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After the ?80.5m acquisition of video compression company On2 Technologies, Google is being pressured to release their new video codec under a royalty-free license in order to free the internet from Flash dominated videos. This pressure is coming from The Free Software Foundation.

In a letter written to Google by Holmes Wilson, FSF’s spokesperson, he writes: “The world would have a new free format unencumbered by software patents. Viewers, video creators, free software developers, hardware makers — everyone — would have another way to distribute video without patents, fees and restrictions.” The letter also suggested to Google that they could use the new VP8 codec in conjunction with their Flash codec used on popular sites such as YouTube, which is also owned by Google. They continue to suggest that Google could indeed replace all Flash videos with free formats, as well as updates for those users still operating with an older browser.

The FSF also pointed out how Apple have decided not to include Flash on their iPhone and iPad. “You could do the same with YouTube, for better reasons, and it would be a death-blow to Flash’s dominance in web video,” Wilson concluded.

According to On2 Technologies, the VP8 codec shows a 20% improvement of video compression compared with H.264, which is vital in the quality of web-based videos.


Written by: Robert, who runs a website about SEO