On a related note, somebody once explained to me why India develops satellites, missiles, rockets, fighter planes, nuclear reactors etc which are sometimes half-assed at great expense over many decades when they can probably buy the same things ("comparative advantage" and all that jazz).
The reason is to force sellers to sell their highest-end goods, or to negotiate on price. Because India has it own reactor tech, it has a stronger hand when negotiating with GE/France/Russia to buy reactors. For instance, they can ask for technology transfer and license to manufacture too instead of just a reactor.
So Ogg Theora wins even if it dies, because it kept the Free video codec idea alive until a big backer such as Google emerged for the idea.
India is also making their own nuclear reactors because they have a lot more thorium than uranium, and in order to use it, they need reactors which support thorium fuel. </nitpick>
Thanks for that interesting perspective. I guess it succeeded because western world effectively stopped development of space programs and nuclear technology. Similar strategy for semiconductor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharat_Electronics_Limited) has not worked out very well.
The reason is to force sellers to sell their highest-end goods, or to negotiate on price. Because India has it own reactor tech, it has a stronger hand when negotiating with GE/France/Russia to buy reactors. For instance, they can ask for technology transfer and license to manufacture too instead of just a reactor.
So Ogg Theora wins even if it dies, because it kept the Free video codec idea alive until a big backer such as Google emerged for the idea.
Thanks for all the work, Ogg!