This page is about drafting an official statement from Debian about the What-WG's apparent plans to make patented technologies mandatory for HTML5's <video> tag.
Argument strategy
Unsure yet. We shouldn't focus on the end user; companies and government entities are using Debian, too, and are probably more at risk.
- Mention the problems caused by the GIF-format and the Eolas Plugin-Patents as examples.
- The "physical" internet should not be controlled by any one country/organization, the same should be true for the "software"-part of it.
Further possible actions
- Ask KHtml-developers to state their opinion on this matter as well, since they are also a browser-developer and probably on our side.
- Ask Mozilla-developers who are also in the WHATWG how they want to implement those patented technologies in their free software.
- Remind Opera of the money they will have to pay for the MPEG-licensing.
See also
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2007/03/msg00559.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2007/03/msg00191.html
- whatwg := Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group;