Re: [rtcweb] confirming sense of the room: mti codec

I support the proposal as the lesser of two evils.

That said, it's peculiar and a bit depressing that the only ones that are complaining and keeping on wanting to impose on everybody an encumbered codec represent the only missing major browsers in the field, and so organizations that haven't contributed a single line of code so far to what WebRTC is today. All this talk of RFC6919 makes it quite clear that the "must implement both" will be blatantly ignored by H.264 advocates, and so one way or another they'll win anyway. I doubt that solutions that generate VP8 streams only (maybe because they can only do that), for instance, will be able to succeed in an ecosystem where half of the endpoints support both the codecs and half just one (the wrong one, of course), and the outcome is easy enough to guess.

Lorenzo

On Fri, 5 Dec 2014 08:36:30 -0500
Sean Turner <turners@ieca.com> wrote:

> All,
> 
> At the 2nd RTCweb WG session @ IETF 91, we had a lively discussion about codecs, which I dubbed "the great codec compromise."  The compromise text that was discussed appears in slides 12-14 at [4] (which is a slight editorial variation of the text proposed at [2]).
> 
> This message serves to confirm the sense of the room.
> 
> In the room, I heard the following objections and responses (and I’m paraphrasing here), which I’ll take the liberty of categorizing as IPR, Time, and Trigger:
> 
> 1) IPR:
> 
> Objections: There are still IPR concerns which may restrict what a particular organization feels comfortable with including in their browser implementations.
> 
> Response:  IPR concerns on this topic are well known.  There is even a draft summarizing the current IPR status for VP8: draft-benham-rtcweb-vp8litigation.  The sense of the room was still that adopting the compromise text was appropriate.
> 
> 2) Time:
> 
> 2.1) Time to consider decision:
> 
> Objection: The decision to consider the compromise proposal at this meeting was provided on short notice and did not provide some the opportunity to attend in person.
> 
> Response:  Six months ago the chairs made it clear discussion would be revisited @ IETF 91 [0]. The first agenda proposal for the WG included this topic [1], and the topic was never removed by the chairs.    More importantly, all decisions are confirmed on list; in person attendance is not required to be part of the process.
> 
> 2.2) Time to consider text:
> 
> Objection: The proposed text [2] is too new to be considered.
> 
> Response: The requirement for browsers to support both VP8 and H.264 was among the options in the straw poll conducted more than six months ago.  All decisions are confirmed on list so there will be ample time to discuss the proposal.
> 
> 3) Trigger:
> 
> Objection: The “trigger” sentence [3] is all kinds of wrong because it’s promising that the future IETF will update this specification.
> 
> Response: Like any IETF proposal, an RFC that documents the current proposal can be changed through the consensus process at any other time.
> 
> 
> After the discussion, some clarifying questions about the hums, and typing the hum questions on the screen, there was rough consensus in the room to add (aka “shove”) the proposed text into draft-ietf-rtcweb-video.  In keeping with IETF process, I am confirming this consensus call on the list.
> 
> If anyone has any other issues that they would like to raise please do by December 19th.
> 
> Cheers,
> spt (as chair)
> 
> [0] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/rtcweb/current/msg11194.html
> [1] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/rtcweb/current/msg13150.html
> [2] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/rtcweb/current/msg13432.html
> [3] The one that begins with "If compelling evidence ..."
> [4] http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/91/slides/slides-91-rtcweb-7.pdf
> _______________________________________________
> rtcweb mailing list
> rtcweb@ietf.org
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/rtcweb

-- 
Lorenzo Miniero, COB

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