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Ubuntu can't include non-free codecs, but has had the ability to play Ogg Theora and Vorbis files out-of-the-box for years because they're open source. Now that WebM is such a popular, free alternative to H.264, why isn't support included by default?

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  • webm video works out of the box in firefox. What problem are you having exactly ?
    – Panther
    Dec 31, 2011 at 2:53
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    It works in Firefox because of HTML5, but not with any non-Web browser application, like Totem. Most day-to-day users wouldn't think to open a movie with a web browser, they would just expect it to work with the default movie player. Dec 31, 2011 at 21:40
  • @NathanDyer: it works in Firefox because Firefox natively supports it.
    – RolandiXor
    Jan 1, 2012 at 22:14

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Webm has to first be supported out the box in the correct gstreamer packages before it can be supported in Ubuntu out the box. The main reason it is not included as yet is because it is a rather "recent" format and code for supporting it is still a bit fresh.

You would have to wait for gstreamer to support it as part of their default set, since at the moment it's still a bit "experimental" in gstreamer.

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