[whatwg] Google's use of FFmpeg in Chromium and Chrome

On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 8:18 PM, Chris DiBona <cdibona at gmail.com> wrote:

> At this point I feel like we're giving open source advice to teams
> outside of Google, which is beyond our mission. We're comfortable with
> our compliance mission and feel it is accurate and correct. Other
> companies and people need to make their own decisions about
> compliance.
>
> Chris
>
> On Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 10:03 AM, Daniel Berlin<dannyb at google.com> wrote:
> > On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 8:50 PM, Daniel Berlin<dannyb at google.com> wrote:
> >> On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 7:52 PM, H?kon Wium Lie<howcome at opera.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>> This if statement seems to be true, and I therefore still don't
> >>> understand your reasoning.
> >>
> >> I've explained my position and reasoning, and we are going to have to
> >> agree to disagree, because it's clear neither of us are going to
> >> accept the other's viewpoint.
> >>
> >> My understanding of the example is consistent with the LGPL's goal
> >> statement at the start: "Therefore, we insist that any patent license
> >> obtained for a version of the library must be consistent with the full
> >> freedom of use specified in this license."
> >> The goal statement, at least to me, makes clear the example is talking
> >> about obtaining a patent license that covers the library directly, not
> >> that covers something that uses the library.
> >
> > Missed a sentence somehow.
> >
> > My understanding of the example is also consistent with the actual
> > legal clause in front of the example, and I use it to inform my
> > position on the example.  Taking a example from a paragraph out of the
> > surrounding context and trying to claim it stands alone seems a bit
> > strange to me, but i'm just a simple engilawyer.
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Open Source Programs Manager, Google Inc.
> Google's Open Source program can be found at http://code.google.com
> Personal Weblog: http://dibona.com
>

To me, it seems more like Google doesn't really want to take a position in
the matter regarding codecs and is taking the "weird" way out by using
ffmpeg. Given Google's dominance in search, which tends to bring people to
at least look at Google's products, anything Google does is examined with a
fine toothpick and commented about pretty much everywhere. So yes, anything
Google does will be taken as an example for others, regardless of the sane
way to do it. Even if Google's method is sane to them and not to others,
people will take it as otherwise.

That's fine if Google doesn't want to take a position, but this squabbling
does not help anything at all....

And the <video> tag will be rendered useless if no default codec is
specified. Same for <audio>.

Whatever... People, Google's choice to use FFmpeg doesn't have anything to
do HTML 5 other than it shows Google's neutrality. If they take a position
later, they should show it in their browser too, but I have a feeling they
won't.
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Received on Saturday, 6 June 2009 18:40:14 UTC