<i>Then users shouldn't use patent encumbered formats.</i><p>Blaming the user is not a strategy the results in good software. I contend that it does much to hurt the cause it it supposed to promote. You're also blaming the user for something they can't control: the format of the content they're trying to view.<p>Moreover, it isn't simply a patent-encumbrance issue, as Mozilla's choice has been to equally block other patent-free formats. It's Theora or nothing. Read that again and then tell me it's all about freedom.<p><i>Simple as that.</i><p>It isn't, in fact. Most of the video content on the web today is in patent-encumbered formats, specifically h.264. You're saying that users should not want to continue to be able to view the content is already out there.<p>It is not the place of a web browser vendor to <i>punish</i> users for wanting to use the web normally. In fact, quite the opposite.<p><i>There already been enough mess by formats supported by browser X but not Y.</i><p>...and Mozilla is demonstrably perpetuating that mess by only supporting a format that nobody uses and nobody wants to use. Meanwhile all major operating systems currently support h.264 natively, all major video sites use h.264, and all other &#60;video&#62;-supporting browsers support h.264. If Mozilla wants to help clear the mess, they're doing exactly the wrong thing.