Firefox 3.1 and Open Source Video
Recently Mozilla announced native support for ogg theora. This means that future Firefox browsers will be able to natively playback open video content across all platforms. This includes the OLPC (one laptop per child), or future open mobile platforms. This is in contrast to present proprietary codec system where you have to license playback systems from proprietary vendors to support audio video communication. H.264 for example has per-view distribution costs. Recent efforts by adobe to “open” up flash are a steep in the right direction but presently you still have to request permission from adobe to ship flash on some platforms & the flash player does not yet support patent unencumbered codecs.
This commitment to free codecs and containers by Mozilla has big implications for the vitality of open web and insures the possibility of open source tools and software platforms (like kalturas collaborative video platform ;). So if your interested check out the latest builds of Firefox and try it out on some of the videos on wikimedia commons.
Tags: firefox, mozilla, ogg, ogg theora, wikimedia