Sam Morris schrieb: > It's probably more accurate to say that no matter what the standard says, > Microsoft will ignore it and only implement Windows Media formats, which > everyone will use, and we'll be screwed. :(
Microsoft is not part of WHATWG. Having a free video format in browsers like Firefox and Opera (or Safari, if that's what you like) is a good thing no matter what. Once Microsoft implements <video> (that may take a long time, they're not really fast adopting new standards that are not their own) there may be enough content out there to make them look not so clever if they don't support the baseline format that is long since in use (well, that didn't stop Microsoft in the past, though) Anyway, even if Microsoft joins the party with "Windows Media only" the free software community has a common interchange format in place for their own web-video needs (how many of you use the Microsoft Internet Explorer?). Taken that e.g. Mozilla and the KHTML team aren't able to build browsers with integrated (that's what <video> is for: Video without plugins) MPEG4 support without the appended patent licenses restricting the freedom of distribution it's worth to try to get a free format into as many browsers as possible. Here in Germany (according to what stats you trust) the Mozilla based browsers have a market share beyond 30%. If Mozilla happens to support a free format but Microsoft decides to use Windows Media content providers most likely need to provide a free codec version of their content anyway - and that'd mean Debian users can enjoy at least some of the content. No matter what: Having Mozilla and Opera support a free format is good in any case. If something proprietary gets recommended Debian can only lose. If a free format is in place Debian users can at least watch parts of the content no matter what Microsoft does. Maik Merten -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
