[whatwg] The truth about Nokias claims

--- Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch> wrote:

> 
> I'd like to thank everyone for their continued
> polite participation 

:)

Politeness is not always the way to move a
conversation forward.

> [...]
>  3. Are you saying something that will just be
> denied, without leading us 
>     to resolve the issue? If yes, please omit that
> part of your e-mail.

After a little sleep, a suggestion occurs to me. (I
have not read all the subthreads, maybe it has been
made already, if so, mea culpa.)

I'm not really sure whether it makes sense to name a
recommended codec as a baseline, rather than as an
example. 

In an ideal world, it would make sense. Or, rather, if
we knew that Apple (and others?) would at least be
willing to open their phones to 3rd party codecs.
(Yes, the third party codecs can be built, if the API
for the container is truly open.)

Nokia has stood up for a certain (informal? I don't
remember.) consortium against ogg. They are insisting
on balkanization, which is a modern word meaning
patronage. (Pardon my strong language. Patronage was a
central part of the system that generated the Boston
Tea Party, as one might recall. We, that is, those of
us who inherit from the Magna Carta, have been here
before.)

The standard, therefore could present ogg as an
example of the sort of open container that would be
standard compliant, and recommend it as a conditional
best practice. It could require an open, documented
API sufficient for 3rd parties to implement against. 

Plugins? My memory of the ascension of Flash was that
I sure had to go find and load plugins for it on a lot
of the platforms on which I worked in the mid-late
'90s. 

3rd party plugins can be a solution.

(Sorry about the strong language, but, yes, I do
believe the information technology industry is the
current battleground where the question of freedom for
the future is being fought, and I don't believe all
the players are fully aware of the consequences of the
roads they are choosing. That is, I am willing to
believe Steve Balmer has bitten the snake, but others
I would prefer to be less cynical about, including the
other Steve.)

joudanzuki


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Received on Friday, 14 December 2007 16:04:13 UTC