Idealism vs. pragmatism: Mozilla debates supporting H.264 video playback

Source: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news...la-debates-supporting-h264-video-playback.ars

 

They will.

 

Good choice IMHO.

 

http://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2012/03/18/video-user-experience-and-our-mission/

 

They're doing this for 2 reasons:
1) Google is still using h.264 on Youtube
2) Chrome still supports h.264 a year after they said they would not - leaving Firefox as the only browser that doesn't natively support it.

 

This is what I was going to point out. The whole "remove h.264" fixation came after Google threatened to remove it from Chrome, then it seemed like Firefox tried to jump on the "bandwagon" early, but Google never followed.

Even Microsoft made a plugin to add h264 support to Firefox after they removed it: http://www.interoperabilitybridges.com/html5-extension-for-wmp-plugin

 

It wasn't a bandwagon issue. Mozilla wants a free/ open internet, legitimately. Chrome/ Google worry a lot more about financial issues and because of a recent deal they made for h.264 it's now easier for them to stick to it.

This leaves Mozilla in a really crappy position because Google made a promise over a year ago that they didn't follow through with.

 

You contradict yourself. The whole reason Mozilla went through with it was because they thought Google was going to go through with it. 2 reasonably popular browsers making a drastic change together can influence the internet, 1 cannot. This is why they have had to re-think their decision, because right now, it's harming them more than it's doing good.

 

I think of bandwagoning as doing something purely because it's what everyone else was doing. This isn't the case - Moz wanted to move away from h.264 and when Google said they were moving youtube and chrome away from it they were able to do it as well.

But yes, because Google backed out of their decision Firefox is left having to default to Flash.

 

Good point!