Re: [Advocate Play Ogg] Separate website?

[Silvia Pfeiffer]

> I think the reason it's focused on Vorbis is because MP3 is seen as a sort of 
> standard for audio
> distribution by a lot of people, and the FSF want to counter that as it's 
> patent-encumbered. Most
> people don't usually use lossless formats such as FLAC, and speech compression 
> formats such as
> Speex. Mentioning Theora might be a good idea though.

Theora as an alternative to MPEG-4 or Flash would be a good idea to promote.

> I think the reason they only mention VLC is that they don't want to promote 
> proprietary software,
> and that's one of the only free (as in freedom) media players that works well 
> on Windows and OS X,
> is easy to install on them, and works with the Xiph codecs. There isn't 
> anything about software for
> GNU/Linux users because they're assuming they already have the right software 
> to play Ogg Vorbis files.

Fair enough. The only problem with VLC is that it includes support for
non-proprietary codecs, too, raising all sorts of legal issues. So
calling it a "free media player as in freedom" is not quite correct,
but it is indeed a "free media player as in free beer". Your point
still holds true and I have indeed vlc installed on all my different
OSes. But I also have the oggcodecs installed on Windows and the
xiphqt on my Mac, because they bring support of Xiph codecs into the
OS-specific media frameworks, thus allowing many more applications to
support the codecs. Thus, my windows media player plays back ogg files
nicely, and my QuickTime player does, too.

Cheers,
Silvia.