Hi, I'm new to this list, so hello. I'm not a Debian developer, but I think I should bring something to your attention that may impact badly on Debian.
The WHATWG ( http://www.whatwg.org/ - that's mostly Apple, Opera and Mozilla) are currently discussing an extension to HTML - the <video> element. The basic plan is that browsers can embed and play video content without the need of a plugin. Because of this browsers need to ship with at least one video and one audio codec. Thanks to the free nature of the Ogg formats the current draft ( http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#video ) reads | 3.14.7.1. Video and audio codecs for video elements | | User agents may support any video and audio codecs and container | formats. | | User agents should support Ogg Theora video and Ogg Vorbis audio, as | well as the Ogg container format. [THEORA] [VORBIS] [OGG]" This basically means the free Ogg formats, which are included in Debian already, form a basic set of codecs that are recommended to be supported by all browsers. Recently Apple joined the discussion and questioned if the Ogg formats should get such a recommendation ( http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2007-March/010392.html ). The following discussion implies Apple wants to see MPEG4 being used for embedded video in browsers. These codecs are not free (they demand a fee for it) and restrict distribution of software containing them. This would mean Debian may have to strip support for <video> from all shipped browsers. That would mean many Debian users can't legally access parts of the web. I think it could help if someone from Debian could join the discussion and summarizes the issues that may arise from using non-free codecs in web browsers. Thanks, Maik Merten -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
