[Wiki Loves Monuments] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[Nicu Buculei]

On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 7:20 PM, Fabrice Florin wrote:
>
> Supporting the MP4 format would make it much easier for our users to view
> and contribute video on Wikimedia projects -- and video files could be
> offered in dual formats on our sites, so we could continue to support
> current open formats (WebM and Ogg Theora).

I am sorry, I know this is not the place for the debate, but you
expose here an unilateral and biased view, in fact supporting MP4 can
do real harm to the open web, by weakening the really free/open
alternatives.

> Currently, open video files cannot be viewed on many mobile devices or web
> browsers without extra software, making it difficult or impossible for
> several hundred million monthly visitors to watch videos on our sites.

Then let's lobby the device makers to support the open formats, it
won't add any cost for them but provide more value for their
customers.

I'm shutting my mouth now and go talk/vote in the proper place :)

-- 
nicu