Excellent post Dick. Just one addendum: These days you no longer need to pay for Quicktime on Mac os X to use the fullscreen feature. Not that that's particularly relevant here; I as you doubt Quicktime itself, as an app, is something apple is actively pushing.
On May 17, 7:40 pm, Dick Wall <dickw...@gmail.com> wrote: > Now we are starting to get to some of the real meat of the discussion. > > On May 17, 4:18 am, Chris Adamson <invalidn...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > 1. I think the call for replacing Flash with HTML5 ducks the question > > of DRM. There's nothing in the spec for the video tag that covers DRM, > > so it's not clear to me that it would even be suitable for DRM'ed > > video. Apple could embrace-and-extend the tag, which I think is what > > you're afraid of, but with Mac at 5% market share and iPhone OS under > > 1%, it wouldn't work. More likely, those services would attend to > > iPhone OS users by just writing a native app, like Netflix, YouTube, > > ABC, Crunchyroll, etc. have done. > > Apple has shown (via QuickTime, iTunes, etc.) that they get that > market by covering Apple platforms, and somewhat less well, Windows - > giving enough market penetration to succeed. Of course, Linux, > Android, Palm, Solaris, etc. are not invited to the party. It is > absolutely clear to me that Apple would push their DRM as part of the > "standard", since they have already done so on Windows for these > applications. > > > > > 2. For non-DRM media, an HTML5 web with H.264 payloads will play in > > more places than Flash currently does. For DRM, it will likely be less > > (or we'll see more of the current scenario: Flash on the web, native > > apps for iPhone OS and possibly other platforms, like Android). > > Yes - on this point we agree. DRMd video (which is what the content > rights holders want) will take a big step back over where it is now > with Flash. DRM is bad, yes, DRM on fewer platforms is worse. > > > > > 3. The idea of "openness" is only one of the six points in Jobs' > > essay, specifically that as a multimedia runtime for the web, > > JavaScript+CSS+<canvas>+<video> is a public standard, clearly and > > obviously much more "open" than the proprietary Flash (whether it's > > seriously viable as a replacement technology, especially in the > > absence of designer-friendly tools is another matter entirely). The > > rest of his essay doesn't address openness, and indeed, the last > > section is explicitly about Apple maintaining control of its own > > platform by disallowing intermediate layers. > > It's also the first point he brings up as in "First, there's open" - > clearly it matters to him that this move be seen as crusading for open > standards on the web. This, as an open standards kind of guy, is the > part that particularly sticks in my craw. For someone usually > associated with good taste, I believe Jobs displays quite a lack of it > here, but that's by the by. > > The rest of the essay is much more honest about Apple motives. The > first point on openness is disingenuous. > > > > > Having said that, do I think he cares if Hulu works on Linux? Of > > course not: Linux is a competitor. It's up to the Linux community to > > solve this problem for themselves., which is where I think they fail > > badly. To ensure that content providers take care of them, they need > > to be picking up millions of new users every month, like iPhone OS is > > doing, not posting millions of strident blogs every month. > > Ah, but Hulu *does* work on Linux, it works pretty well actually both > on the web and as a standalone app. They even have a Linux specific > download link: > > http://www.hulu.com/labs/hulu-desktop > > (By the way, it's a flash app) > > As to your second point, what an excellent segue, since I have been > struggling to put together some analysis numbers myself (these are > surprisingly difficult to find, one can only speculate on why). > > In the first month, the iPad sold around a million units according to > the most favorable reports I have seen. Impressive stuff, but also > with the pent up demand and a pretty large hype machine to back it up. > > In the same month, the same month mind as the iPad came out, netbooks > alone sold (as far as I can tell) 7-8 times that number. 600% to 700% > more to put it another way. Despite some pretty slanted articles, the > netbook market continues to grow (albeit slower than the stupidly > large gains they had last year - the gains that put Apple's thinking > towards trying to get some of that market): > > http://www.mediabistro.com/mobilecontenttoday/netbooks/asus_projects_... > > Now, I know that many of those netbooks sell with Windows, not Linux > on them. However the following article estimates that 1/3 of them > still sell with Linux (and some more will have Linux added through > distros like netbook remix which is fabulous now): > > http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS5114054156.html > > so, if we look at a bit of oversimplified mathematics, that still > makes the number of Linux netbooks sold in the same month that the > iPad launched over double the sales of the iPad! Plus there are the > 2.5 years of wild netbook sales prior to that. Also just out, in Q1, > more Android OS powered devices sold than iPhones (Android is Linux, > don't forget that): > > http://lifehacker.com/5535463/remains-of-the-day-android-outsells-the... > > So, Linux seems to be doing better than the iPhone OS already. Why the > hell isn't this bigger news already? > > Now though, we get to the real threat, the reason so many of the open > source community are worried about these developments. Projects like > VLC show that the open source community will indeed provide their own > solutions to video playback - very good solutions in fact - I know > people who prefer to use VLC over quicktime player on a mac because it > is faster, lighter, plays more video codecs - at least those without > DRM, and goes full screen without having to pay for a pro version (is > that still the case with quicktime? It might not be, but it used to > be). > > However, DRM changes the rules, and that is why it is such a danger > and such a great stick for companies like Apple to beat open source > with. DRM means that the open source community *cannot* solve this > problem - at least not legally. It removes not only the level playing > field, but it arrests the players from the other team and throws them > in jail. > > This also reinforces the problems of selling Linux to people. Since no > amount of open source effort can (legally) make Linux able to play > fairplay videos (or music), or NetFlix movies, to name but a couple, > of course that's going to put some people off buying it. This is not a > "these companies should support us" play, this is a "why do these > companies actively discriminate against us" question. The numbers here > should make it clear that a Linux Netflix player, for example, would > find more potential machines to run on than the iPad has (both sales > last month, and massive number of sales in the 2.5 years since > netbooks started taking off) yet not only does such a player not > exist, there is no way to actually write one. Mono has added the video > support necessary to play videos using Silverlight, but the DRM is > still held hostage so it cannot do so. Do you see where my (and others > in the OSS community) frustration comes from? > > By the way, I would love to get better solid numbers for sales of > Linux equipped Netbooks. If anyone knows of a better source, I would > love to have it. My suspicion is that there are at least an order of > magnitude more Linux netbooks out in the world than iPads and that the > gap will continue to widen, but I would love to have better data to > confirm that. Hereby crowdsourcing it. Anyone? > > > > > > > > > In response to your final graf, about popularity: this is why I > > brought up the statistics about relative web and TV viewership (the > > latter has a more than 50-to-1 advantage), and the idea that ecosystem > > benefits like encoder competition trickle down to end-users. > > Commercial interests drive competition and innovation in H.264 > > encoding, which pays off not only for them (cable companies can get > > more channels out of their existing coax or fiber), but eventually for > > everyone else who consumes 264, including Flash players (since Flash > > adopted 264 as a video codec back in 2007). The widespread commercial > > interest in 264 also means there's hardware support for it, which is > > critical on mobile devices. > > > Of course, the best way to beat Jobs is to prove him wrong. Maybe > > Android can do that. It's certainly doing well at the moment. > > I think it already has started... > > > > > -Chris > > > On May 16, 10:56 pm, Dick Wall <dickw...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > OK Chris, let's boil it down to the simplest of simple questions, > > > since your answers don't seem to be addressing my points at all. > > > > 1. Do you think that Apple's suggested replacement web video delivery > > > mechanism (the whole combination of codec, DRM, player, basically the > > > stack that it takes to get video to play in a browser on an end user > > > machine - what flash is predominantly used for right now) will work on > > > all platforms well, including Linux, Solaris, Android, Palm OS, etc. > > > in addition to Apple platforms and Windows? > > > > 2. Will Apple's video delivery solution play in more, or less, places > > > than flash video does right now? > > > > 3. Given that Apple switches to proprietary desktop apps for delivery > > > of content instead of the web as soon as they can (iTunes, iBooks, > > > etc. etc.) do you really not find it the height of hypocrisy for Steve > > > Jobs to wrap his missive against flash up under the colors of > > > openness? > > > > You keep separating out DRM from H.264 and technically you are > > > correct. Pragmatically I just want content to play on the devices I > > > want it to play on over the web. Personally I believe this is a play > > > by Apple against that. Flash does let me do that on most devices (more > > > all the time - e.g Android 2.2). In the end, my point is it just has > > > to work. > > > > Oh, and if you just look at how entrenched H.264 video is, what about > > > Flash? Sure, many flash players are playing H.264, and many aren't. > > > Point is > > ... > > read more » -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to javapo...@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.
