Building What's Next

My hands-on experience with software patents has been limited to ooh-ing and aah-ing over the black obelisks that Microsoft gives to employees who build patent-worthy features. Some people there had a whole platoon of these polished black chunks of granite. I was never involved with a patent filing at Microsoft, although I really envied those awards.
Perhaps that’s why I’ve regarded the software patent discussion as a largely academic matter. But I had to stand up and take notice as I followed the development of the <video> tag in HTML 5.

HTML 5 native video is supposed to be the the knight in shining armor that will unseat Flash as the king of web video. We’re counting on the <video> tag to save us from having to download plugins, bring web and mobile together with common video formats, and end global poverty.

Not going to happen. Back in 2007 the HTML 5 spec recommended a baseline video codec (Theora). The W3C removed it because the big companies (Microsoft, Apple, et al) were too afraid to adopt and distribute the codec due to patent risk. Nevermind that Theora is a free and open source codec with no known patent encumbrances. The mere possibility that there is some potential unknown patent out there was enough to freeze Theora out of the HTML5 spec. No one wanted to be first.

Fast-forward to the present day: There is still no baseline codec that all the big browser companies are comfortable with. HTML5 video is still essentially “coming soon”. The chilling effect of potential “submarine patents”, even for a product that the creators have specifically made free and unencumbered, has frozen innovation in the web video space.

Google has now come forward as the wannabe knight in shining armor by announcing WebM, their royalty-free, unencumbered video format. Chrome and Firefox will support WebM out of the box. Microsoft announced that IE9 will support it, although they won’t be shipping the codec – you’ll have to install it.
Apple has gone their own way, as usual, with no plans to support WebM in Safari, on iOS or on Macs. They claim that potential unknown patents keep them from considering WebM support – so they are keeping all of their eggs in the H.264 basket.

This fragmentation hurts everyone except one party – Adobe.  With all of this noise about H.264 vs. WebM vs. Theora, Flash player is sticking around.  The best solution for now is the status quo – use Flash video players where you can, with special handling for mobile devices that don’t support Flash.

It’s the VHS vs. Betamax war all over again – with no clear choice of a video format that will let us create the best cross-platform user experience, we have no idea whether we can safely dive into pushing forward HTML 5 video capabilities. The format wars are only impeding developers’ efforts to create the next generation of web media experiences.