[Advocacy] Re: Spread Open Media dot Org Update

[Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves]

On 8/23/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> There will soon be an official MediaWiki extension for Ogg file
> support live and in-use on the WikiMedia wikis (i.e. Wikipedia).

That's great to hear, Gregory!

> It would be useful to us if some folks would install it and give it a
> shot.

I do not have admin access to XiphWiki, but j^ has.  Maybe he will try it.

I will install MediaWiki on my private server and see how it goes.

> Right now it has a dependency on having a build of ffmpeg with
> theora enabled, but I hope we get around to removing that need.

Yes, this is an important concern due to ffmpeg's having proprietary
components.  Let's hope you guys find a way around it.

Native browser support will be much useful here, but some developers
are speaking against supporting Theora/Vorbis from within the browsers
themselves.  It's argued that it will be better to use whatever
support is available on the Operating System.

Personally, I think that's a bad approach, since Windows and OS X does
not have default support for Theora/Vorbis.  Besides, browsers do not
rely on OS components to load images and javascript, do they?

We will see whatever works best.  I've heard from the Konqueror/KHTML
developers that they will rather follow the "OS components" approach.
Mozilla, on the other hand, seems willing to get the support in the
browser itself.

> This extension builds off the player detection work that Maik Merten
> did with me for the current beta video player used on Wikipedia.

Kudos to Maik Merten!

> *Successful* open formats are important for the mission and strategy
> of the Wikimedia Foundation.

I'm glad that Jimmy Wales has decided not to listen to the many
complains that Wp and its sister projects should allow MP3 and Xvid.
Open Media formats will help the Free Culture and Open Education
movements become a success.

-Ivo