OStatic provides an excellent analysis of the dilemma facing Canonical and its Ubuntu distribution: to facilitate adoption of proprietary media codecs and, if so, how?
I have (incorrectly) criticized Canonical for including proprietary codecs in Ubuntu before, but others in the open-source world have been far more derogatory about any possible hint of proprietary software making its way into Ubuntu.
While I am sympathetic with the intent of such commentary, OStatic is absolutely correct to suggest that Canonical's decision to set up a for-fee way to add proprietary media codecs to Ubuntu is spot-on:
They could have taken the approach that every last Ubuntu user is vested in the "free as in speech" aspect of open source and does not own a single piece of media in a proprietary format. That would have been seen through immediately as either a blatant lie or delusional thinking. Or they could have thumbed their noses at the intellectual property laws in several countries, and refused to offer a legal alternative on the grounds that the laws are simply restrictive and misguided.
The laws are misguided. They are restrictive. They are still legally binding, though, and it is not Canonical's call to encourage (or require) that any Linux user violate them. For this reason, Canonical is doing the right thing in offering a legal alternative.
Canonical had to do a difficult balancing act, but I think Mark Shuttleworth and crew chose the right path. Offering a safe, legal way to include proprietary media codecs is the right thing to do in the short term for Ubuntu. Perhaps those codecs can be opened up in the future, but that's not for Canonical to take upon itself, not alone, anyway.
The good news is that Mozilla's popular Firefox browser is getting video support. The bad news is that you probably won't notice.
Why? Because the video codec that is coming to Firefox is not commonly used: Ogg Theora. Firefox will also be adding a new HTML tag to make embedding video easier - no more need to launch Javascript - but, again, the video codec is not the ubiquitous QuickTime, Windows Media, or Flash that people use.
This isn't Mozilla's fault, of course. It's not the one keeping the codecs under lock-and-key. And, of course, this won't change the fact that free plug-ins to enable Firefox to play the popular codecs will continue to exist. It's not as if video has been kept from Firefox (well, except for the fact that I must have Internet Explorer to watch Windows Media-encoded Arsenal preseason matches - Firefox won't cut it).
No, it just means that I won't need a plugin to play Theora content anymore. But who cares? Most people don't use Ogg Theora. Whether they should or not is immaterial. I'd rather see Adobe, Microsoft, and Apple open up their codecs than see Firefox include Ogg Theora. But I guess it's the only one on offer....
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