Gruber's post wasn't about being a proponent of H.264. It was asking why Google was being so hypocritical with (1) Flash still bundled in Chrome and (2-3) their flagship support of H.264 with Android and YouTube.
It's one thing to be a proponent of the open web. However, it is just amazing the length people will go to in this "debate" to justify Google's hypocrisy. This is a corporate strategy move aimed at controlling the market and jamming up Apple and it's hundreds of millions of devices that play H.264. Gimme a break.
These scenarios are just not analogous so there's no way to be hypocritical or not hypocritical.
On the one hand you have Flash, which has been around for ages and you can't just take it out without breaking a lot of the web. If someone found an open way to render Flash (like if Flash Gordon somehow got good enough to do it), I guarantee you that Google would remove Flash. They would much prefer this to having to bend over backwards to render it in a different process and blah blah blah. The only reason Apple was able to remove Flash was because they entered the mobile landscape, where having a browser that couldn't render Flash still rendered more of the "real web" than most competing mobile browsers at the time. However, you don't see them dropping support for it in Safari (and not including the plugin on some macs is not dropping support). If you couldn't run flash at all on a Mac, ever, it would be disastrous.
H.264 on the other hand is a brand new technology, there is still time to make the right move before we end up in the same position as we are with Flash today: everyone wanting it gone but it not being easy to remove it (similar to the GIF situation as well). On top of that Google controls the biggest video supplier of the web, thus they have the additional ability to make the transition less painful.
> On the one hand you have Flash, which has been around for ages and you can't just take it out without breaking a lot of the web.
Google does not need to bake Flash into Chrome. Somehow browsers have survived a decade without the need. Google's stance is bullshit corporate strategy. You bending over backwards to justify it is just comical.
> If you couldn't run flash at all on a Mac, ever, it would be disastrous.
For Adobe. It's not going to affect anyone's purchase of a Macbook just as it didn't affect anyone's purchase of an iPad.
> H.264 on the other hand is a brand new technology
Wrong. H.264 has been around for 7 years. It has hardware decoders in nearly every mobile device. It encodes 2/3 (and probably more now) of the web's video. It's used by almost every single major content provider.
It is WebM that is the new technology. Released 8 months ago to be precise. No hardware support yet (sorry, releasing VHDL designs doesn't count), almost zero content support, etc, etc. This isn't even close.
> there is still time to make the right move before we end up in the same position as we are with Flash today: everyone wanting it gone but it not being easy to remove it
Except no one wants H.264 gone. It's a high quality standard supported by devices everywhere.
> (similar to the GIF situation as well)
The GIF situation turned out fine. Thanks for the great counterexample to your logic.
Might I inquire where I can find Google Flash in Chrome? I only have Adobe Flash. Until you can show me a Google developed Flash, it's merely Google shipping an Adobe plugin, which is not the same as actively supporting H.264.
It's one thing to be a proponent of the open web. However, it is just amazing the length people will go to in this "debate" to justify Google's hypocrisy. This is a corporate strategy move aimed at controlling the market and jamming up Apple and it's hundreds of millions of devices that play H.264. Gimme a break.