It's very simple - a significant share of the browser market was never going to support <video> with H.264. In which case you end up with a fragmented market and everybody's using wrappers like Flash anyhow.
Of the available formats, WebM is the one most likely to eventually get everyone on the same page. Without that, <video> never really becomes a standard.
It's been posted elsewhere in the thread several times, but if you have a few minutes, this is probably the single best article I've seen on the whole mess:
http://antimatter15.com/wp/2011/01/the-ambiguity-of-open-and...
If MS jumps on board, which wouldn't shock me at all, you've got 90% of the browser market signed on.
What would aid adoption of <video> is if there was a single codec that all browsers supported. That requires that browsers add codec support, however, not remove it--either Firefox and Opera would need to add H.264 support (unlikely), or the various platforms that don't support WebM would need to add it (impossible in some cases, since the hardware support isn't there).
Because given a sufficient timescale, WebM support in <video> might become ubiquitous. I've made it very clear I'm talking long-term, not tomorrow.
>What would aid adoption of <video> is if there was a single codec that all browsers supported.
There is a chance for this to eventually happen with WebM. It was never going to happen on any timescale with H.264. My point is simply playing on probabilities.
> (impossible in some cases, since the hardware support isn't there).
People keep harping on this, and while it may be unfortunate that some devices get left behind, as I've posted elsewhere in the thread, mobile currently only represents 3% of web traffic. The mobile web is still very much in its infancy and there's still plenty of time for things to change, even fundamentally in some places.
I feel like we're talking in circles here. How does dropping support for H.264 make WebM support in other browsers more likely to become ubiquitous? How would retaining H.264 support make WebM support in other browsers less likely to be so?
WebM doesn't have the same problems that were keeping that last 20% from adopting H.264. With Google, Mozilla, and Opera, you've got about 30% of the market on board with WebM already. If Microsoft can be convinced to adopt WebM (and, honestly, I don't think that's too much of a stretch), that's around 90% of the market signed up.
If that happens, your only holdout is Apple, and I think even Apple is going to have a hard time stonewalling the change given the way they've spent the last year preaching the wonders of the open web.
So, basically, what I'm getting at is that with WebM, there's at least a chance everyone could end up settling on a ubiquitous codec. With H.264, we already know it would never happen. An unknown probability greater than zero is a better prospect than a p=0, in my book.
>How would retaining H.264 support make WebM support in other browsers less likely to be so?
Fragmentation. <video> isn't a useful standard unless you know it's going to work. Some browsers supporting one codec and others another makes that impossible.
If everyone supports WebM, then WebM wrapped in a <video> element is a viable choice.
Not everyone supports WebM at the moment.
How does Chrome dropping support for H.264 bring us closer to everyone supporting WebM? Support for the two codecs isn't mutually exclusive. Google is no more on board with WebM today than they were yesterday--they've removed support for H.264, not added it for WebM.
They've made it very clear the intention is to add it. I've said it's not happening overnight, and I really don't understand this attitude that if it hasn't happened instantly then everything is worse.
They've made it very clear the intention is to add [WebM]. I've said it's not happening overnight, and I really don't understand this attitude that if it hasn't happened instantly then everything is worse.
Chrome supports WebM right now.
Support for WebM and H.264 is not mutually exclusive. You can support one, you can support the other, or you can support both. That's what Chrome has done up until now: Support both. You could use either one, and it would play them back perfectly well.
Chrome is not adding support for WebM. They aren't adding support for it, because they already support it and have done so for as long as it existed.
Switching to a world in which everyone supports WebM in <video> tags does not require that a single browser drop support for any format--not H.264, not Theora, not anything.
Neither.
The debate is about what's best for the web, period. Some people consider open standards to be a priori superior. Others (like Gruber) do not. (I'm taking your usage of "open standard" to include freedom from patent encumbrance.)
Your last statement is a critical point in this debate: You assert that Chrome dropping H.264 support "could help HTML5 <video> see better adoption." This is not an uncontroversial statement, to put it mildly.
I frankly don't see how this move will aid adoption of the <video> element. Yesterday, sites could encode to H.264 and provide a <video> element to some browsers and a Flash container to others. Today, the same is true. Yesterday, sites could encode to both H.264 and WebM. Today, the same is true. The only thing that has changed is that the number of browsers that require a Flash wrapper to play H.264 content has increased.
Sites will potentially use the <video> element over a Flash container for several reasons:
* If they cannot use Flash. This is the case on iOS devices. iOS has done more to drive adoption of <video> than any other factor to date.
* For political reasons. Dropping H.264 support from Chrome will not change this; a site that avoids Flash because it is not free was presumably already encoding to WebM.
* Because the <video> element provides a better end-user experience.
For sites where this third case applies, dropping H.264 support may result in increased usage of WebM. However, note that this is not the same as increasing adoption of the <video> element--dropping H.264 may influence the codec choices of sites that have already chosen <video> over Flash, but it has no influence on sites that are willing to use Flash.
I would be interested to hear your arguments on how dropping H.264 could increase usage of the <video> element in the long term. I just don't see a case for it.
I do see a case that dropping H.264 might increase adoption of WebM. I am, however, dubious. So long as H.264 in a Flash wrapper is a viable fallback, I don't see any site choosing to encode to WebM as a result of this change. (Sites may choose to encode to WebM for other reasons--preference for freer standards or freedom from licensing fees--but in these cases, they would encode to WebM even if H.264 was available in Chrome.)
So, to summarize: You are trying to frame the debate in terms of freedom alone. It is entirely valid to prefer freer technologies and to make decisions based on freedom. This is not, however, the only possible debate, and it is not the debate John Gruber is engaging in. To accuse him of hypocrisy in supporting H.264 but not Flash is to misunderstand his argument.