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 (iRive
r 
> as an example - incidentally the iRiver gives better sound quality accordi
ng 
> 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>

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