[derefr]

They did all the work required to implement it, sat around for a few months, and then removed it, before anyone else even noticed it was there / had a chance to start integrating it.

My personal conspiracy theory is that some Google engineer who works on Chrome, came up with "JPEG XL support" as a feature they could work on, pushed it through to prod, patted themselves on the back, and forgot about it; but this was all done without first getting sign-off from whoever at Google is trying to push for WebP to be a thing. When that person or group noticed "Chrome now supports JPEG XL", they got that support ripped out.

[lonjil]

The work wasn't done by anyone on the Chrome team. Someone at Google Research Zurich (I don't recall who) wrote the patches and submitted them. Actually, I think that they've even kept the patches up to date with newer Chrome releases so in theory it would be easy to re-introduce JXL into Chrome if there is a will to do it...

[kps]

Added in https://crrev.com/c/2749318

[DannyBee]

The number of people in this thread pretending they have more expertise about this, and spreading random conspiracy theories about WebP, is impressive.

Actually, Google employs 2 of the 3 main authors of the JPEG XL spec, and the main contributors to libjxl.

Also, it wasn't a few months, and others had explicitly said no.

You can argue it was a dumb decision, but like, can we at least get facts straight instead of making up random stories?

There people in this thread arguing they have no idea what they are doing and have no expertise, while they simultaneously employ the spec authors to work on it and are one of the two primary contributors to the reference library.

A bit silly and incongruous.

Just because someone does something you don't like doesn't make them stupid or wrong. You'd be much better off if you would gather facts first, listen to the perspectives of others, and then respond.

[lonjil]

> Actually, Google employs 2 of the 3 main authors of the JPEG XL spec, and the main contributors to libjxl.

> There people in this thread arguing they have no idea what they are doing and have no expertise, while they simultaneously employ the spec authors to work on it and are one of the two primary contributors to the reference library.

Google is not a monolith. The JXL people are at Google Research Zurich, while the people who decided to not include JXL in Chrome are members of the Chrome team. The Chrome team obviously does not employ the people over in Zurich, nor do they presumably control what they work on.

[ksec]

I am sorry but Google's rationale and comparison [1] between JpegXL and WebP is even more impressive.

And much like Microsoft, I will put any research arm of a company as a separate company.

[1] http://storage.googleapis.com/avif-comparison/index.html

[account42]

Companies participating in standards bodies while actively sabotaging the standards is nothing new.

[asddubs]

it was also only ever hidden behind a flag