from Hacker News

FSF Slams Google over Dropping JPEG-XL in Chrome

by YakBizzarro on 4/16/23, 11:50 AM with 191 comments

  • by Someone1234 on 4/16/23, 1:19 PM

    This is worth looking at:

    https://caniuse.com/jpegxl

    Unless I'm misunderstanding that, no browser actually ever supported JPEG-XL without a flag (or at all on Safari's cases). No OS appears to have supported it natively either[0]. The reality is that formats have a chicken & egg problem. Normally Google deserves to get dunked on, but in this case, why is Google the scapegoat instead of the entire industry that didn't adopt it? Feels like there is a bigger issue with JPEG-XL's failure to launch, and they did more than some (Apple? Microsoft?).

    [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG_XL#Industry_support_and_a...

  • by samwillis on 4/16/23, 12:49 PM

    > While we can't link to Google's issue tracker directly because of another freedom issue -- its use of nonfree JavaScript -- we're told ...

    While there may be genuinely good arguments for keeping JPEG-XL, I cannot take seriously the arguments of an organisation that cuts itself off from the rest of the world for such silly reasons.

    Edit: Google's argument that there wasn't enough interest is equally impossible to take seriously when it was always behind an optional flag. No web devs are going to invest time in developing JPEG-XL functionality until their users can actually use it.

  • by xoa on 4/16/23, 2:19 PM

    So a few dozen comments, but so far it doesn't look like any mention the immediate thing that jumped out at me which was the claims vs AVIF:

    >"In turn, what users will be given is yet another facet of the web that Google itself controls: the AVIF format."

    Huh? I'll admit I haven't been following codecs as super ultra closely as I used to, but I thought AOM was a pretty broad coalition of varying interests and AV1 an open, royalty free codec that was plenty open source friendly? I've heard plenty of reasonable arguments that JPEG XL has some real technical advantages over AVIF and as well as superior performance is much more feature rich and scalable. So I could see people being bummed for that. But this is the first time I've heard the assertion that it's somehow a Google project? I mean, AOM's libavif reference is BSD too [0]? I'd love some more details on that from anyone who has been following this more closely. I can even understand if AOM isn't as community friendly and an accusation that it's dominated by big corps, but in that case why single out Google alone? From wiki:

    >The governing members of the Alliance for Open Media are Amazon, Apple, ARM, Cisco, Facebook, Google, Huawei, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla, Netflix, Nvidia, Samsung Electronics and Tencent.

    Like, Google is certainly significant, but that's a lot of equally heavy hitters. And interesting that Mozilla is there too.

    ----

    0: https://github.com/AOMediaCodec/libavif

  • by csdreamer7 on 4/16/23, 2:10 PM

    One of the most interesting things to me is that JPEG-XL is under an open Patent License, unlike the original JPEG.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG_XL

    Also, Google contributed quite a bit to it's development. As the patent grants show:

    https://github.com/ImageMagick/jpeg-xl/blob/main/PATENTS

    https://github.com/libjxl/libjxl/blob/main/PATENTS

    Microsoft seemed to have gotten a patent on part of it's implementation (which Google also tried to get). Not sure if Google will pay to invalidate that patent, but I have a feeling they are more likely to defend AVIF.

    https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/17/microsoft_ans_patent/

    Google's control is a little concerning, but I do feel there are bigger fish to fry then choosing between two free formats. A bigger concern is the H.264 and H.265 patents domination of video.

  • by Y_Y on 4/16/23, 1:03 PM

    While I'm aligned with the FSF in most things, I'm happy to link to a bug tracker despite its shitty JS.

    https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/40...

    Maybe they're sour about webp not obseleting all other formats by now?

  • by zxcvbn4038 on 4/16/23, 7:12 PM

    Mozilla had the same issue - it was one engineer who stubbornly kept webp support out of the browser for years. Then he quit or got laid off and Mozilla finally got support. Mozilla also refused to support Yubikey for years, which we are still paying for now. It seems to me like Mozilla forgot really quickly what life was like when Internet Explorer was the dominant browser. Half the reason Chrome can ignore community outrage is because Mozilla decided existing options were "good enough" and stopped being competition.

    That said though, that FSF guy is nuts. He can't link to their bug tracker because it uses Javascript? I think that battle is lost. But he did obviously read the tracker, does this mean he has to remove his tinfoil hat and go bathe in the living waters of Richard Stallman's bathtub?

  • by zamadatix on 4/16/23, 5:21 PM

    Discussion about the root article from FSF:

    - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35554107

    Similar discussions when Chrome/Mozilla were removing it:

    - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33563378 (dang's comment has a list of additional related at the time)

    - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33803941

    Relevant discussions:

    - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35212522

    - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33442281

    - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35018672

  • by teddyh on 4/16/23, 2:21 PM

  • by threeseed on 4/16/23, 1:13 PM

  • by CharlesW on 4/16/23, 6:02 PM

    All of the people here who are so passionate about JPEG-XL will be happy to learn that there's nothing preventing them from using it on their sites right now:

    https://github.com/niutech/jxl.js

    If you want Chrome to ship with JPEG-XL support, use it. At some point, browser makers will decide it's worth the incremental cost (to them and all users) to add it.

  • by jeroenhd on 4/16/23, 2:28 PM

    Google removes a standard nobody uses, I don't see the problem. AVIF is a decent alternative that can actually be used in modern browsers, with WebP as a fallback.

    We've got plenty of open image formats for the web already. I don't get why people get so hung up about JPEG XL, it's not as if they're trying to force HEIF onto you like some other tech companies do.

  • by devinprater on 4/16/23, 2:31 PM

    FSF slams Google? Do they even have enough power to slap companies on the wrist anymore?

  • by iambateman on 4/16/23, 3:16 PM

    I mean…it’s a PR issue more than anything. I know what webp is and I had never heard of jpeg-xl.

    I think that’s true for a lot of people. Maybe one of them is better, but webp definitely has a distribution advantage by a mile.

  • by ifeeltriedboss on 4/16/23, 2:43 PM

    Google is so SLAMMED now

  • by bunbun69 on 4/16/23, 7:26 PM

    I thought HackerNews and Reddit hated words such as “slams” in the title. Guess it’s okay now because we love FSF and Phoronix

  • by Jyaif on 4/16/23, 2:00 PM

    In this case, Google should be applauded for not pushing down everyone's throat a new image format they created.