FSF calls on Google to challenge Adobe Flash dominance

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has called on Google to use its market power to establish the standardisation of online video following its acquisition of video compression specialist On2 Technologies.

In an open letter, the internet lobby group has called on Google to release the patents of On2’s video codec, VP8, under a royalty-free licence and push it out to users of YouTube. Google had the power to “end the web’s dependence on patent-encumbered video formats and proprietary software (Flash),” it said.