I’m not sure how to bring that about myself, though — the legal/political lifestyle is very rewarding, and tends to draw as much attention and investment as actual problem-solving does….

Okay, point taken. And I am, as it shows, by no means an expert in what the different codecs can achive or not. And of course, I do want latest developments.

Setting aside the current codecs H.264 and Theora, would it not be beneficial for coming codec development to be non-patented work? I mean, if codec development experts had coorporated on developing Theora (or some other patent free codec), that might have been the H.264 of today, would it not?

Over the past two years when I’ve asked Ogg proponents “Why is it important to you?”, the only real response has been “So toolmakers don’t have to pay licensing costs.”

There has been a *ton* of significant innovation in codecs over the past decade since On2 VP3 (later called Ogg Theora) was first developed. You’re welcome to not take advantage of that, but saying what other people “should” do seems sort of over-arching.

(I agree with you that more diversity in rights-management would be beneficial as well… would provide more choice.)

in a few months the next best free player will have it, too

I would say yes and no. See how Apple has been able to keep an advantage in their products, without anyone being able to produce a copy that beats Apples products.