* HTML5 recommended a single baseline, free, unencumbered codec for video and audio. Theora and Vorbis. Yes, an new, better web with video(!) that works on your phone and set-top box and netbook. Hurrah!

* Nokia and Apple spread patent FUD and got this taken out so that everyone would use a hotch-potch of proprietary and/or encumbered formats e.g WMA and H.264 and whatever else happened to be installed. Or just keep using Flash. Boo!

* Mozilla previously had been chickening out of this fight, and it looked like they were going to just include native framework support (e.g. Quicktime, DirectShow, Gstreamer). Which would have knee-capped Theora, made properly supporting the web illegal for many Linux distros and opened their Windows newbie audience to a nightmare scenario of ‘codec pack’ downloads.

* However, Mozilla grows a pair, turns round and uses their mighty marketshare to make the world a better place by doing the right thing. (Just as they did in the past when they didn’t bother to turn on the ActiveX support they had ready). Hurray!

So, to sum up, you Webkit guys whining that you did the *wrong* thing (only supporting whatever random installed codecs were available) 6 months before Mozilla announced they were doing the right thing (and 6 months *after* Opera announced their good intentions) gets no brownie points from me at all. So what are you all so smug about?

Let me know when you guys have any measureable marketshare for a Webkit browser that isn’t actively pushing for a proprietary future for web video.

(And yes, Apple not putting Flash on the iPhone is a positive step, and Apple’s pressuring of MPEG-4 Licencing
Authority for better licencing terms are both minor victories. That doesn’t change the fact that you open-source webkit guys have contributed exactly zero to this particular cause so far.)

Well, as I’ve forked WebKit here: http://git.o-hand.com/webkit I’d say that yes, WebKit is a genuine open source project which I can do whatever I like with. Whether or not the employees paid by Apple can do whatever things that Apple does not want done with WebKit does not remove its open sourceness, any more than me refusing to add an expose-esque feature to Metacity stops it being open source.

(And others have already pointed out that versions of WebKit do support ogg videos already)