Thanks, Microsoft! (oof, that's a hard thing to say)

As for Google - when will these hypocrites be also removing MP3 support?

As for your first paragraph - thanks for re-confirming my point. Web was indeed built on open standards BUT commercial software. Remember when original Mozilla browser cost[ed] money? I don't even talk about the quite expensive server software. That didn't stop the web growth though exactly because the underlying standards were still [very] open. Except GIFs.

As for current Mozilla situation though - you're totally wrong. They can freely (and Freely) implement the H264 player and build it into their browser. Why they _don't_ do this is because they are citing the concern about authoring this content (which is totally not their business, but they still feel they should not do it).

As here's why Google becomes important as the content heavyweight.

Anybody still remembering "burn all GIFs" days and the associated hate?

Please prove that VP8 is not "patent encumbered"?

Also tell me that you don't use MP3 and want Google or somebody to remove its support too?

Anyway, these H264 patents expire in like 12 years or so. May seem like a long time but actually it's not quite. If CSS or GIF are any indication things on the Web don't move as fast as people would expect. When VP8 matures, gains hardware support, a critical mass of content - boom! H264 becomes totally free. Still of better quality per bit.

And generally speaking Open Standards are even more important than Open Source. Especially in the long run.

Apple is based on original software.

Oh, and as for the money, Woz's own take on it is kinda maybe interesting: http://www.woz.org/letters/general/91.html

> He refused to acknowledge his daughter, who his mother initially had to raise on welfare payments.

This is not quite true. Jobs doubted that he could have children so he was not *quick* to acknowledge her. And I doubt anyone will (or should) be quick to take responsibility for the children born from such occasional sleepovers.

Anyway, her name was/is Lisa and Jobs calling their first proper computer "Lisa" kind of contradicts the claim that he "refused to acknowledge" her.

I disagree and demand that you elaborate.

Too early. Both AMD and Intel are at the end of their cycles this Christmas. Which is sad, of course, as people would be buying soon-to-be-obsolete computers without realizing that.

> our computers

As an AMD fanboy - say for yourself.

He said "iPod touch".

You wanted good reliable OCR on 960x720 images? Uhm.

Low piracy -> Cheap prices.

Cheap prices + Easy -> Low piracy.

The amazing thing Apple did is putting their market into this sweet spot.

Not the actual Android developers, for example, no.