Yes, I think this acquisition is clearly related to HTML5's video and audio tags, the inability of mostly apple to get their shit together in regards to Theora.
The problem is: One of apple's complaints is actually a fair point: On mobile devices, theora sucks, bad. This isn't Xiph's fault at all - they've put in a lot of effort to steer clear of patents, even the crazy/ridiculous ones, which makes apple's second complaint (afraid of submarine patents) such an insult when they list is together with the performance issue. The performance is bad on mobile devices BECAUSE of panicky jackasses like you, apple! In my book it might have been more efficient to buy up some of the involved patents, give em to xiph, and sign a protection racket of sorts that google will bring its patent portfolio to bear on any company that attempts to assault ogg, vorbis, or theora with a patent. I'm guessing that you can't do that without running foul of some laws, though. Acquiring On2 (who built the codec that has formed the basis of OggTheora!) is the next best thing to acquiring xiph, which isn't possible. It's a loose foss group. It's like buying linux - can't be done. Of course, if google did prop up Theora's patent protection by way of Gathering a bunch under the On2 banner and officially handing them over to the public domain, and they put the On2 crew on making a good hardware solution to playing Theora videos (which, again, is tech that the On2 crew is very familiar with), there's still some politics to clear. If I were in google's shoes and I wanted to kill my flash dependency in the browser we released (Chrome), as well as the OS we are currently making (Chrome OS), as well as a major website we run (youtube), this is a no-brainer. People who know the codec(s) in question to solve the speed issue, as well as a strategic front for patent wars - both to acquire a bunch, as well as to have an open book into a good source of potential prior art. On Aug 7, 7:43 pm, Casper Bang <casper.b...@gmail.com> wrote: > What about the Android perspective? I've seen zero speculation towards > this, but it would be nice with more codecs (open source or not) on > this device. In any event, it does not seem like providers nor > consumers stands to loose anything by Google taking over On2, except > potentially Adobe. > > /Casper > > On 7 Aug., 16:54, Chris Adamson <invalidn...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > At a more abstract level, Google could and should be concerned that so > > much video on the web is in a proprietary format that's beyond their > > control (i.e., Flash). They may intend to use On2's codecs (not just > > the dated Theora, but also VP6, VP7, etc.) as a wedge against that. > > But then again, that presumes that Chrome, or at least a Google- > > provided video-playing plug-in, is strong enough to dislodge Flash. > > Seems doubtful to me. Maybe they think that their marketing can make > > these codecs competitive with H.264 for commercial uses? Doesn't seem > > like Google's usual turf. > > > So, I don't get it. I used to think Google could be the white knight > > that saved Java Media <http://www.oreillynet.com/onjava/blog/2007/01/ > > rebooting_java_media_part_iii.html>, but now I think that ship has > > sailed. > > > --Chris > > > On Aug 7, 8:10 am, Joe Data <karsten.s...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > But like the image tag, there's no defined formats for that. The > > > Register also thinks Google will open source on2's video codecs to > > > push HTML 5 > > > forward:http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/06/google_vp6_open_source/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to javaposse@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to javaposse+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
