alt Hacker NewsI'd like to think so as well (well, I don't know they'd necessarilymake them "drop" it as much as license those particular patents/accept the risk they may have to pay in the future) but on the other hand history has shown VP8 had a lot of companies behind it too before Google signed to sublicense patents from the MPEG LA & other holders for it.
VP8 was developed by a small company and bought and open sourced by Google on a fairly short timescale because the proprietary codec group had tried to start exerting their control.
So it's not accurate to say that had a lot of companies behind it. That usage came later and even then it was mostly in odd corners of the video industry.