Re: [rtcweb] Alternative decision process in RTCWeb

[John Leslie <[e-mail]>]

Bjoern Hoehrmann <[e-mail]> wrote:
> * cowwoc wrote:
> 
>> H.261 is meant as a fallback only in the case that the market cannot 
>> agree to upgrade to VP8 or H.264 at runtime. If a sizable portion of the 
>> market cannot agree at runtime, what makes you believe that that same 
>> sizable portion can agree on a MTI codec? And a final question, in case 
>> you disagree with everything I've written so far: How do you advocate we 
>> proceed in light of the fact that we already tried to (and failed) to 
>> reach consensus around VP8 and H.264?
> 
> If I were to believe VP8 and H.264 are not royality-free options that
> can be used in Free implementations of the protocol then the mandatory-
> to-implement codec is likely their only option to communicate with
> commercial implementations.

   We have strong evidence that implementors believe there is significant
IPR risk in either of these. That is what matters -- not whether someone
else thinks they're "royalty-free".

> If the only option is "not good enough", I might prefer the Working Group
> say so instead of offering a fig leaf.

1: There's always more than one option. If folks think H.261 is as bad
   as you think it, transcoding services will arise, and I expect most
   folks that care about video quality to find browsers which support
   VP8 _and_ H.264;

2: Any codec will be "good enough" for some uses, and not for others;

3: Nothing prevents the Working Group from adding language about the
   limitations of H.261;

4: This is not about "offering a fig leaf" -- it's about preventing
   negotiation failure until the market can settle on some better way:
   I remind you that codecs better than VP8 and H.264 are already
   starting to see use;

5: Whatever _you_ might prefer, there are others who would prefer to
   get this specification out the door and widely implemented.

--
John Leslie <[e-mail]>