[theora-dev] Re: [advocacy] Project Announcement : New Media Container Format 'matroska'

[AK Palmware]

Who in their right mind would go out and advertise on another project's
mailing list that a new project is being started?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Monty" <xiphmont at xiph.org>
To: <advocacy at xiph.org>
Cc: <flac-dev at lists.sourceforge.net>; <theora-dev at xiph.org>;
<gstreamer-devel at lists.sourceforge.net>; <uci-devel at lists.sourceforge.net>;
<virtualdubmod-devel at lists.sourceforge.net>; <xvid-devel at xvid.org>;
<0 at main.gmane.org>
Sent: Saturday, December 07, 2002 3:10 PM
Subject: [theora-dev] Re: [advocacy] Project Announcement : New Media
Container Format 'matroska'

<p>>
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 07, 2002 at 10:29:29PM +0100, ChristianHJW wrote:
> >
> > Please allow me to announce the creation of a new open source Media
> > Container Format, named 'matroska'
> >
> > Project page is here http://sf.net/projects/matroska ; homepage is
> > http://matroska.sourceforge.net , HTML should be online soon.
>
> Another redundant project?
>
> "ten BSD programmers are sealed in a computer lab for a month.  At the
> end of the month, the door is opened.  Investigators discover,
> bloodied and dead, all ten programmers--- and thirteen new flavors of
> BSD."
>
> > I am personally not happy about the fact that we had to found a new
project,
> > but it seems that it was the only alternative now. Of course we are well
> > aware of the fact that both projects will become weaker this way, but we
> > hope to be able to release the container including creation tools and
> > playback filters until January/February 2003, and then the users will
decide
> > what format they prefer.
>
> This announcement is not about 'letting the users decide'.  You
> haven't released or produced anything yet. This is the grown-up
> equivalent of declaring 'I didn't get to do it my way, so I'm taking
> my toys home with me' and watching to see which kids in the crowd are
> going to follow you home.  We're on the way to having every dissident
> hacker pushing his own incompatable container format, most based on
> someone else's container format.  OK, sure, whatever.
>
> "Step one: Achieve something. Step two: toot horn"
>
> If you were really interested only in doing something different or
> trying out something new, you'd just have gone off and done it, and
> let the world know if it did/didn't work out. We already went through
> all this a year or two ago when you all declared the beginning of MCF
> and sent mail to the Ogg lists that it would be better than our
> project in every way and we should abandon Ogg and use MCF.  It was
> quite the initial introduction and left a lasting impression.  So,
> I'll repeat a previous flame that the original MCF folks never really
> rebutted (just seemed to ignore).
>
> Quite a few MCF proponents keep touting things that Ogg can't
> do... except they're wrong.  For example, somone told with great
> confidence on HA that he was going with MCF because there was no way
> to figure out what codecs Ogg used and that each mixed stream type was
> hardwired.  That would really suck if it were true.  It isn't.
>
> Looking at it from a high level, Ogg (the software) is full of feature
> hooks for which no one has written the code yet.  But it's apparently
> easier to start from scratch (again), effectively abandoning a half
> completed system that's already running, solid, and deployed
> worldwide, and then use my own lists to pull people out of the project
> that works and has forward momentum.  A second time.  It's in poor
> taste all over again.
>
> </flame>
>
> Personally, my position is that XML (binary or no) belongs in a stream
> or at a higher non-linear level-- not defining the lowest level
> transport attributes.  The correct way to build a large system is not
> to smash every conceivable feature into a single monolithic API layer.
> Build small pieces that work together.
>
> We here at Xiph started with:
>
> 1) a nice, robust linear transport layer that's optimized specifically
> and only for linear transport, ie, 'does one thing very well and can
> be used to build larger things'
>
> 2) filters, aka OggFile, the first 'larger thing', now in progress
> along with resource usage optimizations (eg, zero-copy).
>
> We're going to get that right before building a huge feature-rich
> system on a foundation that's unproven / doesn't exist.
>
> In summary, I'd prefer you let the people here who have demonstrated
> they're capable of working together without forking continue to do so
> without this ongoing pseudotechnical distraction.
>
> (And if you want to do something productive with XML, how about
> contribute to the metaheader or XML page stream type in Ogg?  Hmmm?)
>
> I'm not on most of the lists in the cc: line.  If you want to make
> sure I read your flames before ignoring them, please make sure I'm
> copied.
>
> Monty
>
>
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