[theora] Safari 4 Plays Theora/Vorbis

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 2:45 PM, Remco<remco47 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 6:19 PM, Gregory Maxwell<gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I wouldn't hold my breath with Apple: Their rejection of open and
>> unencumbered multimedia formats has a long history.  For this reasons
>> it is important that XiphQT be made as sold and as easy as possible.
>> Right now the installation process is somewhat convoluted.  Once the
>> install process is completely painless it'll will be easier to
>> convince site operators to adopt "Nag the user to install XiphQT" as a
>> 'fallback'" rather than "fall back to flash".
>
> There is also the possibility that the site would use H.264 with
> <video>, since both Microsoft and Apple will probably support that at
> one point. What's the plan to prevent that from happening?

Sure.
(1) They can pay royalties, or play legal-dodge ball and gain improved
compatibility with IE while losing compatibility with Firefox (and
probably opera).

(2) Or they can use Ogg/Theora, avoid the royalties while operating
legally. They can use Cortado (java) as a fall-back that works on a
significant majority of desktops and they can ask users to install
software to either replace their IE or augment it with a supportable
method (i.e. JVM for cortado, or VLC).

The latter option may have worse compatibility in the short term but
it's in the sites best interest over the long term and the best
interest of the public at large.  Flash itself is an existence proof
that nagging is effective, and Firefox is a powerful incentive.

Society surrounds us with examples of things that can only be achieved
by our ability to accept short-term discomfort in order to achieve a
long term gain.  I have hope.

Our (the members of this list, or the community of people aware of
theses issues) task is to make sure that option two is as easy or
easier than option 1; and to make sure that people consider the
implications of their decisions. We have to go to the musicians and
ask them "Now that the internet has freed you from *having* to deal
with the recording industry in order to practice your art, are you
eager to accept a new master in the form of via-licensing and their
distribution royalties?"



We can also develop additional fallbacks to make the gap smaller: An
activex video tag replacement for ie and Flash10 Ogg/Therora are both
technically conceptually simple, but we currently lack the people in
our community with the skills, interests, and time to make them
happen. We can, and have successfully, lobbied groups to adopt the
technology.

Most of this doesn't require a central plan: Go spot a problem and
resolve it.  There is still a lot of fertile soil here.