout said "NAY".

Well, there is a further issue with h.264 that hasn't come up. The licensing terms will change in 2011 and it's at least possible that MPEG LA will charge royalties even for free streaming.
http://www.streaminglearningcenter.c...now/Page1.html

[ghindo]

I wanted to clarify some points, so I popped into #theora and asked a question. The answer I received makes me think we have been perhaps misunderstanding this issue entirely:

[12:48] <ghindo> This is probably a silly question, but H.264 can never make it into the HTML5 recommendation, right? I seem to recall the W3C having a policy against proprietary codecs
[12:50] <xiphmont_> basically correct, yes.
[12:50] == sirlemonhead [n=bduncan2@86-45-8-64-dynamic.b-ras2.prp.dublin.eircom.net] has left #theora []
[12:51] <gmaxwell> ghindo: There have been some people outside of the whatwg discussions who have mistakenly misunderstood the issue as being H.264 vs Theora. Thats never been the case.
[12:51] <xiphmont_> derf: do you consider it a better idea to drop the frame that busted the budget, or to drop the next frame after?
[12:51] <ghindo> gmaxwell: How would you frame the issue?
[12:51] <gmaxwell> ghindo: The question has always ever been Baseline (which would be theora) or no baseline. In both cases vendors would be free to ship whatever they wanted.
[12:53] <gmaxwell> I don't think anyone has imagined that apple would stop shipping their own preferred formats. But it sure would be good for the internet if they'd also ship some freely available formats too.

[Methuselah]

Wow, ghindo thanks.
I never understood how proprietary codecs could even be considered as part of a web standard.
It would result in a situation where anyone could not implement a standard conforming browser.

[Judo]

At one point, xiphmont had stated that Theora was never meant to be long-term. It was a temporary solution. I can't remember the exact quote, but I'm pretty sure he also acknowledged that its compression is significantly lower than that of today's popular standards. It wouldn't exactly be an improvement over Flash in the eyes of businesses, in most cases.

On the other hand, should Theora become part of the web standard, it will finally get people to work on a better free standard. Perhaps OMS?

I'd love for it to become more common. I've had enough with Flash. I wouldn't have much of a problem with it if swfdec or Gnash were completely usable, but neither project is good enough for me. So far, I haven't had any issues with Firefox's playback of <video> tags. I already like it.