Google’s H.264 Move: The ‘Right Thing’ or the ‘Worst Thing’ for Web Standards?

As one of the titans of not just the computing world in general but the open source world as well, Google tends to make waves every time it makes a move. It’s not often, though, that its moves cause a virtual typhoon of controversy. That, however, is pretty much what followed the search giant’s announcement last week that it would soon drop support for the H.264 codec in its Chrome browser. They say the sound of an approaching tornado is much like that of a freight train; amplify that tenfold, and you’d have some sense of the magnitude of the reaction on the Linux blogs.