Revisiting this topic, there's been some new news about Firefox h.264 support.
Idealism vs. pragmatism: Mozilla debates supporting H.264 video playbackMost of this concerns video playback on mobile devices using Firefox. These devices have h.264 support in hardware, so Firefox's anti-h.264 stance isn't as compelling there.
This quote from the article is interesting:
"We will support decoding any video/audio format that is supported by existing decoders present on the system, including H.264 and MP3. There is really no justification to stop our users from using system decoders already on the device, so we will not filter any formats," he wrote. "I don't think this bug significantly changes our position on open video. We will continue to promote and support open codecs, but when and where existing codecs are already installed and licensed on devices we will make use of them in order to provide people with the best possible experience."
The option of using system-provided codecs is an obvious solution that would allow Firefox to play H.264 video without having to ship the code itself. We've discussed (and endorsed) this approach in some of our previous coverage, but Mozilla has historically rejected it on ideological grounds. In the past, Mozilla's position was that it didn't want to take any steps that would legitimize or encourage the use of a patent-encumbered codec. The organization is no longer maintaining that argument.
This is a big change for them.
Cheers,
Paul