Now that Google has completed its acquisition of video compression outfit On2 Technologies, a representative of the Free Software Foundation has urged Mountain View to release On2's latest codec under an irrevocable free license and use it to replace Adobe Flash on YouTube.
"With your purchase of On2, you now own both the world's largest video site (YouTube) and all the patents behind a new high performance video codec: VP8," reads a open letter to Google, posted to the Free Software Foundation (FSF) blogs.

"Just think what you can achieve by releasing the VP8 codec under an irrevocable royalty-free license and pushing it out to users on YouTube? You can end the web's dependence on patent-encumbered video formats and proprietary software (Flash)."

Today's YouTube still serves up video via Adobe's Flash, though Google has publicly pushed for a web-wide switch to the still gestating HTML5 video standard. All the major web browser vendors - Microsoft aside - have adopted the tag, but even among these HTML5 supporters, there's still a split over which video codec to use in tandem with the yet-to-be standard.

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