past articles

Google to Open VP8

April/30/Friday 2010


googlerocks


newteevee reports that Google will announce the opening of VP8 at the Google I/O, which starts on May 19, 2010.
After yesterday’s news of the self-serving lies poured from Steve Jobs’ Open Letter, we have some good news:


Why is this huge? Because if Flash video is to disappear, only to be replaced by another proprietary codec, H.264, the web and its billions of users will gain nothing.

MPEGLA, the entity which represents the patent holders of H.264, recently extended the term for royalty-free licensing until 2015. But, once everyone has adopted H.264 as the de facto video standard, there is a good chance licensing fees will be imposed.

If licensing fees are imposed, it will effectively preclude the development of viable non-commercial browsers, such as Mozilla. If H.264 is the defacto web standard and you want to stream video, you’ll have to use a commercial browser, which has paid royalties to MPEGLA.

Enters Google, the white knight of the web. Google recently acquired On2, the company which developed VP8. There had been rumors that Google was going to open VP8, and now it seems it is happening.

If it comes to pass, May 20th will be a great day for the open internet.

Then will come the real battle, between the forces of good (VP8) and evil (H.264).

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