

Apple-Centric Observers Get the Facts Wrong: H.264 Still Ain’t Free - mgunes
http://createdigitalmotion.com/2010/08/apple-centric-observers-get-the-facts-wrong-h-264-still-isnt-free-for-firefox

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Towle_
A meta-comment on the article:

Apple-centric observers weren't the only ones to get the facts wrong, and
phrasing like that title is only used to make a point. This implies that non-
Apple-centric observers got the facts right. I don't know about you, but I'm
not an "Apple-centric observer" and I had no idea H.264 wasn't free.

And since I'm one of many, then the goal of this article was either to a)
notify Apple-centric observers that H.264 isn't free and/or b) point out to
everyone how biased Apple-centric oberservers are, how they just eat up
everything Steve Jobs says, and high-five non-Apple-centric observers for
being so coolheaded, rational, and informed. And since "Apple-centric
observer" is clearly a codeword for "Apple fanboy," the implication here is
essentially "smart people don't like Apple" or worse yet "if you like Apple,
you're stupid."

This is just flamebait disguised as news. Fanboys accusing fanboys of
fanboyism. Move along, nothing to see here.

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nanairo
Oh dear... I understand the good intention, but I think the author has got a
lot wrong.

All these talk about Safari being the only roadblock...

First: Internet Explorer is apparently fine because Microsoft supports it via
separate coders... but that's exactly what Apple does too. Safari simply uses
whatever is installed in the OS.

Second: I'd be surprised if Safari, the forth browser online with something
like 5% of the market could actually force anything. This is not IE6 that we
are talking about!

~~~
ZeroGravitas
It's Mobile Safari with its impressive mind/marketshare and total lack of user
customizability that's the main battleground here. (Though luckily most of the
iDevice installed base can only cope with baseline H.264.)

Safari on Mac OS X will pick up WebM decode as soon as Perian auto-updates to
it. Perian (basically ffmpeg for Quicktime) being one of the must-have
installs on Mac OS X in order to play any video/audio codecs and containers
outside the blessed subset that Apple chooses to support.

~~~
nanairo
What does Blackberry use then? Or what will Windows Phone 7 use? And WebOS? (I
am asking seriously)

I think in the mobile realm you can't blame a company for not supporting a
format without hardware acceleration. Now, once the new chips arrive with WebM
acceleration, and someone doesn't support it then sure, I agree that sucks.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Apple's the only manufacturer that seems to make a selling point out of not
shipping tools that users can shoot themselves in the foot with.

A perfect example is mobile Flash, which is (or soon will be) a major selling
point of basically all non-Apple mobile devices and runs lots of legacy VP6
video without hardware acceleration. And Adobe has committed to supporting
VP8/WebM in future Flash versions.

~~~
nanairo
Ok. First I think the jury is still out if it will be a major selling point or
not. Maybe you are right, maybe you are not. It seems a bit premature to use
such adjectives.

Second that is true about Apple. But that's their philosophy: I am sure if
Firefox can have their own philosophy so can Apple. They like things that
work, and work well (though sometimes they fail, as shown by the antenna
problem). I don't see any reason why Apple wouldn't include WebM support once
its hardware is capable of decoding it in hardware.

But if your argument is that Apple should implement WebM despite it being much
worse for mobile simply because otherwise Firefox can't join in, then I think
you are asking a bit much.

If it hardware acceleration weren't important for the battery then I would
agree with you that Apple should implement WebM pronto (while still keeping
AVC). As it is, I think there are not clear rights or wrongs, and it's up to
each company to decide what they think we'll be best.

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ugh
I don’t think it’s such a big drama. My prediction would be that h.264 will
continue to dominate in the next years, either displayed using Flash with a
HTML5 fallback (for mobile Webkit browsers) or the other way around, depending
on how that whole Flash thing turns out. Heck, that’s not even much of a
prediction, that’s pretty much reality right now. What Firefox does or doesn’t
do doesn’t matter, the next changes will only come with the next generation of
codecs.

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bombs
OS X and Windows have licensed encoders, right? Is it possible for Firefox and
others to use those on OS X and Windows and use a less-than-legal decoder on
Linux as is, AFAIK, done for MP3s and DVDs?

~~~
CaptainZapp
I don't think it's the technical obstacles that much, then the principle of
the thing. And I can't say I disagree with it.

The GIF fiasco illustrated very visibly what cans of worms can be opened when
propriatary, patented technologies undermine open standards.

I tend to agree with the author that it's more of a pr coup then anything
else.

~~~
vetinari
Actually, there are also technical obstacles.

The first time there is an exploit in system-provided video decoder (any
decoder, not just H.264), you can be sure, who will get blamed for that - the
browser, of course. So any browser maker wants to make sure, that they can
update anything, that is being touched by web.

In case of Apple and Microsoft, they both can update the system provided H.264
decoder. In case of Opera, Mozilla and Google, they can not. This is one of
reasons, why all three browsers bundle their own decoders (the another one is
multi-platform consistency).

~~~
nanairo
I think there's a certain irony in this. Isn't FOSS a big proponent of these
sort of dependencies? I mean, whenever you discuss Windows or MacOS way of
installing software, you'll hear how Linux does it better because each
component is separate and therefore they can fix something upstream and your
software will automatically use it.

But suddenly now people complain because a piece of software doesn't have
control of their pieces...

How are these two views consistent?

(incidentally: I like the Linux's way, and try to replicate it as possible
with Macport).

~~~
adbge
I think this has more to do with GNU/Unix design philosophy rather than being
an explicit part of FLOSS ideology.

Also, you need to remember that GNU/Linux projects do have a certain amount of
control over upstream, seeing as the source is publicly available and can be
forked/modified. On the other hand, if Firefox relied on proprietary software,
they would be completely at the mercy of decisions made upstream.

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aloneinkyoto
The whole codec discussion instigated by the Mozilla Foundation is so mind-
numbingly odd that it makes me cringe. I fully understand the arguments that
creating a completely free and open source web browser is an important and
non-negotiable goal. Nevertheless the (non-existent) dilemma relies on the
false assumptions that:

1\. Deciding on a single codec that everyone should use for everything,
forever (or until we get to have the same discussion again with HTML6) is the
only way forward. Which is just stupid and ignorant. Different codecs are good
for different use cases. There is no "one true codec"and there never will be.
H.264 is a good all-around video codec for hi-def internet video, which is why
it is popular on sites like YouTube, etc.

2\. "Support" does not have to mean including code in the Firefox browser for
decoding H.264 video. It simply means that the browser makes a best effort try
to play the video. That's all that the end user really cares about, and that
is easily accomplished by using the codec frameworks already present in most
modern operating systems. Webkit uses Quicktime to play media on OS X and thus
supports all formats that Quicktime supports, for example.

~~~
CaptainZapp
"Deciding on a single codec that everyone should use for everything, forever
(or until we get to have the same discussion again with HTML6) is the only way
forward. Which is just stupid and ignorant."

Mozilla never dictated that there should _be only one codec_. It's my
understanding that they are happy to support any coded, which is not
encumbered by patents.

You're putting words into their mouth, which they never said in this form.

~~~
ubernostrum
Not quite. Mozilla was one of those pushing for the HTML5 spec to _require_
support for Ogg Theora. Fortunately, saner minds prevailed and explained what
a stupid thing it would be for a spec with an expected lifetime of a decade or
so to mandate a 2009-era (when this first started being an issue) codec.

~~~
blasdel
Correct, except that Theora (née VP3) is really a 2000-era codec (and one of
the worst of its generation)

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gamble
One day, the Mozilla folks are going to wake up and realize that all the
opinion-makers abandoned them for Safari and Chrome.

