[theora-dev] Update on IETF Internet-Drafts

[Dan Miller]

I'm pretty sure we're set on Theora being the codec, OGG being the wrapper.  Anything else seems convoluted.  Really this is an issue for Emmett & Monty to work out; last we discussed it there was a lack of consensus, which is why the issue remains unresolved I suspect.
 
My 'marketing 101' 2c worth is this:  Whenever you add a label to the namespace, as it were, you potentially divide your brand awareness.  It's kind of like globals in a program: they're bad because they create competing top-level structure.  Everything should derive from something, and there should be one global export at the top of the heirarchy.  Note how Microsoft brands everything as M$-this, M$-that.  Think of it as microsoft.word, microsoft.excel.  We need the same sort of structure.  There is already some dissipation of brand awareness with Vorbis vs. OGG (and Xiph hanging around too).  However, it is appropriate to create new names within the heirarchy when they refer to legitimately new things (ie Speex is not Vorbis; Tarkin is not Theora).
 
My vote would be to make OGG the top-level exported term.  It's three letters.  It's a file format.  It could be an extension.  It's what a user will usually see.  It has things in it, and they have names too -- Vorbis, Theora, Speex, Flac, etc.
 
Emmett, you gotta do the CEO thing here and make a final decision or the ambiguity will fester and cause illness in our memespace.
 

        -----Original Message----- 
        From: Ralph Giles [mailto:giles at xiph.org] 
        Sent: Sun 1/12/2003 10:29 PM 
        To: theora-dev at xiph.org 
        Cc: 
        Subject: Re: [theora-dev] Update on IETF Internet-Drafts
        
        

        On Sunday, January 12, 2003, at 06:06  pm, Arc wrote:
        
	> I believe this is incorrect as well.  Ogg Theora, to my knowledge, is a
	> video codec.  It does not have any formal relationship to Vorbis and
	> does not require that a Vorbis stream be present.  You have a Theora
	> bitstream and a Vorbis bitstream that are concurrently multiplexed to
	> provide the video and audio.  It should be possible, down the road, to
	> use Squish, Flac, or Speex in place of (or in addition to) Vorbis, and
	> this should have no effect on Theora at all.
        
        I've heard it both ways. There are two different things: the new,
        possibly incompatible version of vp3, and an overall spec for embedding
        that video, along with audio and whatever else we decide to bless in a
        minumum-decodable spec. Initially it sounded like 'theora' referred to
        the later, but Dan said last week it was more of the former. Perhaps
        it's both.
        
        It may be best to remove that sentence until and if a better concensus
        develops for the name. Anybody feel strongly one way or another?
        
          -r
        
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