On Jul 11, 2009, at 12:54 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
Not really, at some point well before then the argument will shift to a newer clearly superior to H.264 encumbered format. I would expect that H.264 would spend a period of time as a non-consideration by almost everyone since it would be inferior to something newer and yet would still require fees.
You may be right. On the other hand, Theora and it's immediate precursor have been around for about a decade, and Theora is still considered to be contender quality-wise.
This was a minor side point to what I think is the main point: <video> should use the fallback content as a last resort if none of the provided sources are suitable. If you are right that in a decade current codecs may all be obsolete, that is supporting evidence for this position. A final <source> fallback to a baseline codec may someday not be a suitable solution, if the baseline is considered obsolete by then and no one wants to use it.
Regards, Maciej
