Michael Snow wrote:
In dealing with the limited adoption of certain free
formats, some
people have advocated a more evangelistic approach, if you will. Given
the reach of Wikipedia in particular, it's suggested that our policy
could push wider adoption of these formats. That may be, but the
question is, how much is that push worth? What are the prospects for
making those formats readable in the average reader's environment, and
encouraging wider use as a standard? Does an uncompromising approach
result in significant progress, or would we simply be marginalizing the
impact of our work? And is it worth the "sacrifice" of the many people
who would miss out on some of the knowledge we're sharing, because the
free format isn't accessible to them? (That's also partly a problem of
disseminating knowledge, of course.) If we adopt a compromise position
as described earlier, how much do we lose in terms of promoting the
freer formats?
My understanding, from a previous mailing list discussion, was that we can
and hopefully will support Flash video. As long as the encoder license
fees are reasonable in proportion to our other operational costs, adding
proprietary video formats alongside free ones can only increase the
dissemination of knowledge and assist in our educational mission.
-- Tim Starling