[Bug 11614] AAC and MP4 are ABSOLUTELY not acceptable for the open web. I don't care how many strings Apple are pulling - keep your patented encumbered trash - we don't want it.

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=11614

Aryeh Gregor <Simetrical+w3cbug@gmail.com> changed:

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--- Comment #2 from Aryeh Gregor <Simetrical+w3cbug@gmail.com> 2010-12-29 20:00:35 UTC ---
HTML5 does not require or encourage browsers to support AAC, MP4, or any other
format.  What change do you want made to the specification?

Note that changing the spec to prohibit support of patent-encumbered formats
would not actually make any browsers stop supporting them.  Thus no such change
is likely, because the spec's primary goal is to reflect reality.  This is why
the spec no longer requires Theora support.

(In reply to comment #1)
> I think JPEG and GIF have patents too. Should we get rid of them too ?

GIF was finalized in 1989, so all its patents have necessarily expired.  JPEG
might theoretically have patents that apply to it, and some parties have tried
to enforce patents on it (and failed AFAICT), but JPEG users do not typically
pay royalties.  The JPEG committee, like the W3C, operates on the principle
that its standards should be usable royalty-free.  Ogg, Theora, Vorbis, V8,
Matroska, and WebM are all developed under similar principles.

The MPEG group operates on the totally incompatible principle of "reasonable
and non-discriminatory" patent fees, so AAC and MP4 are covered by a large
number of known and aggressively enforced patents.  Thus their patent situation
is not really comparable at all.

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Received on Wednesday, 29 December 2010 20:00:37 UTC