Bonum Certa Men Certa

Mozilla is Fighting for Us

Firefox



Summary: The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) goes to WIPO and Mozilla advocates Ogg

Proprietary codecs are a nasty old barrier to the adoption of Free software because they are subjected to patent law in some countries that bow to software patents. MP3 is a good example of this and it was mentioned in this new opening statement from the FSFE's President, Karsten Gerloff. He faces a harsh (hostile) crowd which is a patent maximalist, WIPO.



This week, the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents is meeting in Geneva. From FSFE’s perspective, the two most important points on the agenda are the relation between standards and patents, and limitations to patentability.

We’ll go into details in the coming days. On patents and standards, one obvious point is that Free Software runs into all sorts of problems when implementing standards that include patented technology - just think of MP3.

The discussion about limitations to what can be patented is clearly very important for Free Software. Here, the delegates at WIPO will discuss, among other things, whether there should be international rules regarding patents on software.


"FSFE [is] not mentioning software patents in their statement, swpats are absent of the WIPO report on exceptions to patent law," remarks President of the FFII on the above. Well, how about MPEG-LA?

A few days ago we explained why people should support GNU/Linux-oriented Web browsers and Firefox too (my primary browser), just not Chrome with the ugly EULA or Opera which is proprietary. Mozilla has just given more reasons to favour Firefox. Mozilla is fighting for all of us to make Ogg part of HTML5 (and Web sites that use HTML5), whereas Apple and Nokia did exactly the opposite. The previous post explained how Apple uses patents against Free software, including the GNU/Linux operating system.

Here are some items from the news (we have mentioned more items among the daily links):

Mozilla defends Firefox's HTML5 support for only Ogg Theora video

But Firefox 3.6 supports only the Ogg Theora video codec and, currently, no other codecs. Mozilla had pushed for the Ogg codec to be the default for the <video> element, but this was not supported by the HTML5 working group who decided to leave the codec unspecified in the developing standard. This means that Firefox is unable to play the YouTube and Vimeo HTML5 videos.


Mozilla buries heels on un-YouTube open video

Mozilla vice president of engineering Mike Shaver has reiterated that the open source outfit has no intention of rolling the H.264 video codec into its Firefox browser, even though the likes of YouTube and Vimeo are using the patented codec with early versions of their plug-in-free HTML5 video players.

[...]

Google is working to purchase On2 Technologies, and it looks like the Mountain View giant is interested in open sourcing the outfit's video codecs to provide a license-free option offering performance above and beyond Ogg.


HTML5 video and H.264 – what history tells us and why we’re standing with the web

Mozilla defends Firefox's HTML5 support for only Ogg Theora video

Mozilla takes on YouTube video choice

Mozilla would have to pay $5 million to license the H.264 codec from MPEG-LA, the industry group that oversees the technology, said Mike Shaver, Mozilla's vice president of engineering in a blog post, and that doing so wouldn't grant rights of those such as Linux operating system companies who build products employing Mozilla's browser.


In summary, Mozilla will not let us work for the "MPEG cartel". It deserves credit for this. Mozilla is also actively working against software patents. In a later post we will show that Ubuntu is doing controversial new things with Firefox.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Peter Moon's (Computerworld) Interview With Richard Stallman
Stallman: If you want freedom don't follow Linus Torvalds
At What Point Does Outsourcing Constitute Malpractice?
Brett Wilson LLP's new staff page is misleading
From Do Your Own Research to Do Your Own Search
The Web is full of garbage; search engines amplify this garbage
 
The Modus Operandi of Wayland Pushers: Make It Political
do what I say or you're a nazi...
Links 23/06/2025: RFE/RL Contributor Vladyslav Yesypenko Released, Recording Industry Cutbacks
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Solicitors (M): Over 99.9% of Our E-mail is Self-Marketing, We Send You 3.5MB E-mails for Less Than 1KB of Text
Why would tech people entrust legal matters to such people?
United Arab Emirates (UAE) Sailing to GNU/Linux, According to statCounter
countries in that region will quickly learn the price of neglecting digital sovereignty
More People Moving to Geminispace?
at age 6+ Gemini Protocol seems to have gained some maturity and it seems like more people use it
Permutation in LLMs Does, Inevitably, Change Meanings and Therefore LLMs Cannot Properly Rephrase or Summarise Texts
LLMs lack actual grasp or comprehension of what they spew out
Links 23/06/2025: Many Security Breaches, Population Declines
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/06/2025: "America at the Crossroads" and OpenWRT Surgery
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 22, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 22, 2025
Pure Dove
Different means different, and sometimes those who "deviate" from "the norm" have a point
Censorship is a Sign of Weakness Which Invites More Censorship Attempts
revolutionaries don't succumb to pressure from bullies
Why It's Unlikely That LLM Slop Will Dominate the Web in the Long Run
Slopfarms will eventually perish (they have no actual value) and "survivors" on the Web will be sites that never depended on search engines and social control media
GNU/Linux in Argentina Now Measured Near 5%
Like in central Europe, they must be seeing an increasingly hostile US
BetaNews is Fake News, Composed by LLM Slop
nothing in BetaNews is written by humans anymore
Links 22/06/2025: Giving Up on Smartphones and 'Jaws' at 50
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/06/2025: Furniture Construction and Bubble for Comments
Links for the day
Links 22/06/2025: Windows TCO Tales and YouTube Getting More Hostile to Users
Links for the day
The FSF Board and FSF Beard
So the FSF's Board has grown
Law Firms Facing the Consequences for Patently Abusive Litigation on Behalf of Microsoft Employees Who Got Arrested for Strangulation and Had Done Even Worse Things
Having spent 1.5 years bullying me with patronising letters on behalf of Microsofters, last week they got served a massive bill and, in effect, lost the Hearing
New Report From the EPO's Staff Representatives in The Hague (LSCTH) Reveals Many Unsolved Issues
Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) wrote to staff just before the weekend
LLMs Breaking Everything
Computing and the Net became a playground for scammers and "bros", like people who "invented" fake currencies and also try to tell us that LLMs spewing out things will have some real value
Links 22/06/2025: More Slop Lawsuits (Copyrights) and "America’s Oligarch Problem"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/06/2025: Gigantic Toolchest and Annoying Bots
Links for the day
The Calling
Persist and persevere, justice will come your way
So Far Every BetaNews 'Article' is LLM Slop, So BetaNews is Officially Just a Slopfarm
They just don't seem to value what they have
IBM Rumour: Mass Layoffs (RAs) Lists Being Made for Consulting, With Effect in July 2025
Bogus companies with no viable products and no world-leading (in their field) staff are doomed to perish
Links 21/06/2025: Data Breach With 16 Billion Passwords, Dutch Government Recommends Children Under 15 Stay off TikTok and Instagram
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/06/2025: Notes about Typst (and LaTeX) and Opos
Links for the day
Microsoft's Competition Tactics: Sabotage GNU/Linux Installs, Block Chrome
Edge is dying
1989: Free Software as "Open" Software (OSI Didn't Coin "Open Source", It Also Predates Linux)
"One man's fight for Free software"
The Microsoft OOXML Modus Operandi: Throw 1,000 Pages of Other People's Work for a Judge to Read Ahead of a One-Hour Meeting
No time to discuss this - that's the point
Formalities Officers (FOs) at the EPO Are in Trouble, Reveals Internal Report
We already know, based on an HR pattern we saw at IBM and elsewhere, that reallocating roles can be prerequisite for dismissal and those who do so expect many to resign anyway
The Web is Slop and FUD, Let's Go to Gemini Protocol
Lupa sees self-signed capsules at 92.4%
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 20, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 20, 2025
Links 21/06/2025: Phone Bans for Concerts, Tensions in Taiwan Strait
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/06/2025: Spoilers, Public Yggdrasil Node, Changes to AuraGem Search
Links for the day