There's a great debate going on because of a recent change to the HTML5 working group's specification. The jist is that HTML5 proposed using Ogg Theora as a suggested video codec and Ogg Vorbis as a suggested audio codec for media on the web. Apple, Nokia, and Microsoft, fearing submarine patents in Theora, petitioned to remove the language from the spec. And they succeeeded, using tactics that were less than honest. For example, Nokia's position paper refers to Ogg as a proprietary codec, which is blatant distortion of the truth.
This has been covered by many sources, as you can no doubt tell by the link volume in this post. It just seems that half of the noise, mainly slashdot and arstechnica, are the same folks who clamor for ipod hacks and never seem to care about the importance of free formats. The Spread Open Media blog gets it right: the only way to keep the web free is to use the free formats, for everything, and buy players that support them. I'm a huge fan of iRiver and I'm not the only one: just look at their Wikipedia page. Vote with your dollars if you want to support Ogg.
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