Regarding the Theora vs. H.264 discussion…

My opinion on this discussion is that the HTML5 committee has only one question to ask themselves:

“Can someone implement a HTML5 compliant service/client without having to pay royalties to any entity for using one of HTML5’s elements?”

If answer is “Yes”, let the committee go ahead. If answer is “No”, committee has to go back to the drawing board. So there are two options: either HTML5 opts for Theora (and Vorbis when they are at it), or the involved technologies become royalty-free and grant the license even to open source projects.

My guess is that if HTML5 will go H.264 without requiring the MPEG LA to provide such a licensing model, we will see derivatives of HTML5 popping up along with a “HTML5 as it was meant to be” badge, just like the “best viewed with” badges back in the 90s.