It's already shipping from Google and Mozilla, and their site suggests that Nvidia and ATI are building hardware decoders. It's not like this is some rinky, fly-by-night operation. And I don't see how any of what you said is not true of any other video format. Does MPEG-LA offer indemnification? I'm pretty sure not.
I don't believe MPEG-LA offers indemnification, but that's why MS has been planning this for literally years. I've talked to people that say MS has spent millions just in due dilligence around this specific codec. Plus you can go to every vendor in MPEG-LA and you'll get the same response, that it looks safe so far.
What about WebM? If it were me at MS, I'd do exactly what they're doing. Support the codec if its there. If it turns out that this codec looks good with respect to IP (start investigating now, knowing it will take a while) then add support in IE10 or IE11.
There's very little upside to rushing adding this in the box. And they're not blocking its use. They're simply saying, we don't want to ship it right now.
Is that similar to how they were not blocking Netscape back in the '90s, because you could use it if you decided to install it? (I mean, ignoring the fact that a computer user in the '90s was vastly more likely to have the knowledge and inclination to install Netscape on Windows than the average consumer is to install a video codec nowadays.)
The fact is, bundling MPEG-LA's wares and not Google's is the same thing as supporting MPEG-LA over Google. Microsoft can wave their hands till the cows come home, but merely allowing a user to go through the difficult and technical process of installing a video codec is not "support."
Is Microsoft's non-support for WebM any different than Mozilla's refusal to let me play H264 videos in their browser? You can't just look the other way cos you like the underdog. To my mind it's the same thing. My mac can play h264 videos, but not in Firefox. Cos they're having a standards tantrum.
One word: patents. This is why I believe schools should require more rigorous legal training of engineering and computer science graduates. I've met too many engineers (one would be too many) who, when confronted with potential IP issues, say "who cares anyway?" Since Mozilla wants to distribute a free product to millions of users in the US, they have to care about patents, and that prevents them from including H.264. However, contrary to H.264, WebM is explicitly designed to avoid patents that aren't owned by Google/On2, so Microsoft could implement WebM with significantly less risk than Mozilla could implement H.264.
Why is installing a video codec difficult? Here's how it can be done:
When users go to Google.com, Google automatically installs the video codec on the users machine. The user of course will get the install prompt, but as most users do, they'll click "OK". Done. The codec is now installed.
Since Google is such a popular site, almost everyone will get the codec (or have the chance to get it). And since it is Google distributing it, they take on ownership if there are IP or security issues. And since Google is the one that really wants to use this codec, they'll be motivated to make this happen. That's a win-win.
