[icecast-dev] Xiph.org announces Vorbis Beta 4 and the Xiph.org Foundation

[Jack Moffitt]

Long awaited, but finally here - http://www.vorbis.com.

Beta4 is out the door :)

Below is a copy of the press release, which you can find here:

http://www.vorbis.com/press/20010226.txt

And a Binary Freedom article that went out today:

http://www.binaryfreedom.com/content.php?content_id=26

jack.

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Ogg Vorbis Creators Announce Formation of Xiph.org Foundation
Coincides with Release of Beta 4 and Major Licensing Change

Xiph.org, creators of the Ogg Vorbis audio codec, Icecast streaming media 
server, Cdparanoia, and other multimedia software, are announcing the 
formation of the Xiph.org Foundation.  The Xiph.org Foundation will work to 
promote the creation of free, unencumbered, and interoperable multimedia 
standards. The Foundation has applied for nonprofit status, thus formalizing 
the noncompetitive, research oriented nature of its work.  The Foundation will 
be seeking contributions from both corporate and private sources, with the 
goal of enabling further development of the Xiph.org projects and building 
a strong team capable of pushing the leading edge of technology.

The Xiph.org Foundation formalizes the relationship between the various 
Xiph.org projects and the developers that produce and maintain these projects.
Board members will include Xiph.org creators and developers Christopher 
Montgomery and Michael Person and Icecast.org founder and developer Jack 
Moffitt, as well as other leaders and contributors. Participants in the 
Xiph.org projects will also be involved in the foundation.

In conjunction with the creation of the Foundation, the Xiph.org developers 
have released Beta 4 of the Ogg Vorbis libraries.  This release features major 
quality enhancements, optimizations, bug fixes, and other improvements.  The 
encoding and decoding speeds have been drastically improved over previous 
versions.  Sound quality has also increased dramatically in the latest 
release.

With the Beta 4 release, the Ogg Vorbis libraries have moved to the BSD 
license.  The change from LGPL to BSD was made to enable the use of Ogg 
Vorbis in all forms of software and hardware.  Jack Moffitt says, "We are 
changing the license in response to feedback from many parties.  It has 
become clear to us that adoption of Ogg Vorbis will be accelerated even 
further by the use of a less restrictive license that is friendlier toward 
proprietary software and hardware systems.  We want everyone to be able to 
use Ogg Vorbis."

In response to the change of license, Richard Stallman of the Free Software 
Foundation says, "I agree.  It is wise to make some of the Ogg Vorbis code 
available for use in proprietary software, so that commercial companies doing 
proprietary software will use it, and help Vorbis succeed in competition with 
other formats that would be restricted against our use."

Hardware and software adoption of Ogg Vorbis has continued at an unprecedented 
pace.  Ogg Vorbis is already one of the most widely supported codecs in 
software.  The Xiph.org team is also proud to announce that Ogg Vorbis is now 
available in portable hardware form.  Interactive Objects, Inc. has announced 
the Dadio 2.0 operating system with Ogg Vorbis support.  This will ensure that 
many upcoming audio hardware devices support Vorbis playback.   "iObjects is 
happy to be the first to provide high-quality Ogg Vorbis playback for portable 
devices.  This development increases freedom of choice for portable users," 
said Mark Phillips, CTO of Interactive Objects, Inc..

Visit http://www.vorbis.com to download the newest beta release and new Ogg 
Vorbis music tracks.  Encoder and player software is now available for use 
on most operating systems.  

For more information about the Xiph.org projects, please visit 
http://www.xiph.org.  Additional information about the Xiph.org Foundation 
will be available online soon.  Interested parties or donors should contact:

Jack Moffitt
Executive Director
Xiph.org Foundation
415.595.5215

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