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Sigh! When did the Mozilla ever claim that they do not ship H.264 because it's insecure?

Mike Shaver and Robert O'Callahan both -- during the early attempt to frantically spin this as more than just an ideological PR stunt -- pointed to security as a reason why they didn't feel comfortable delegating to other software. See the following posts:

http://shaver.off.net/diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codec...

http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roc/archives/2010/01/video_fr...

http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roc/archives/2009/06/directsh...

Of course, they did eventually come clean and admit this was just a naked ideological PR stunt. O'Callahan's quote about the fact that delegating to OS codecs would mean giving up Mozilla's control -- sorry, "leverage" -- over what users can do with their own computers is particularly telling, especially in a debate that's ostensibly about "freedom".

I'm calling bullshit, badly disguised as a strawman.

I'm calling "do your homework, lest you look like a badly-informed fanboy".




Well, I still call bullshit. Especially if this is the best you can come up with. Let's see:

http://shaver.off.net/diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codec...

We have exactly two references to "security" :

  And I want that not only altruistically, but also because I want the crazy awesome video (animation, peer-to-peer, *security*, etc.) ideas that will come from having more people, with more perspectives, fully participating in the internet. 
and

  (about 60% of our users are on Windows XP, which provides no H.264 codec), *to security* (exposure of arbitrary codecs to hostile content), and to user experience
None of them even slightly imply that the Mozilla team thinks H.264 is insecure.

http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roc/archives/2010/01/video_fr...

This is an FAQ or rant if you will, which goes on and on about why Mozilla does not want to implement H.264. Oh yes, not one single word about security

This one:

http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roc/archives/2009/06/directsh...

indeed discusses security. It is however not geared towards H.264, but towards Microsoft's DirectShow. Using this article as a reference regarding Mozilla's stand on security on H.264 is at best a stretch and at worst intellectually dishonest.

  I'm calling "do your homework, lest you look like a badly-informed fanboy".
I never thought of myself as a fanboy, but be my guest to dive into ad-hominem, when you're out of arguments.

In addition. I'm rather an uninformed fanboy then an intellectually dishonest fanboy, which surprises me looking at your Kharma.


What's sad is that I just realized you've been arguing with a straw man; you've decided I said "H264 is insecure", a phrase which never passed my keyboard, and then went on a rampage against that.

When Mozilla announced its stance on H264 many people, including myself, wondered why they didn't just let some standard third-party plugin do H264 and worry about the licensing, or delegate to the operating system (which, these days, is pretty likely to ship an H264 codec). Their response included a fair bit of hand-waving about security, as you can see clearly from the references I linked. This has been demonstrated to be bullshit, seeing as Microsoft itself released a Firefox extension to get H264 video support through the operating-system media framework, and the world hasn't ended because of it.

Now, how about you add reading comprehension to the list of skills you're going to be working on?




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