Online Stalking: it's not the ISPs Fault.

The BBC is running an article about how ISPs are 'thwarting' a crackdown on online stalking. Apparently, they should not only deliver Internet connectivity (their job), they should also police it (not their job). It's like saying that the makers of paper should be responsible for what's written on it, or that the makers of envelopes should be responsible for what's delivered in them.

Of course, what's barely mentioned is that you should be very careful about personal details that you post online. Do NOT post details of your current location, places where you can often be found, your home address, your phone number, etc. Doing so is just asking for trouble, and blaming the ISP—even when social networking sites (still not the ISP) encourage you to yield such information—is equivalent to blaming manufacturers of junk food for forcing you to eat rubbish by making appealing adverts.

The last thing we want is ISPs policing Internet access according to a private set of rules formed by a mob committee. I'm even wary of the Law of the Land applying to the delivery of content (the hosting is another matter). It's a slippery slope when your government gets used to being able to filter content that it finds objectionable.

h264 is not Free

With news of the sudden royalty free amendment to the h264 license by the MPEG LA sweeping the web, it's easy to forget that this actually changes very little, indeed. You now won't ever be charged for viewing free video on the Internet.

You will still be charged for distributing an h264 encoder or decoder.

This means that if you're someone like the Mozilla group, you can't include h264 support for the HTML5 <video> tag without paying hefty royalties for the privilege. You might wonder what the problem is: surely it's right that one company licenses the right to distribute the technology of another? No. Not when it comes to the Web and the standards that underpin it (such as HTML5). Paying a royalty to take part in the Web defeats the entire point of an open internet, where ideas can be freely exchanged using the promise that the base standards are available to everyone on a royalty-free basis.

There's some sanity on this 'sweeping change' from the MPEG LA at Create Digital Motion.

H264 is not the only codec out there. You can distribute the encoders, decoders and content with WebM/VP8 and Ogg/Theora without restriction.

Use 'em.

Apple's vision of an 'open' web

Apple are certainly 'thinking different' when it comes to the definition of 'open'. In their spat with Adobe regarding Flash on Apple's mobile products, Steve Jobs responded almost convincingly about why Flash isn't on the Apple mobile product line. The primary reason? Openness. Flash is a closed platform, whereas JavaScript, CSS and HTML 5 are all open.

The 'but' here comes from the HTML 5 part, which includes a <video> tag that essentially renders Flash video obsolete, with decode and render available natively in the browser, rather than through a plugin. The standards committee overseeing HTML 5 still hasn't agreed on what format that video should be delivered in. The de-facto standard of h264, a high-quality, industry-driven standard that's nevertheless mired in patent and licensing issues that are really sticky. Or Xiph's Theora, which has been designed to avoid using techniques covered by patents, and is available royalty-free (which most of us think of when we think 'free').

When it comes to browser support, the big three unsurprisingly lend their weight to h264. Mozilla's Firefox—distinct from the others in being the only organisation that's an actual browser company and also non-profit—throws its weight behind Theora, with that crazy idea that participating in the web shouldn't involve licensing fees just to access it.

Of the corporations, Google has interestingly promised to open source the VP8 codec and, since they own YouTube, could theoretically swing the balance by offering VP8 support in Chrome and VP8 YouTube videos, especially if Firefox supported the same.

But, back to Apple.

Steve Jobs reckons that there's no such thing as a free video codec. Furthermore, he issues a threat to Xiph over Theora (without including useful specifics, which relegates it to FUD).

So Steve: get a grip. The i-whatever ecosystem is locked down tight, and you're free to do that to whatever extent your customers are willing to put up with, but don't hide behind a wall of righteousness when dissing other technologies. Your 'open' arguments are empty with a platform and environment that is increasingly developer hostile.

As for me, I've owned a G4 PowerBook and am typing this on a two year old Macbook Pro. With each statement from Jobs regarding criticism of his closed platform, I find it increasingly unlikely that I'll buy a third. So hey, Apple marketing-types: your CEO's statements are costing you a £1500 sale, and most likely not just from me.

Edit:

Apparently Apple once believed in a royalty-free Web, too. However, despite the original having lived here on apple.com for years, it's recently been pulled.

Thankfully, George Orwell's Memory Holes are a difficult thing to accomplish with an open Web.

Hat-tip to ZeroGravitas on Hacker News for the info (and to Create on the comments page for the Memory Hole reference).