Top all-time · #3123
Mike Shaver
Personal blog · shaver.off.net/diaryprogrammingweb
Mike Shaver's personal blog at shaver.off.net covers programming and web. Since 2008, 25 different Hacker News readers have linked it 26 times, most often “HTML5 video and codecs”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Too few sampled comments (18) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Mike Shaver's Mozilla-era diary, covering H.264 and WebM video codec policy, Firefox security and SQLite fsync performance. Commenters cite it as a source for Mozilla's positions.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 18 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- HTML5 video and codecs8 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2010-01-24
- /diary/2008/05/25/fsyncers-and-curveballs/4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2011-10-13
- The missed opportunity of Acid 32 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2008-03-27
- Mike Shaver: Why Facebook?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-11-03
What Hacker News says?
Well, I still call bullshit. Especially if this is the best you can come up with. Let's see: http://shaver.off.net/diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codec... We have exactly two references to "security" : And I want that not only altruistically, but also because I want the crazy awesome video (animation, peer-to-peer, *security*, etc.) ideas that will come from having more people, with more perspectives, fully partic…
Comment linking /diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codecs/
on “Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome”Submitted Mozilla VP Mike Shaver responds to Microsoft's WebGL security concerns as a story · 62 points
HN discussionSigh! When did the Mozilla ever claim that they do not ship H.264 because it's insecure? Mike Shaver and Robert O'Callahan both -- during the early attempt to frantically spin this as more than just an ideological PR stunt -- pointed to security as a reason why they didn't feel comfortable delegating to other software. See the following posts: http://shaver.off.net/diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codec... http://we…
Comment linking /diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codecs/
on “Google Removing H.264 Support in Chrome”Submitted Will JavaScript get fast enough? as a story · 7 points
HN discussionIn Mozilla's defense, they've handled Places-related issues well in the past. http://shaver.off.net/diary/2008/05/25/fsyncers-and-curvebal...
Comment linking /diary/2008/05/25/fsyncers-and-curveballs/
on “Dear Mozilla: Fix Your Damn Browser”Submitted HTML5 video and codecs as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI generally like Gruber and think he tends to weigh his thoughts and arguments very well - but I still can't forgive him for buying MPEG LA's PR release[1] hook and sink[2]. Since when has it been a good idea to take a press release at face value[3]? He hasn't recanted this complete acquiescence, so I am under the impression that he sincerely believes them - and only on the grounds of that single release. Maybe he w…
Comment linking /diary/2010/08/27/free-as-in-smokescreen/
on “No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM ”Submitted Mike Shaver: Why Facebook? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionMozilla has said [0] that they could pay the $5M/year but they won't because 1) it means content producers have to pay money to obtain licenses and more importantly 2) other people cannot create mozilla forks without licensing h264 themselves. [0] http://shaver.off.net/diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codec...
Comment linking /diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codecs/
on “10 Questions for John Gruber Regarding H.264, WebM”Submitted Shaver on Tracemonkey as a story · 2 points
HN discussionLooks like Firefox 3¹, all the way back in 2008! There is a good description of fixes and workarounds on LWN². ¹ http://shaver.off.net/diary/2008/05/25/fsyncers-and-curvebal... ² https://lwn.net/Articles/328363/
Comment linking /diary/2008/05/25/fsyncers-and-curveballs/
on “Fast Commits for Ext4”Submitted Why I'm joining Facebook (2011) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThe article glosses over the fact that fsync() itself has major issues. For example, on ext3, if you call fsync() on a single file, all file system cached data is written to disk, leading to an extreme slowdown. This led to a Firefox bug, when the sqlite db used for the awesome bar and for bookmarks called fsync() and slowed everything down. http://shaver.off.net/diary/2008/05/25/fsyncers-and-curvebal... OS X does a…
Comment linking /diary/2008/05/25/fsyncers-and-curveballs/
on “Disks lie. And the controllers that run them are partners in crime.”Submitted Because no respectable MBA programme would admit me as a story · 1 points
HN discussionYou don't remember what the original argumentation was. Firefox is free, Mozilla can't afford the patent licensing, that's all. This is still entirely true (note that "afford" in the above should be read in the "free license" context, not monetary). For the same reason, Chromium has no H264 support. Patented codecs don't mix well with free software. They took a stance here based on their philosophy, that much should…
Comment linking /diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codecs/
on “Firefox will support H264 and MP3 decoding with OS codecs”Submitted The missed opportunity of Acid 3 as a story · 1 points
HN discussionUgh. Please, read the other side of the "argument", I was going to say "research", but seriously, the information is 5 seconds of google-fu away: http://shaver.off.net/diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codec...
Comment linking /diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codecs/
on “Dear Mozilla, Please Don't Kill HTML5 Video”I imagine I'm missing something. But why couldn't Mozilla use an extension that supports H264? Similar to Ubuntu's nonfree packages? I imagine the HTML5 video tags are pretty deep in Gecko, but surely they could 'pave the way' with a clear interface for such an extension. And then use one that is developed by others. Isn't that one of the advantages of having a standardized <video> tag? Reading this: http://shaver.o…
Comment linking /diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codecs/
on “Dear Mozilla, Please Don't Kill HTML5 Video”I got schooled angrily by the creator of JavaScript and founder of Mozilla on the difficulties of NaCl and Dart here http://shaver.off.net/diary/2011/10/28/approaches-to-perform... He says it would be impractical for other browser vendors to keep up with the sprawling mess of APIs required by NaCl known as Pepper. Also Google's behavior around it's open source but not open standard tech like NaCl and Dart leaves a b…
Comment linking /diary/2011/10/28/approaches-to-performance/comment-page-1/
on “Building StatHat with Go”I don't like databases, and the reason I don't like them is that they seem to cause terrible performance problems in web browsers. Firefox's use of SQLite is well known to cause or have caused trouble - for example http://shaver.off.net/diary/2008/05/25/fsyncers-and-curvebal... . And then you get advice like this: http://savanne.be/153-performance-tip-of-the-day/ . Safari has similar issues. In particular the favico…
Comment linking /diary/2008/05/25/fsyncers-and-curveballs/
on “Why use a database instead of just saving your data to disk?”"The burden of what? Deciding what video content is acceptable? Like I said before, that should not be Mozilla's role, but it's the one they've taken on." The burden of dealing with patent encumbered formats. Someone would have to pay or it would remain illegal. As Firefox developers develop Firefox, they have their say in what do or don't do Firefox. And even if they pay it wouldn't be free since there would be str…
Comment linking /diary/2010/01/23/html5-video-and-codecs/
on “Google Chrome's H.264 support not true "free" software”Looks like Mike is going to Facebook. http://shaver.off.net/diary/2011/10/01/whats-next/
Comment linking /diary/2011/10/01/whats-next/
on “Thank you to Mike Shaver for 6 years at Mozilla”To be clear, it was one Mozilla employee (a product manager, not an executive) whose blog comments were quoted by the tech press and misinterpreted as speaking for Mozilla as a whole. Not everyone here at Mozilla is as blunt as Asa, and not everyone agrees with him. For example, see this thoughtful and detailed response by Mozilla VP Mike Shaver: http://shaver.off.net/diary/2011/06/28/enterprise/
Comment linking /diary/2011/06/28/enterprise/
on “Mozilla offers olive branch to Firefox business users”- sc · 2008-05-27
> Acid 3 came way too late for the gecko version being used. Opera and WebKit aced it two months ago. Gecko had plenty of time. One of the Mozilla guys explained here the Firefox approach to Acid 3: http://shaver.off.net/diary/2008/03/27/the-missed-opportunit... In the end, though, it comes across as a poor excuse.
Comment linking /diary/2008/03/27/the-missed-opportunity-of-acid-3/
on “Top Ten Mistakes in Firefox 3” This is from October 2009 (yes, more than a year ago), when Mozilla blocked two .NET-related plugins because of a security flaw (with Microsoft's blessing, no less). As far as I know, both plugins were both unblocked within a week or so. See http://shaver.off.net/diary/2009/10/19/update-on-the-net-fra... for more information on what happened.
Comment linking /diary/2009/10/19/update-on-the-net-framework-assistant-and-windows-presentation-foundation-plugin-blocking-from-this-weekend/
on “Firefox to Microsoft: GTFO ”3 days old, Mozilla has already blocked and unblocked the add-ons in question. http://blog.mozilla.com/security/2009/10/16/net-framework-as... http://shaver.off.net/diary/2009/10/18/update-net-framework-...
Comment linking /diary/2009/10/18/update-net-framework-assistant-clickonce-support-unblocked/
on “Microsoft exposes Firefox users to drive-by malware downloads”
