Because Apple is quaking in their boots over Linux...

Yes.

Besides, if so, it's a pitifully weak attack on Linux. After all, nVidia already has an API to use hardware h.264 decoding on Linux. If you have the right video card, Firefox could theoretically play h.264 on Linux, not only legally

Many machines don't have nVidia cards. The nVidia drivers themselves are closed source and proprietary. And people need to do other things with video besides playing it. But I doubt you understand any of that, coming from an Apple mindset. Perhaps that's why Mac desktop machines have been eeking out such a marginal existence in the market.

but faster than Flash does.

Faster? Video always plays at the same frame rate, and modern machines are fast enough for real-time decoding.

Thirdly, supporting Theora and only Theora is self defeating for Firefox. Sites and users will simply ignore the browser, or hack around the limitation by using Flash. Either way Firefox loses.

Mozilla doesn't want to eliminate h.264 or Flash or plugins. They are already supported by plugins. There's nothing to be opened up or done.

The discussion surrounding HTML5 has been about the definition of a patent-unencumbered video codec that's supported by every browser, in addition to all the proprietary solutions that are already there.

Pay some attention before you participate in discussions.

It gives them the option to either break the law (because they don't agree with patent law), or find a vendor to take care of it.

In different words, Steve Jobs is telling open source developers to go fuck themselves.

I mean, they couldn't be pushing h.264 because they feel it's better than Theora, with a proven track record.

That doesn't make sense. Ogg was merely proposed as a universal baseline codec, something one can count on in any browser, not as the exclusive video standard.

If Ogg were as bad as you say and h.264 were as universal as you say, then Apple would have had nothing to fear from it, since everybody would be choosing h.264 anyway.

The only logical explanation for Apple's resistance is that they realize that (even) Ogg is more than good enough for most video needs and that if it were guaranteed to be present in HTML5, everybody would just be using it. Apple could kiss their investment (including hardware) and patents in h.264 goodbye. Because they don't want that, they keep pushing their proprietary standard. Great for their bottom line, bad for users.

Please, explain how that works.

It works because Apple is evil and you are too much of a fanboy to see it.

Please - you need to differ from what the EU want and the people of EU want.

Europeans let themselves be paid off by their governments through massive social services, and that's why nobody protests. It's the same dangerous attitudes that brought fascism to Europe a century ago.

The people is never asked about anything

If you don't like what's happening at the EU level, vote for different national leaders, leaders that don't sell out your rights to "an elite".

Typical: Apple developed none of the basic coding technology in h.264 but they are getting litigious over patents.

How does handing it off help? The problem with h.264 is that it's proprietary and patent encumbered; that's not fixed by handing it off to anything.

Apple's push for h.264 is simply an attack on Linux, nothing more. There is no technical or legal justification for it.

So incorporate it into XUL, or write another layer.

And how does that help users whose OS doesn't have h.264?

The problem with h.264 is that the patent holders become gatekeepers for content. And there's no reason to use it.

Apple is pushing h.264 because it hurts Linux and they are afraid of Linux.

Underdogs can't be FUD purveyors?

Apple is no underdog; they are a luxury brand.

Somebody needs to tell Mozilla that, given their FUD about H.264.

No FUD there: h.264 is proprietary and it's unnecessary since there are good and free alternatives.

Microsoft is. Apple is likely the largest proponent of open standards and open source, outside of primarily open source companies and organizations, on the planet.

Apple takes advantage of open source, but they really look down their nose at it and try to undermine it.

Unistrokes is even faster and simpler than either G1 or G2. Unfortunately, we're stuck with lousy on-screen keyboards courtesy of Apple and all the Apple imitators.

Palm was very successful in the 1990's and had good products. What killed them was their arrogance. Instead of developing a Linux-based phone and PDA around 1999 (like many people told them they should), they went off and did their own proprietary stuff and failed miserably.

Part of their arrogance was that they considered themselves "brilliant". Like Apple, much of what went into Palms was invented elsewhere, Palm was just the first to make a really successful product out of it. Like Apple, Palms were also a pain to program, although you wouldn't have known it from their hordes of loyal developers. But you're right: it's marketing that killed Palm and that is saving Apple.

Meta-ethical relativists believe not only that people disagree about moral issues, but that terms such as "good", "bad", "right", and "wrong" do not stand subject to universal truth conditions at all, rather only to societal convention and personal preference.

"Good" and "bad" are at least partially innate, so that position is obviously wrong.

I don't think there's a universal moral standard everyone ought to follow.

It's no more a matter of choice than whether physics is universal. Morality derives from our biology and the laws of the universe. Universality explains differences in moral judgments not as choices but as mistakes. By analogy, there appear to be universal physical laws even if most people don't understand them at all, and even though even physicists don't fully understand them yet. The problem with Catholic morality is that it is like medieval physics: it seems intuitive, but it is logically inconsistent and contradicts the real world.

But if a theist is violation a rule of his God, he's doing something he finds morally wrong.

Yes, God's will, not the Vatican's; many protestants have historically the Pope to be the antichrist or devil, meaning they expected him to tempt them with big promises to do the wrong thing. You know, like, "you'll go to paradise and experience eternal bliss if you do as I tell you".

(Also, being a theist doesn't necessarily mean following God; some theists consider God evil, indifferent, or incompetent.)

And what magical democracy has figured out how to do this better? Italy? Germany? France? Greece? Portugal? The UK? I don't think so.

When you come up with a system that actually works better in practice and doesn't self-destruct like clockwork, let us know.

Modding down is meant as a last resort to weed out posts that harm reasoned discourse. It is not supposed to be used merely to express disagreement

Yeah, but that's exactly what's happening. Of course, in many cases, it's just that people are so narrow minded and uninformed that they simply cannot believe that a statement that rund contrary to their beliefs is actually reasonable and accurate.

This isn't the US doing it, it's many governments. They find it convenient to use secret international treaty negotiations to achieve things that people wouldn't vote for voluntarily. They just come back from their negotiations and say "the Americans/Germans/French/Chinese/... forced us to". European governments portray the US as some kind of evil imperialist power that they can't resist, American politicians portray Europeans as pinko commie liberals that rob the US blind, and politicians in China, India, and Africa portray Europe and the US as murderous ex-colonialists. It's the politics of hate and fear by which politicians manage to retain power.

A lot of the copyright insanity originates in Europe. The US at least has fair use, first sale, and reproductions don't create a new copyright; in Europe, you get none of that. Europe has more than 500 million people and an economy that's bigger than that of the US. If it didn't want ACTA, ACTA wouldn't happen.