The premise is that openness is all or nothing. But Google can support Flash and work towards openness, just as Apple can prefer open web standards in lieu of Flash while supporting proprietary systems. There's no hypocrisy or conflict.
The difference is that one company is claiming to champion open left and right whereas the other company focuses their discussion of open to very specific areas. There is hypocrisy with the former company in this case.
Maybe in the future. WebM support is new in Android, hardware decoders are really just coming to market, and there are enough existing and in-production phones that rely on H.264. The constraints placed on Google by the handful of Chrome users leveraging H.264 HTML5 video is completely unlike the realities of dealing in the handset market.
The point is that many view Chrome's move to eliminate H.264 as rushed, so why not rush Android's move? It's rhetorical. Google can't rush Android's move because it would kill Android to be unable to view 99% of online video.
It should be obvious that Google's hope is anyone using HTML5 video will eventually move to WebM exclusively.
Again, rhetorical. These companies won't move to WebM any time soon. It's interesting to me that very few of the comments here bring up the issue of encode quality. Netflix and Amazon are two companies that regularly deal with Hollywood studios, who have review policies for distributed video quality. WebM is inferior and very likely to remain inferior to H.264. One question Gruber failed to pose is: Does Google expect everyone to accept across the board lower quality of video content in the name of marginal "open"?
Content producers won't care if Chrome users end up in Flash, since the content's still available and very few non-mobile users are getting HTML5 video anyway. Flash is still the norm outside of mobile devices.
There are numerous reasons that's an unsupported blanket statement. Of course content producers will care. Why would they not care about how to support various and incompatible distribution and playback methods?
Were people ecstatic that Chrome supported H.264?
Clearly, there's a difference between caring about something that works as is generally expected and caring about something that doesn't work in opposition to expectations. People care when things break. The correct answer to that final question is: Adobe. Hurrah for them?
The difference is that one company is claiming to champion open left and right whereas the other company focuses their discussion of open to very specific areas. There is hypocrisy with the former company in this case.
Maybe in the future. WebM support is new in Android, hardware decoders are really just coming to market, and there are enough existing and in-production phones that rely on H.264. The constraints placed on Google by the handful of Chrome users leveraging H.264 HTML5 video is completely unlike the realities of dealing in the handset market.
The point is that many view Chrome's move to eliminate H.264 as rushed, so why not rush Android's move? It's rhetorical. Google can't rush Android's move because it would kill Android to be unable to view 99% of online video.
It should be obvious that Google's hope is anyone using HTML5 video will eventually move to WebM exclusively.
Again, rhetorical. These companies won't move to WebM any time soon. It's interesting to me that very few of the comments here bring up the issue of encode quality. Netflix and Amazon are two companies that regularly deal with Hollywood studios, who have review policies for distributed video quality. WebM is inferior and very likely to remain inferior to H.264. One question Gruber failed to pose is: Does Google expect everyone to accept across the board lower quality of video content in the name of marginal "open"?
Content producers won't care if Chrome users end up in Flash, since the content's still available and very few non-mobile users are getting HTML5 video anyway. Flash is still the norm outside of mobile devices.
There are numerous reasons that's an unsupported blanket statement. Of course content producers will care. Why would they not care about how to support various and incompatible distribution and playback methods?
Were people ecstatic that Chrome supported H.264?
Clearly, there's a difference between caring about something that works as is generally expected and caring about something that doesn't work in opposition to expectations. People care when things break. The correct answer to that final question is: Adobe. Hurrah for them?