Comments on: (R)evolution Number 5 http://blog.mozilla.com/standards/2009/07/02/revolution-number-5/ Open Standards. Open Source. Open Platform. Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:23:01 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Hamranhansenhansen http://blog.mozilla.com/standards/2009/07/02/revolution-number-5/comment-page-1/#comment-3822 Hamranhansenhansen Fri, 31 Jul 2009 02:21:24 +0000 http://blog.mozilla.com/standards/?p=21#comment-3822 Firefox 3.5 is so good I really feel it should have been called Firefox 4. The ragged version numbers are not end-user friendly and people think they're only getting bugfixes, even with a .5 version. The typography is gorgeous, at least in the Mac version, I haven't seen the others yet. The speed is great. The cross-platform support is awesome. HTML 5 is essential, we are going to see some great stuff over the next few years. On the ISO MPEG-4 H.264/AAC issue, though, Mozilla is 180 degrees wrong. I wish I could think of some way to say even more wrong than 180 degrees. Like embarrassingly wrong. What you're saying may make sense to other software developers, but to audio video producers or tool or player manufacturers you sound like raving crazy people. You say you have a licensing issue, and you propose that the solution is not for you to work around it, but instead the world should obsolete 99% of the Web's audio video including YouTube and iTunes and also obsolete every single audio video device made since the first iPod, including Blu-Ray, and also obsolete all of the digital media creation tools made during the 21st century. And the best part is that we are to use vaporware Ogg replacements. What makes it even worse is the offensive idea that Web standardization trumps existing audio video standardization. But what makes that even worse is that Web standardization has always failed, and audio video standardization has always succeeded. For almost 20 years anyone has been able to make MPEG or CD or DVD media or players, but on the Web we are all making IE 6 apps up until just recently and always hoping for better. I hope HTML 5 is finally the standardized Web, but think about the hubris involved when Mozilla tells the world it has been using the wrong audio video format for the last 10 years and we need to re-encode everything so we can see it in Firefox. It is embarrassing. Firefox 3.5 is so good I really feel it should have been called Firefox 4. The ragged version numbers are not end-user friendly and people think they’re only getting bugfixes, even with a .5 version. The typography is gorgeous, at least in the Mac version, I haven’t seen the others yet. The speed is great. The cross-platform support is awesome. HTML 5 is essential, we are going to see some great stuff over the next few years.

On the ISO MPEG-4 H.264/AAC issue, though, Mozilla is 180 degrees wrong. I wish I could think of some way to say even more wrong than 180 degrees. Like embarrassingly wrong. What you’re saying may make sense to other software developers, but to audio video producers or tool or player manufacturers you sound like raving crazy people. You say you have a licensing issue, and you propose that the solution is not for you to work around it, but instead the world should obsolete 99% of the Web’s audio video including YouTube and iTunes and also obsolete every single audio video device made since the first iPod, including Blu-Ray, and also obsolete all of the digital media creation tools made during the 21st century. And the best part is that we are to use vaporware Ogg replacements.

What makes it even worse is the offensive idea that Web standardization trumps existing audio video standardization. But what makes that even worse is that Web standardization has always failed, and audio video standardization has always succeeded. For almost 20 years anyone has been able to make MPEG or CD or DVD media or players, but on the Web we are all making IE 6 apps up until just recently and always hoping for better. I hope HTML 5 is finally the standardized Web, but think about the hubris involved when Mozilla tells the world it has been using the wrong audio video format for the last 10 years and we need to re-encode everything so we can see it in Firefox. It is embarrassing.

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