Oxymoron of the day: Government Organisation
|
|
|
Microsoft defends its move to H.264
SOFTWARE MONOPOLIST Microsoft has defended its recent announcement to follow Apple and adopt the proprietary H.264 video standard in Internet Exploder.
Writing in his blog, Volish manager Dean Hachamovitch said it is all about providing certainty in the world.
"Developers have consistently conveyed that they want certainty and predictability in the underlying browser platform," he wrote. "We want to deliver a great HTML5 experience in IE9 with great certainty."
Paradoxically he said that certainty informs a lot of choices, such as which of the many standards still under construction to use.
Hachamovitch said H.264 video offers a more certain path than other video formats. He said Microsoft thinks that it is the best available video codec today for HTML5 for its customers.
It also provides the best "certainty and clarity" with respect to legal rights from the many companies that have patents in this area, he claimed.
Hachamovitch said that an open source alternative is not really a good idea. "Many assume that availability of source code under an open source license implies that there are no additional costs, or that the code has properly secured necessary intellectual property rights from all rightful owners," he said. However Volish experience indicates otherwise, he claimed.
For other codecs, such as Flash, it's not clear today how rights will be determined for commercial scenarios and what the costs will be.
Microsoft apparently thinks that, by virtue of existing commercial use in a wide variety of products implemented by a large number of companies, H.264 minimizes uncertainty for consumers and developers.
However it seems clear that Microsoft is scared to death that a free and open video standard will win in the marketplace. That will leave the Vole rattling its tin cup beside the information superhighway, trying to collect tolls from a passing stream of Internet traffic that ignores it. µ
Share this:
Share
Both Microsoft and Apple inform us that we will be "better off" using proprietary media formats that have uncertain future licensing costs associated with them.
Google, on the other hand, buys ON2 for $133 M, and then offers to open-source this codec (which is more efficient and "better" than H.264) and freely donate it to the world (including Microsoft and Apple).
Which company seems to be respecting (or even considering) user's and developer's rights? If H.264 became a monopolistic web standard, everyone will be at the mercy of licensing costs that can be increased at a whim, shutting out small companies, and only allowing the BIG PLAYERS (like Microsoft and Apple) to continue to operate on the web. And instead of trying to help and support the gift of the ON2 codec, Apple and Microsoft condemn it.
This sounds anticompetitive to me, and I hope it sounds this way to government regulators and all citizens. Citizens who ARE free to withhold their purchasing dollars from both Apple and Microsoft, and instead support other companies that respect their rights and freedoms.
It is hard to predict which "face" Microsoft will speak from next. Is is the "nice, open-source-friendly" Microsoft:
http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/
Or is it the anti-open-source, anti-Google, anti-freedom company that is:
- Opposing the use of open-source, free codecs that can put all software companies on a level playing field and guarantee interoperability for all (as depicted in this article)?
- Opposing and hindering the use of open document formats that can do the same this for information exchange, instead of breaking the stranglehold that proprietary Microsoft formats hold over the world's IT systems and allowing interoperability?
- Continuing its FUD campaign against open source and Linux in particular, extorting Mafia-like "protection money" from little companies that dare to use open source (as its evil twin Apple is also doing with HTC).
- and so on...
I think it better just to ignore both faces of Microsoft, and support companies that honestly care about open standards and cooperatively working with others (concepts that Microsoft will never understand).
Please let Open GL take over from Apple, MS and Adobe and make the internet free.
Maybe its worth mentioning that apple and ms have a stake into the h.264 market. The price of consuming h.264 is going to go up since it has to make up ground from the free licensing days.
Pop goes the weasel.
When the license comes up for review I'll bet a £1 to a pinch of shit that it will have a royalty imposed on it.