I am excited about VP8. For those who don’t know, Google bought a digital video compression format and gave it to everyone declaring it royalty free. VP8 is bumping elbows with the likes of the popular H.264, which is of course patent restricted. When I saw clips of Google announcing VP8 and the WebM project at Google I/O, I went to the net to find more information and to hear all the cheers. Doing a quick search I found a surprisingly low number of cheers. Mostly I saw VP8 v. H.264 shoot offs. Some were declaring H.264 as the winner; some VP8. The articles seemed ready to dismiss a loser based on quality alone. I think, quite frankly, who the hell cares about that argument? It’s obvious the two are neck and neck, so let’s move on and embrace VP8 for it’s number one strength: it’s ours, and not theirs.

I can be preachy about the subject of software patents, so I apologize in advance. As a developer I feel the ability to use a digital format is a given right as much as the right to breath air (a chemical format). On top of that, I think the idea of patenting the process of packing and unpacking a digital format is annoying and greedy. What do you expect to hear if you try to charge your neighbor each time he packs his shoes the way you do?

“Go screw.”

And rightfully so.

I’m assuming if you’re this far in my post, it’s likely you lean towards keeping software patent free. That said, this is plea urging you to support VP8. It just may be dangling by a thread. There is already talk of the infamous MPEG LA taking action and creating a patent pool. VP8 just might be on the verge of a huge victory. It could be a or the standard for video compression for the new HTML 5 video tag. Many browsers already plan on supporting it. This is important win because we all know what happens when a company can pollute a perfectly open standard with proprietary garbage simply using brute force.

It’s obvious VP8 is important to developers especially when there is a fancy C library, libvpx, available under the New BSD license. Equally as impacting though is it’s important to end users. We all know the patented video formats. They are widely used, but most haven’t heard of the free and open formats. Until now, the free and open formats haven’t received as much support from companies like Google and the WebM supporters. These companies have inertia and can push a technology’s exposure and capabilities for the common good. This means developers can make media rich software for less cost than the equally as potent royalty burdened alternative. Less cost for developers is passed on as less cost to customers. Creative video tools costing hundreds or thousands could have some real competitors from the open source community if stronger, free, and open tools are available to developers. It isn’t just software that will benefit. Think about all the media rich mobile devices out there.

It isn’t just about costing less either. We need choices. What happens if we are tethered to the will of the patent holder when we demand more from VP8. We shouldn’t have to be restricted to one direction. I’d expect such a direction to be in the interest of a single entity and not the will of the users. Why don’t we pioneer a tech ecosystem with freedom of choice and uninhibited outcomes?

We should fully embrace VP8 regardless of petty quality differences simply because it is a win on the side of freedom. I know that read as cheesy as it wrote, but it’s true. It comes down to every user benefiting from every developer having a fighting chance. Patent holders get destructively greedy, and honestly they have no choice if they must ‘protect their property.’ Maybe it is unclear what a legal system should or shouldn’t do about that, but we certainly can do something. If we can replace them with something that may be used and improved freely, then we can go free about our innovating.