| Joe Wreschnig 2006-01-25, 2:58 am |
| On Wed, 2006-01-25 at 17:08 +1100, Russell Coker wrote:
> On Wednesday 25 January 2006 12:10, Joe Wreschnig <piman@debian.org> wrote:
>
> MP3 software does not belong in Debian/main. Unlike many patents the MPEG
> patents probably have a good basis.
To make it clear, this is a *radical* divergence from our previous
position. If other distributions start shipping the Fluendo plugin, it
is also a major step backwards in usability.
> As far as I am aware OGG media is a good alternative to MPEG in every
> technical measure. OGG is not as well supported by 3rd party devices (no
> support in iPod for example) but there are devices which support it (iRiver
> as an example - incidentally the iRiver gives better sound quality according
> to the experts and allows recording so is better than the iPod anyway).
It's clear to me you've never had to use an iRiver's Ogg support. It
fails outside a limited bitrate range, drains battery faster, does not
read metadata, and is not available on all devices. Newer iRivers also
use a proprietary communications protocol that is not yet supported in
Debian. Finally, the recording is MP3 only.
Technical qualities of a format have also never been a major
consideration of Debian's support of them, or in user choices.
If we're going to do it, do it because we're taking a stand or think
there's a license violation. Not because we like Ogg.
> By continuing to support MPEG in Debian/main we are decreasing the support of
> OGG.
By continuing to support MS Word .doc in Debian/main, we are decreasing
the support of OpenDocument. So what? Users have millions, billions of
files in these formats. If we can support them, we should.
> This also applies to mpc123.
The Musepack developers are of the opinion that they no longer infringe
on any patents, as the algorithm has diverged wildly from the MPEG-1
Layer 2 algorithm upon which it is based. It's on at least as good legal
ground as every other audio format in Debian. So please leave it out of
this discussion.
--
Joe Wreschnig <piman@debian.org>
|