From arc at xiph.org Mon Feb 23 11:16:05 2004 From: arc at xiph.org (Arc Riley) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:14 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? Message-ID: <20040223191605.GW447@selket.twcny.rr.com> The archives show nothing posted in the last month. Is this an issue with the archiver, or has there really been no activity in this long? --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From gshang at pacific.net.au Mon Feb 23 13:53:24 2004 From: gshang at pacific.net.au (Geoff Shang) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:14 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: <20040223191605.GW447@selket.twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 23 Feb 2004, Arc Riley wrote: > The archives show nothing posted in the last month. Is this an issue > with the archiver, or has there really been no activity in this long? There really has been no activity in this long. It's not a busy list. Geoff.

--- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From daniel at mondodesigno.com Tue Feb 24 01:37:32 2004 From: daniel at mondodesigno.com (Daniel James) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:14 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200402240937.32482.daniel@mondodesigno.com> > There really has been no activity in this long. I think there are a number of reasons for that. Firstly, Xiph.org is not very good at working with the community. I understand the need to retain control of projects that have had an intense personal input over a number of years, but it seems every offer of help or suggestion from outside the core group is shot down in flames. For example, a couple of months back this list was discussing ideas for hardware branding, and came up with a number of suggestions. None of the ideas or offers of help were taken up, and the impression I got was that Xiph.org didn't actually want input from members of this list. I'm not surprised, therefore, that there hasn't been a large-scale advocacy campaign so far. The second reason is that the Vorbis codec has (so far) failed to achieve critical mass among music listeners, and so potential Vorbis advocates are probably losing interest. It's all too easy to compromise, and use MP3 instead, because Fraunhofer has avoided the heavy-handed enforcement of its royalties policy. Either that, or Fraunhofer just doesn't want to use up resources chasing every copy of lame out there, or every cheap piece of hardware. The third reason is that MP3 listening has switched from something that you listen to mostly on a computer, to something you mostly listen to on an embedded device - be it portable, in-car, or on a DVD player. Naturally, it's much harder for end-users to upgrade these embedded devices to support Vorbis. Some high-level Ogg advocacy work is badly needed with the OSDL members (who have just set up a desktop group), the CE Linux Forum and the (largely Chinese) OEMs. Xiph.org would also be welcome as a member of the Linuxaudio.org consortium, which I have been involved in starting recently. If anyone at Xiph.org is still interested in seeing my suggestions for hardware branding, just let me know and I will gladly email a PDF. Cheers Daniel --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From arc at xiph.org Tue Feb 24 23:34:07 2004 From: arc at xiph.org (Arc Riley) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:14 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: <200402240937.32482.daniel@mondodesigno.com> Message-ID: <20040225073407.GI87873@selket.twcny.rr.com> On Tue, Feb 24, 2004 at 09:37:32AM +0000, Daniel James wrote: > > For example, a couple of months back this list was discussing ideas > for hardware branding, and came up with a number of suggestions. None > of the ideas or offers of help were taken up, and the impression I > got was that Xiph.org didn't actually want input from members of this > list. I'm not surprised, therefore, that there hasn't been a > large-scale advocacy campaign so far. I think you misunderstand the group.. it's not that anyone doesn't want help, it's that the core members of Xiph are all busy being hackers and, well, there's not alot of free time to take on extra jobs like volunteer coordination. Being that I was once on the outside looking in, not finding it easy to get involved, I know the feeling all too well. There's a few really talented minds working inside Xiph.. without them we wouldn't have much to speak of. Most of them have to keep regular jobs because they don't get enough contract/grant work with Xiph, and there's a huge todo list for things with a high barrier to entry. Training new developers who are interested in helping with this is an investment on their part, too, and a job that takes them away from doing the work they love to do. I started a "Help Needed" section of Ogg Traffic to help people from the community plug-in to various Xiph projects where they're needed. I'm aware that alot more work is nessesary for volunteer-coordination, but it's a start. > If anyone at Xiph.org is still interested in seeing my suggestions for > hardware branding, just let me know and I will gladly email a PDF. I'd personally like to see it, but why PDF? :-) --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From daniel at mondodesigno.com Wed Feb 25 01:36:56 2004 From: daniel at mondodesigno.com (Daniel James) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:14 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: <20040225073407.GI87873@selket.twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: <200402250936.56695.daniel@mondodesigno.com> > it's not that anyone doesn't > want help, it's that the core members of Xiph are all busy being > hackers and, well, there's not alot of free time to take on extra > jobs like volunteer coordination. It's a matter of priorities. Given that Xiph probably doesn't have the resources to employ a full-time PR team, working with volunteer advocates isn't an extra job, it's a core job. > Being that I was once on the > outside looking in, not finding it easy to get involved, I know the > feeling all too well. I've worked with a lot of libre software projects over the last six years or so, and most of them are much better at accepting outside help than Xiph is. It's just a culture that the project has. > There's a few really talented minds working inside Xiph.. without > them we wouldn't have much to speak of. I couldn't agree more. > Most of them have to keep > regular jobs because they don't get enough contract/grant work with > Xiph, and there's a huge todo list for things with a high barrier > to entry. That's true of most libre software projects though, especially in the audio field. > I started a "Help Needed" section of Ogg Traffic to help people > from the community plug-in to various Xiph projects where they're > needed. I agree that's good - perhaps it needs some extra publicity in its own right? However, with voluntary projects there has to be scope for volunteers to come up with their own ideas. > > If anyone at Xiph.org is still interested in seeing my > > suggestions for hardware branding, just let me know and I will > > gladly email a PDF. > > I'd personally like to see it, but why PDF? :-) I'll email it to you off-list then. It's a PDF because vector artwork needs a vector format, and PDF is widely readable. When working as a designer I used Adobe Illustrator for this kind of job, but this PDF was produced in OpenOffice Draw. If anyone wants the OO file they can have that as well, but they would need to install the right fonts. Cheers Daniel --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From arc at xiph.org Wed Feb 25 07:50:11 2004 From: arc at xiph.org (Arc Riley) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:14 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: <200402250936.56695.daniel@mondodesigno.com> Message-ID: <20040225155011.GJ87873@selket.twcny.rr.com> On Wed, Feb 25, 2004 at 09:36:56AM +0000, Daniel James wrote: > > I'll email it to you off-list then. It's a PDF because vector artwork > needs a vector format, and PDF is widely readable. When working as a > designer I used Adobe Illustrator for this kind of job, but this PDF > was produced in OpenOffice Draw. If anyone wants the OO file they can > have that as well, but they would need to install the right fonts. I don't think I can view them properly with xpdf, the fonts appear blocky (not vector) and don't scale. However, they appear to be the same as the ones which appear at http://www.marevalo.net/OggLogos/ (at the bottom). I personally prefer the ones at the top, as they look more unique. I used his Ogg Theora logo in one of theora's testspec.ogg files (in CVS), pasted on top of a TV colorbar test pattern. Some criticisms about this logo-scheme, however... one of the goals we have, and it's looking like a really close reality, is that "Ogg" may contain any number of different codecs and played seamlessly by any Ogg player. That is, any file can contain any combination of muxed or chained Vorbis, Theora, Flac, Speex, Writ, Midi, etc etc etc and "just works" the way Quicktime or WMV "just works" with any of their codecs. "Ogg Vorbis" is a thing, yes. It means an Ogg file with just Vorbis, to be compatable with the spec, and important for branding hardware devices which support it. "Ogg Theora" is also such a thing, as the spec describes it as Theora+Vorbis only. Ogg Speex/FLAC are less used (btw, FLAC is an acronimn, so it's all caps) in an Ogg container because they're less useful that way (this will change as Icecast gains support for streaming them, whereas it'll need the Ogg container). So while codec-branding for specific products which support just the one codec is justified, I think we need to really concentrate on branding "Ogg" as it's own thing, and begin to phase codec-specification out of the marketing. At the same time, I don't think the "Ogg" (only) logo is sufficient because it contains no context. Yea, MP3/WMV/etc have got their branding down, but three letters and some blank space does not make a logo. I think it's also important to label the difference between "Ogg Vorbis", "Ogg Theora", and a more complex muxing of different codecs. Prehaps call it "Ogg1"? or "Ogg I", or even "Ogg" with "one" in small letters above the two g's and a "I" roman numeral behind the set? Or any other name which sets apart "Ogg with multiple codecs" from the others that involves more than dropping the codec names from the logo... In referece to the OggCast suggestion, I think Icecast is a brand on it's own right and supports Ogg better if it uses that brand recognition just as "Darwin Stream Server" supports Quicktime. We had this discussion while putting together IceShare, while talking about calling it OggShare instead since it's designed to work with only Ogg streams. The outcome of this was the concept that calling it OggShare makes Ogg sound like it's own world, "Ogg" this, "Ogg" that, in reference to various tools and servers that work with it. In the both the audio and video industry the format is commonly seen as a side-issue, deadlines and budgets often dictate what gets used. If they end up using IceShare because it requires no royalties and works efficiently therefor saving them bandwidth they'll use it, and with it, Ogg. This isn't because IceShare is hostile towards non-Ogg formats, as programs like "Darwin Stream Server" is about non-Quicktime formats, but because the primary advantage IceShare gives is that it works on the Ogg page level instead of arbitrary (meaningless) byte chunks. But again, in all seriousness, people use what works. They tend to become loyal to what they are currently using, and from that, may go further and read about the royalty-free stance of Ogg and it's codecs. Atleast that's how I've seen it. :-) I'd love to hear other opinions on the matter... --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From daniel at mondodesigno.com Wed Feb 25 08:41:26 2004 From: daniel at mondodesigno.com (Daniel James) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:14 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: <20040225155011.GJ87873@selket.twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: <200402251641.26397.daniel@mondodesigno.com> > I don't think I can view them properly with xpdf, the fonts appear > blocky (not vector) and don't scale. Sorry, the fonts should be embedded in the PDF but I guess they are not. If you install Blue Highway and Independence then you should see the design as intended. (I'll send you a bitmap offlist). > However, they appear to be the same as the ones which appear at > http://www.marevalo.net/OggLogos/ (at the bottom). Those use the wrong fonts - I'm not suprised you don't like them. The first one under 'More contributed logos' is right. > one of the goals > we have, and it's looking like a really close reality, is that > "Ogg" may contain any number of different codecs and played > seamlessly by any Ogg player. Sure - the original discussion was about branding for hardware devices such as portable audio players, where it doesn't make any sense to say that they support a video format, for example. > Ogg > Speex/FLAC are less used > in an Ogg container because they're less useful that way > (this will change as Icecast gains support for streaming them, > whereas it'll need the Ogg container). The container is the unifying feature of all the codecs - if you don't use the term Ogg Flac, then people won't even know that Flac can come in an Ogg wrapper. > (btw, FLAC is an acronimn, so it's all > caps) That's a matter of branding - there's no law on acronyms! > So while codec-branding for specific products which support just > the one codec is justified, I think we need to really concentrate > on branding "Ogg" as it's own thing, and begin to phase > codec-specification out of the marketing. I agree, up to a point. For a single-purpose device, support for a particular codec might be all-important. > At the same time, I don't think the "Ogg" (only) logo is sufficient > because it contains no context. Quite. > Yea, MP3/WMV/etc have got their > branding down Actually neither of these has a decent logo. > but three letters and some blank space does not make > a logo. I think the BBC would disagree with you here... > In referece to the OggCast suggestion, I think Icecast is a brand > on it's own right I don't think anyone outside the existing community knows what Icecast is. I can appreciate that there's probably an emotional attachment to the name, but it makes no sense in terms of branding. > We had this discussion while putting together IceShare, while > talking about calling it OggShare instead since it's designed to > work with only Ogg streams. That would have been a better name, in my view. Is the brand 'ice' - a generic term - or is it 'ogg'? > The outcome of this was the concept > that calling it OggShare makes Ogg sound like it's own world, "Ogg" > this, "Ogg" that, in reference to various tools and servers that > work with it. I don't see what's wrong with that. > In the both the audio and video industry the format > is commonly seen as a side-issue, deadlines and budgets often > dictate what gets used. But more often, codec support among end users... Cheers Daniel --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From msmith at xiph.org Wed Feb 25 16:51:48 2004 From: msmith at xiph.org (Michael Smith) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:14 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: <200402251641.26397.daniel@mondodesigno.com> Message-ID: <200402261151.48132.msmith@xiph.org> On Thursday 26 February 2004 03:41, Daniel James wrote: > > In referece to the OggCast suggestion, I think Icecast is a brand > > on it's own right > > I don't think anyone outside the existing community knows what Icecast > is. I can appreciate that there's probably an emotional attachment to > the name, but it makes no sense in terms of branding. You're probably right there - but I also don't think icecast is really a core part of the "Xiph mission". The 'core' part of Xiph projects is to provide free and open multimedia codecs, in my opinion. We also do lots of application-level software - ranging from vorbis-tools, to icecast, to cdparanoia. This stuff helps us to get exposure for the core codecs, but is not really an end in itself. (Opinions above are mine, not neccesarily Xiph's - but when I work on things like vorbis and icecast, that's what I think).

Mike --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From daniel at mondodesigno.com Thu Feb 26 02:18:10 2004 From: daniel at mondodesigno.com (Daniel James) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:14 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: <200402261151.48132.msmith@xiph.org> Message-ID: <200402261018.10546.daniel@mondodesigno.com> > I also don't think icecast is really a core > part of the "Xiph mission". I thought codecs and server were entirely complementary - it's what marketing types call an 'end to end solution', isn't it? I don't think we can rely on proprietary streaming media companies to provide full Ogg support. Cheers Daniel --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From arc at xiph.org Thu Feb 26 08:54:23 2004 From: arc at xiph.org (Arc Riley) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:14 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: <200402261018.10546.daniel@mondodesigno.com> Message-ID: <20040226165423.GV87873@selket.twcny.rr.com> On Thu, Feb 26, 2004 at 10:18:10AM +0000, Daniel James wrote: > > I also don't think icecast is really a core > > part of the "Xiph mission". > > I thought codecs and server were entirely complementary - it's what > marketing types call an 'end to end solution', isn't it? I don't > think we can rely on proprietary streaming media companies to provide > full Ogg support. I think you're also missing the point that Icecast still does MP3. :-) What I know about this is my experience with the public. Last year I probobally streamed 40 or 50 hours of live events, almost all of which in a pedestrian mall in the center of Ithaca (called The Commons). Live music, political rallies, talk shows, anything and everything. The system we were streaming with wasn't marked with any Xiph-related logos, just a small poster stating that we were streaming live. *SO* many people, especially teenagers, came up and were asking about our setup. Many of them had used Icecast before, either as a broadcaster or a listener, and some of them had specific questions about latency/buffering issues with streaming over WIFI and about which stream source software we thought was better. Only a small minority of the people who were curious about the stream setup had ever used Ogg before, in fact I think just one had used it (a Quaker member). However, them asking about the setup gave me a shot to promote Ogg, telling them that we use it because it's better quality than MP3, and how it's not encumbered by patents so we can use it freely. Also, from my experience with various radio station techs, almost everyone in the industry (atleast the small, local, community-based part of the industry) knows of Icecast. Ogg simply doesn't have that same "brand recognition". I think it's better to work towards making "Ogg" synonymous with "online multimedia" the way MP3 has gained that status with online music. I don't think that's an unrealistic goal, either. --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From daniel at mondodesigno.com Thu Feb 26 09:09:14 2004 From: daniel at mondodesigno.com (Daniel James) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:14 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: <20040226165423.GV87873@selket.twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: <200402261709.14033.daniel@mondodesigno.com> > I think you're also missing the point that Icecast still does MP3. I'd never used it for that - is it not subject to MP3 royalties? If there is a community using Icecast but not using Ogg, that's all the more reason to call it OggCast, in my view. The word Ice doesn't suggest either MP3 or Ogg, just... er... Vanilla Ice? Cheers Daniel --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From segher at kernel.crashing.org Thu Feb 26 10:08:24 2004 From: segher at kernel.crashing.org (Segher Boessenkool) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:14 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: <20040226165423.GV87873@selket.twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: > Also, from my experience with various radio station techs, almost > everyone in the industry (atleast the small, local, community-based > part > of the industry) knows of Icecast. Ogg simply doesn't have that same > "brand recognition". Hey, even QuickTime supports Icecast natively. See e.g. http://developer.apple.com/documentation/QuickTime/QT6WhatsNew/Chap1/ chapter_1_section_58.html (and yes, it works fine ;-) )

Cheers, Segher --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From arc at xiph.org Thu Feb 26 12:20:32 2004 From: arc at xiph.org (Arc Riley) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:14 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: <200402261709.14033.daniel@mondodesigno.com> Message-ID: <20040226202032.GW87873@selket.twcny.rr.com> On Thu, Feb 26, 2004 at 05:09:14PM +0000, Daniel James wrote: > > I think you're also missing the point that Icecast still does MP3. > > I'd never used it for that - is it not subject to MP3 royalties? No because it neither encodes or decodes. I only paces the MP3 stream to realtime and prehaps does some ID3 tag interpretation. --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From segher at kernel.crashing.org Thu Feb 26 12:24:08 2004 From: segher at kernel.crashing.org (Segher Boessenkool) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:14 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: <20040226202032.GW87873@selket.twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: On 26-feb-04, at 21:20, Arc Riley wrote: > On Thu, Feb 26, 2004 at 05:09:14PM +0000, Daniel James wrote: >>> I think you're also missing the point that Icecast still does MP3. >> >> I'd never used it for that - is it not subject to MP3 royalties? > > No because it neither encodes or decodes. I only paces the MP3 stream > to realtime and prehaps does some ID3 tag interpretation. Icecast might not encode, but for live streaming you need _some_ encoder, no? ;-)

Segher --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From arc at xiph.org Thu Feb 26 20:01:57 2004 From: arc at xiph.org (Arc Riley) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:14 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040227040157.GA87873@selket.twcny.rr.com> On Thu, Feb 26, 2004 at 09:24:08PM +0100, Segher Boessenkool wrote: > > > >No because it neither encodes or decodes. I only paces the MP3 stream > >to realtime and prehaps does some ID3 tag interpretation. > > Icecast might not encode, but for live streaming you need _some_ > encoder, no? ;-) Yes. IceS0 links against LAME. I know that Xiph doesn't ship binaries of it, and we don't mirror LAME, and well... it's sticky. IMHO, we should mark ices0 as being "obsolete" for the "very few" people who still need to stream MP3 for "specific applications". Really, I think we need to promote the fact that Ogg has become widely adopted at this point, to the degree that MP3 streaming simply wastes bandwidth, and that MP3 isn't accessable everywhere because of patent issues (ie, Redhat).

--- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From daniel Tue Feb 24 01:37:32 2004 From: daniel (Daniel James) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:21 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200402240937.32482.daniel@mondodesigno.com> > There really has been no activity in this long. I think there are a number of reasons for that. Firstly, Xiph.org is not very good at working with the community. I understand the need to retain control of projects that have had an intense personal input over a number of years, but it seems every offer of help or suggestion from outside the core group is shot down in flames. For example, a couple of months back this list was discussing ideas for hardware branding, and came up with a number of suggestions. None of the ideas or offers of help were taken up, and the impression I got was that Xiph.org didn't actually want input from members of this list. I'm not surprised, therefore, that there hasn't been a large-scale advocacy campaign so far. The second reason is that the Vorbis codec has (so far) failed to achieve critical mass among music listeners, and so potential Vorbis advocates are probably losing interest. It's all too easy to compromise, and use MP3 instead, because Fraunhofer has avoided the heavy-handed enforcement of its royalties policy. Either that, or Fraunhofer just doesn't want to use up resources chasing every copy of lame out there, or every cheap piece of hardware. The third reason is that MP3 listening has switched from something that you listen to mostly on a computer, to something you mostly listen to on an embedded device - be it portable, in-car, or on a DVD player. Naturally, it's much harder for end-users to upgrade these embedded devices to support Vorbis. Some high-level Ogg advocacy work is badly needed with the OSDL members (who have just set up a desktop group), the CE Linux Forum and the (largely Chinese) OEMs. Xiph.org would also be welcome as a member of the Linuxaudio.org consortium, which I have been involved in starting recently. If anyone at Xiph.org is still interested in seeing my suggestions for hardware branding, just let me know and I will gladly email a PDF. Cheers Daniel --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From arc Tue Feb 24 23:34:07 2004 From: arc (Arc Riley) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:21 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: <200402240937.32482.daniel@mondodesigno.com> Message-ID: <20040225073407.GI87873@selket.twcny.rr.com> On Tue, Feb 24, 2004 at 09:37:32AM +0000, Daniel James wrote: > > For example, a couple of months back this list was discussing ideas > for hardware branding, and came up with a number of suggestions. None > of the ideas or offers of help were taken up, and the impression I > got was that Xiph.org didn't actually want input from members of this > list. I'm not surprised, therefore, that there hasn't been a > large-scale advocacy campaign so far. I think you misunderstand the group.. it's not that anyone doesn't want help, it's that the core members of Xiph are all busy being hackers and, well, there's not alot of free time to take on extra jobs like volunteer coordination. Being that I was once on the outside looking in, not finding it easy to get involved, I know the feeling all too well. There's a few really talented minds working inside Xiph.. without them we wouldn't have much to speak of. Most of them have to keep regular jobs because they don't get enough contract/grant work with Xiph, and there's a huge todo list for things with a high barrier to entry. Training new developers who are interested in helping with this is an investment on their part, too, and a job that takes them away from doing the work they love to do. I started a "Help Needed" section of Ogg Traffic to help people from the community plug-in to various Xiph projects where they're needed. I'm aware that alot more work is nessesary for volunteer-coordination, but it's a start. > If anyone at Xiph.org is still interested in seeing my suggestions for > hardware branding, just let me know and I will gladly email a PDF. I'd personally like to see it, but why PDF? :-) --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From daniel Wed Feb 25 01:36:56 2004 From: daniel (Daniel James) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:21 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: <20040225073407.GI87873@selket.twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: <200402250936.56695.daniel@mondodesigno.com> > it's not that anyone doesn't > want help, it's that the core members of Xiph are all busy being > hackers and, well, there's not alot of free time to take on extra > jobs like volunteer coordination. It's a matter of priorities. Given that Xiph probably doesn't have the resources to employ a full-time PR team, working with volunteer advocates isn't an extra job, it's a core job. > Being that I was once on the > outside looking in, not finding it easy to get involved, I know the > feeling all too well. I've worked with a lot of libre software projects over the last six years or so, and most of them are much better at accepting outside help than Xiph is. It's just a culture that the project has. > There's a few really talented minds working inside Xiph.. without > them we wouldn't have much to speak of. I couldn't agree more. > Most of them have to keep > regular jobs because they don't get enough contract/grant work with > Xiph, and there's a huge todo list for things with a high barrier > to entry. That's true of most libre software projects though, especially in the audio field. > I started a "Help Needed" section of Ogg Traffic to help people > from the community plug-in to various Xiph projects where they're > needed. I agree that's good - perhaps it needs some extra publicity in its own right? However, with voluntary projects there has to be scope for volunteers to come up with their own ideas. > > If anyone at Xiph.org is still interested in seeing my > > suggestions for hardware branding, just let me know and I will > > gladly email a PDF. > > I'd personally like to see it, but why PDF? :-) I'll email it to you off-list then. It's a PDF because vector artwork needs a vector format, and PDF is widely readable. When working as a designer I used Adobe Illustrator for this kind of job, but this PDF was produced in OpenOffice Draw. If anyone wants the OO file they can have that as well, but they would need to install the right fonts. Cheers Daniel --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From arc Wed Feb 25 07:50:11 2004 From: arc (Arc Riley) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:21 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: <200402250936.56695.daniel@mondodesigno.com> Message-ID: <20040225155011.GJ87873@selket.twcny.rr.com> On Wed, Feb 25, 2004 at 09:36:56AM +0000, Daniel James wrote: > > I'll email it to you off-list then. It's a PDF because vector artwork > needs a vector format, and PDF is widely readable. When working as a > designer I used Adobe Illustrator for this kind of job, but this PDF > was produced in OpenOffice Draw. If anyone wants the OO file they can > have that as well, but they would need to install the right fonts. I don't think I can view them properly with xpdf, the fonts appear blocky (not vector) and don't scale. However, they appear to be the same as the ones which appear at http://www.marevalo.net/OggLogos/ (at the bottom). I personally prefer the ones at the top, as they look more unique. I used his Ogg Theora logo in one of theora's testspec.ogg files (in CVS), pasted on top of a TV colorbar test pattern. Some criticisms about this logo-scheme, however... one of the goals we have, and it's looking like a really close reality, is that "Ogg" may contain any number of different codecs and played seamlessly by any Ogg player. That is, any file can contain any combination of muxed or chained Vorbis, Theora, Flac, Speex, Writ, Midi, etc etc etc and "just works" the way Quicktime or WMV "just works" with any of their codecs. "Ogg Vorbis" is a thing, yes. It means an Ogg file with just Vorbis, to be compatable with the spec, and important for branding hardware devices which support it. "Ogg Theora" is also such a thing, as the spec describes it as Theora+Vorbis only. Ogg Speex/FLAC are less used (btw, FLAC is an acronimn, so it's all caps) in an Ogg container because they're less useful that way (this will change as Icecast gains support for streaming them, whereas it'll need the Ogg container). So while codec-branding for specific products which support just the one codec is justified, I think we need to really concentrate on branding "Ogg" as it's own thing, and begin to phase codec-specification out of the marketing. At the same time, I don't think the "Ogg" (only) logo is sufficient because it contains no context. Yea, MP3/WMV/etc have got their branding down, but three letters and some blank space does not make a logo. I think it's also important to label the difference between "Ogg Vorbis", "Ogg Theora", and a more complex muxing of different codecs. Prehaps call it "Ogg1"? or "Ogg I", or even "Ogg" with "one" in small letters above the two g's and a "I" roman numeral behind the set? Or any other name which sets apart "Ogg with multiple codecs" from the others that involves more than dropping the codec names from the logo... In referece to the OggCast suggestion, I think Icecast is a brand on it's own right and supports Ogg better if it uses that brand recognition just as "Darwin Stream Server" supports Quicktime. We had this discussion while putting together IceShare, while talking about calling it OggShare instead since it's designed to work with only Ogg streams. The outcome of this was the concept that calling it OggShare makes Ogg sound like it's own world, "Ogg" this, "Ogg" that, in reference to various tools and servers that work with it. In the both the audio and video industry the format is commonly seen as a side-issue, deadlines and budgets often dictate what gets used. If they end up using IceShare because it requires no royalties and works efficiently therefor saving them bandwidth they'll use it, and with it, Ogg. This isn't because IceShare is hostile towards non-Ogg formats, as programs like "Darwin Stream Server" is about non-Quicktime formats, but because the primary advantage IceShare gives is that it works on the Ogg page level instead of arbitrary (meaningless) byte chunks. But again, in all seriousness, people use what works. They tend to become loyal to what they are currently using, and from that, may go further and read about the royalty-free stance of Ogg and it's codecs. Atleast that's how I've seen it. :-) I'd love to hear other opinions on the matter... --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From daniel Wed Feb 25 08:41:26 2004 From: daniel (Daniel James) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:21 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: <20040225155011.GJ87873@selket.twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: <200402251641.26397.daniel@mondodesigno.com> > I don't think I can view them properly with xpdf, the fonts appear > blocky (not vector) and don't scale. Sorry, the fonts should be embedded in the PDF but I guess they are not. If you install Blue Highway and Independence then you should see the design as intended. (I'll send you a bitmap offlist). > However, they appear to be the same as the ones which appear at > http://www.marevalo.net/OggLogos/ (at the bottom). Those use the wrong fonts - I'm not suprised you don't like them. The first one under 'More contributed logos' is right. > one of the goals > we have, and it's looking like a really close reality, is that > "Ogg" may contain any number of different codecs and played > seamlessly by any Ogg player. Sure - the original discussion was about branding for hardware devices such as portable audio players, where it doesn't make any sense to say that they support a video format, for example. > Ogg > Speex/FLAC are less used > in an Ogg container because they're less useful that way > (this will change as Icecast gains support for streaming them, > whereas it'll need the Ogg container). The container is the unifying feature of all the codecs - if you don't use the term Ogg Flac, then people won't even know that Flac can come in an Ogg wrapper. > (btw, FLAC is an acronimn, so it's all > caps) That's a matter of branding - there's no law on acronyms! > So while codec-branding for specific products which support just > the one codec is justified, I think we need to really concentrate > on branding "Ogg" as it's own thing, and begin to phase > codec-specification out of the marketing. I agree, up to a point. For a single-purpose device, support for a particular codec might be all-important. > At the same time, I don't think the "Ogg" (only) logo is sufficient > because it contains no context. Quite. > Yea, MP3/WMV/etc have got their > branding down Actually neither of these has a decent logo. > but three letters and some blank space does not make > a logo. I think the BBC would disagree with you here... > In referece to the OggCast suggestion, I think Icecast is a brand > on it's own right I don't think anyone outside the existing community knows what Icecast is. I can appreciate that there's probably an emotional attachment to the name, but it makes no sense in terms of branding. > We had this discussion while putting together IceShare, while > talking about calling it OggShare instead since it's designed to > work with only Ogg streams. That would have been a better name, in my view. Is the brand 'ice' - a generic term - or is it 'ogg'? > The outcome of this was the concept > that calling it OggShare makes Ogg sound like it's own world, "Ogg" > this, "Ogg" that, in reference to various tools and servers that > work with it. I don't see what's wrong with that. > In the both the audio and video industry the format > is commonly seen as a side-issue, deadlines and budgets often > dictate what gets used. But more often, codec support among end users... Cheers Daniel --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From msmith Wed Feb 25 16:51:48 2004 From: msmith (Michael Smith) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:21 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: <200402251641.26397.daniel@mondodesigno.com> Message-ID: <200402261151.48132.msmith@xiph.org> On Thursday 26 February 2004 03:41, Daniel James wrote: > > In referece to the OggCast suggestion, I think Icecast is a brand > > on it's own right > > I don't think anyone outside the existing community knows what Icecast > is. I can appreciate that there's probably an emotional attachment to > the name, but it makes no sense in terms of branding. You're probably right there - but I also don't think icecast is really a core part of the "Xiph mission". The 'core' part of Xiph projects is to provide free and open multimedia codecs, in my opinion. We also do lots of application-level software - ranging from vorbis-tools, to icecast, to cdparanoia. This stuff helps us to get exposure for the core codecs, but is not really an end in itself. (Opinions above are mine, not neccesarily Xiph's - but when I work on things like vorbis and icecast, that's what I think).

Mike --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From daniel Thu Feb 26 02:18:10 2004 From: daniel (Daniel James) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:22 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: <200402261151.48132.msmith@xiph.org> Message-ID: <200402261018.10546.daniel@mondodesigno.com> > I also don't think icecast is really a core > part of the "Xiph mission". I thought codecs and server were entirely complementary - it's what marketing types call an 'end to end solution', isn't it? I don't think we can rely on proprietary streaming media companies to provide full Ogg support. Cheers Daniel --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From arc Thu Feb 26 08:54:23 2004 From: arc (Arc Riley) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:22 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: <200402261018.10546.daniel@mondodesigno.com> Message-ID: <20040226165423.GV87873@selket.twcny.rr.com> On Thu, Feb 26, 2004 at 10:18:10AM +0000, Daniel James wrote: > > I also don't think icecast is really a core > > part of the "Xiph mission". > > I thought codecs and server were entirely complementary - it's what > marketing types call an 'end to end solution', isn't it? I don't > think we can rely on proprietary streaming media companies to provide > full Ogg support. I think you're also missing the point that Icecast still does MP3. :-) What I know about this is my experience with the public. Last year I probobally streamed 40 or 50 hours of live events, almost all of which in a pedestrian mall in the center of Ithaca (called The Commons). Live music, political rallies, talk shows, anything and everything. The system we were streaming with wasn't marked with any Xiph-related logos, just a small poster stating that we were streaming live. *SO* many people, especially teenagers, came up and were asking about our setup. Many of them had used Icecast before, either as a broadcaster or a listener, and some of them had specific questions about latency/buffering issues with streaming over WIFI and about which stream source software we thought was better. Only a small minority of the people who were curious about the stream setup had ever used Ogg before, in fact I think just one had used it (a Quaker member). However, them asking about the setup gave me a shot to promote Ogg, telling them that we use it because it's better quality than MP3, and how it's not encumbered by patents so we can use it freely. Also, from my experience with various radio station techs, almost everyone in the industry (atleast the small, local, community-based part of the industry) knows of Icecast. Ogg simply doesn't have that same "brand recognition". I think it's better to work towards making "Ogg" synonymous with "online multimedia" the way MP3 has gained that status with online music. I don't think that's an unrealistic goal, either. --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From daniel Thu Feb 26 09:09:14 2004 From: daniel (Daniel James) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:22 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: <20040226165423.GV87873@selket.twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: <200402261709.14033.daniel@mondodesigno.com> > I think you're also missing the point that Icecast still does MP3. I'd never used it for that - is it not subject to MP3 royalties? If there is a community using Icecast but not using Ogg, that's all the more reason to call it OggCast, in my view. The word Ice doesn't suggest either MP3 or Ogg, just... er... Vanilla Ice? Cheers Daniel --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From segher Thu Feb 26 10:08:24 2004 From: segher (Segher Boessenkool) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:22 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: <20040226165423.GV87873@selket.twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: > Also, from my experience with various radio station techs, almost > everyone in the industry (atleast the small, local, community-based > part > of the industry) knows of Icecast. Ogg simply doesn't have that same > "brand recognition". Hey, even QuickTime supports Icecast natively. See e.g. http://developer.apple.com/documentation/QuickTime/QT6WhatsNew/Chap1/ chapter_1_section_58.html (and yes, it works fine ;-) )

Cheers, Segher --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From arc Thu Feb 26 12:20:32 2004 From: arc (Arc Riley) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:22 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: <200402261709.14033.daniel@mondodesigno.com> Message-ID: <20040226202032.GW87873@selket.twcny.rr.com> On Thu, Feb 26, 2004 at 05:09:14PM +0000, Daniel James wrote: > > I think you're also missing the point that Icecast still does MP3. > > I'd never used it for that - is it not subject to MP3 royalties? No because it neither encodes or decodes. I only paces the MP3 stream to realtime and prehaps does some ID3 tag interpretation. --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From segher Thu Feb 26 12:24:08 2004 From: segher (Segher Boessenkool) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:22 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: <20040226202032.GW87873@selket.twcny.rr.com> Message-ID: On 26-feb-04, at 21:20, Arc Riley wrote: > On Thu, Feb 26, 2004 at 05:09:14PM +0000, Daniel James wrote: >>> I think you're also missing the point that Icecast still does MP3. >> >> I'd never used it for that - is it not subject to MP3 royalties? > > No because it neither encodes or decodes. I only paces the MP3 stream > to realtime and prehaps does some ID3 tag interpretation. Icecast might not encode, but for live streaming you need _some_ encoder, no? ;-)

Segher --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'advocacy-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered. From arc Thu Feb 26 20:01:57 2004 From: arc (Arc Riley) Date: Fri Aug 6 13:11:22 2004 Subject: [advocacy] is this list active? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040227040157.GA87873@selket.twcny.rr.com> On Thu, Feb 26, 2004 at 09:24:08PM +0100, Segher Boessenkool wrote: > > > >No because it neither encodes or decodes. I only paces the MP3 stream > >to realtime and prehaps does some ID3 tag interpretation. > > Icecast might not encode, but for live streaming you need _some_ > encoder, no? ;-) Yes. IceS0 links against LAME. I know that Xiph doesn't ship binaries of it, and we don't mirror LAME, and well... it's sticky. IMHO, we should mark ices0 as being "obsolete" for the "very few" people who still need to stream MP3 for "specific applications". Really, I think we need to promote the fact that Ogg has become widely adopted at this point, to the degree that MP3 streaming simply wastes bandwidth, and that MP3 isn't accessable everywhere because of patent issues (ie, Redhat).