Abbadingo

 Here the link to the changelog on the specs:

 
   <h5>Video and audio codecs for <code>video</code> elements</h5>
 
   <p>User agents may support any video and audio codecs and container
   formats.</p>
 
-  <p>User agents should support Ogg Theora video and Ogg Vorbis audio,
-  as well as the Ogg container format. <a
-  href=”#refsOggTheora”>[THEORA]</a> <a
-  href=”#refsOggVorbis”>[VORBIS]</a> <a href=”#refsOgg”>[OGG]</a></p>
-  <!– (it’s not a MUST because some vendors may have legal reasons
-  why they can’t or won’t support it, and there’s no point making them
-  non-conforming when they have no choice in the matter) –>
+  <p class=”big-issue”>It would be helpful for interoperability if all
+  browsers could support the same codecs. However, there are no known
+  codecs that satisfy all the current players: we need a codec that is
+  known to not require per-unit or per-distributor licensing, that is
+  compatible with the open source development model, that is of
+  sufficient quality as to be usable, and that is not an additional
+  submarine patent risk for large companies. This is an ongoing issue
+  and this section will be updated once more information is
+  available.</p>
 
   <!– XXX mention that this spec doesn’t require native support or
   plugin support, either is fine –>
 
   <p class=”note”>Certain user agents might support no codecs at all,
   e.g. text browsers running over SSH connections.</p>

(X)HTML5 Tracking

Article from Manuel Amador about the BIGGEST MISTAKE IN THE HISTORY OF THE W3C

Update: the discussion at the WHATWG list is centering around the fact that Microsoft, Nokia and Apple disagree on having Ogg technology mentioned on the spec, due (I loosely quote them) to the potential threat that submarine patents may pose. My personal opinion is that you don’t get any freer than Ogg, and there is no such patent threat because major hardware and software players (gaming companies and America Online / Winamp, for example) have already shipped at least Ogg Vorbis technology in the past. Until this conundrum is resolved, they’re taking Ogg technology off the table because they don’t want to implement it in their browsers.

Since moving forward with HTML5 is a consensus decision, the thing’s just not moving forward until a viable alternative to Ogg is found (or, maybe they can be convinced?). Both Opera and Mozilla have preliminary implementations of in-browser VIDEO tags that play Ogg media. Read the mailing list archives to see the arguments espoused in favor of / against the idea, and read the comments below.

It really bothered me that Nokia referred earlier this week to Ogg as a proprietary technology, blatantly stating something so untrue. It also bothers me that Apple has expressed concern against Ogg. Both companies make great products — my entire life I’ve only owned Nokia phones, I was thinking about the N800, and it’s in no small part thanks to Apple that I have hassle-free Zeroconf networking at home — but this clearly puts the small content producer at a disadvantage.

Read more: Removal of Ogg Vorbis and Theora from HTML5: an outrageous disaster