Is Google spending $106.5m to open source a codec?
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After acquiring On2’s video compression codecs in a deal valued at approximately $106.5 million in stock, will Google simply turn around and open source them?
It certainly looks that way.
In both the press release and the blog post announcing the acquisition of On2, Google makes a point of saying that it believes “high-quality video compression technology should be a part of the web platform” — and that On2 is a means of achieving that goal.
As is typical of Googlespeak, this tells us close to nothing. But if you also consider the company's so far fruitless efforts to push through a video tag for HTML 5 — the still-gestating update to the web’s hypertext markup language — the On2 acquisition looks an awful lot like an effort to solve this browser-maker impasse.
When it comes to built-in video compression, Apple Safari uses H.264. Firefox and Opera use the open and license-free Ogg Theora. Google Chrome uses both. And Microsoft’s Internet Explorer uses, well, nothing, continuing to rely on plug-ins like Adobe Flash and its own Silverlight for video. All which makes for tough going when the browser makers sit down to discuss an HTML5 video tag (or — in the case of Microsoft — when they don’t sit down).
In late June, with a post to the open WHATWG (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group) email list, Google’s Ian Hickson announced he had “reluctantly come to the conclusion that there is no suitable codec that all vendors are willing to implement and ship”. As a result, he removed two subsections of the HTML where codecs were required, leaving the matter undefined — at least for the time being.
As the man who edits the HTML 5 spec, Hickson considered a Ogg Theora requirement, but eventually decided this was a non-starter. “It wouldn’t help get us true interoperabiliy, since the people who are willing to implement it are willing to do so regardless of the spec, and the people who aren’t are not going to be swayed by what the spec says,” he wrote.
Obviously, Mozilla, Opera, and Google have no objection to Ogg Theora as the standard codec. But according to Hickson — who joined Google from Opera — Apple refuses to use Ogg Theora in Quicktime and Safari because of scant hardware support and an “uncertain patent landscape”. Apparently, Apple is worried that the patent holders behind the Theora technology will come knocking with a lawsuit.
What’s more, Mozilla accuses Google of fouling up Ogg Theora’s chances of widespread adoption by continuing to use Flash and H.264 on YouTube. “I do not like the situation on the Web today, where to use all the content you need to have a license to Flash,” Mozilla director of ecosystem development Mike Shaver posted to WHATWG earlier in June.
“And I’m saddened that Google is choosing to use its considerable leverage — especially in the Web video space, where they could be a king-maker if ever there was one — to create a future in which one needs an H.264 patent license to view much of the video content on the Web.”
Microsoft? According to Hickson, they haven’t said a word about anything.
Pushing Microsoft to the side, Hickson said he would return Ogg Theora to the spec if one of two scenarios played out:
- Ogg Theora encoders continue to improve. Off-the-shelf hardware Ogg Theora decoder chips become available. Google ships support for the codec for long enough without getting sued that Apple’s concern regarding submarine patents is reduced. → Theora becomes the de facto codec for the Web.
- The remaining H.264 baseline patents owned by companies who are not willing to license them royalty-free expire, leading to H.264 support being available without license fees. → H.264 becomes the de facto codec for the Web.
But perhaps there’s a third option: Google acquiring On2 and promptly open sourcing its latest video codecs: VP6, VP7, and VP8.
On2’s VP3 codec is the actual basis for Ogg Theora. In 2001, On2 open sourced VP3 under an irrevocable free license through an agreement with The Xiph.org Foundation.
According to Google open source guru Chris DiBona, the company continues to avoid Ogg Theora on YouTube because it can’t match the performance of H.264. But if Google open sources a newer On2 codec and applies that to YouTube, this would ease Mozilla’s objections. Google has already mocked up a Flash-free YouTube. And with Google controlling On2’s patents, it would have that much more leverage in its efforts to convince Apple that it won’t be sued.
Microsoft? Micrsoft will play hard-to-get on the standards issue no matter what you do. So you might as well as spend your $106.5m and free some code. ®
COMMENTS
Re: @CODECs shouldn't be patentable
Rob Davis writes...
"Patenting open source and/or ISO standard code is not necessary a problem as it is up to the patent holders to choose whether they charge, not an obligation. Patents don't automatically protect themselves. They have to be enforced, by choice or necessity."
That's like saying that bad laws are not a problem if the police are nice. Apart from the ethical issues (as already covered in this discussion), having patent encumbrances on standards is like imposing a tax on people. I know that there's a perverse, largely American attitude that regards taxes as evil unless they're called something else and are imposed by private enterprise, but standards should be there to allow people and things to work together, not to shore up the bottom line of a bunch of people in perpetuity.
And patents on open source software are obscene: you're effectively ripping up the rule book that governs the use and distribution of such software and makes it open (copyright licensing), in favour of a bunch of people who, despite not having done any of the hard work implementing the software, decide that they should get the red carpet treatment because they have had some ideas validated by the corrupt patent system machinery. Such people can't stomach the fact that something in their area of business isn't owned or controlled by them, and so they use the dirty instruments of "intellectual property" to seize control by other means.
"Commercial companies have managed to sell products containing open source code for a while now: MacOS is based on open source Unix BSD-based Darwin plus their own proprietary user interface, etc., countless TV set-top-boxes, network storage drives - and - now mobile phones, e.g., Android are based on open source Linux, mixed with proprietary components. So it can work."
I know that some people think open source is a popularity contest, but I don't care whether mixing proprietary stuff with open stuff "can work". Indeed, I'd rather people used copyleft licensing to stop the freeloading undertaken by all those "commercial companies" which ends up with open stuff under the hood with the hood welded shut. Those companies should be put in the position of choosing between having to do the hard work themselves or instead making "open access" products where their customers can actually fix stuff instead of throwing it away when a minor flaw becomes too irritating to tolerate any more.
"One wonders why, if the BBC had developed an open source codec back in 2003, that they hadn't developed this to production quality for the iPlayer, avoiding the row over supporting Windows first with a proprietary codec, and at the same time relinquishing their dependence of Real Video."
Because the BBC is now plagued by a bunch of competing interests, some demanding DRM and content restrictions ostensibly so that they can sell content to foreign people, although I imagine it's mostly about siphoning off money for their chums in various production and media houses. In other words, the BBC isn't necessarily thinking about their audience's (and the source of their funds) best interests.
Fingers crossed
Here's hoping. The video tag is one of the most potentially promising features of HTMLv5.
It would be really nice if google release the codecs along the lines of
"You can use this technology royalty free, as long as you're not a patent troll, in which case you can't"
2. Buy shares in Washington State furniture companies.
3. Convert You Tube to use the new codec.
4. Watch the chairs fly!
5 Profit!
@Mosh Jahan - An open standard can't mandate a propietery technology that needs to be licenced (it would no longer be an open standard as there would be a barrier to implementation - money). This is why there's a debate. You're right that some of the current H264 patent holders are f**kwards.
Compression-rate improvement in video codecs has been very modest
Cliff says: "For those who don't get why codec choice is so important, the last few percent in filesize reduction for a specified quality can make a huge difference when streaming videos...."
On the contrary, a few percent filesize reduction is just a few percent and this is simply very little and arguably practically negligible. To put the same thing the other way around, when you have a specified filesize, the improvement in picture quality from using a VP6 (or VP8) encoder is barely perceptible against VP3, and you'd have to concentrate carefully to see it. It's worthwhile if it's free, but I'd argue it's not worth paying for. More generally, over the past decade the improvement in the compression rate of the state-of-the-art video codecs has been very modest, whereas there have been major improvements in bandwidth and more major bandwidth improvements are coming.
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