[vorbis-dev] Re: [vorbis] File Extension .OGG

[Monty]

I spend four days on holiday, and a Holy War starts.  OK, let's put this to 
rest...

1) Ogg and Vorbis are not linux-centric projects.  As most of us, being
developers, run Linux we do need to keep in mind that the vast majority of Ogg
users are not going to be Linux users.  I don't think we're having a problem
here except for a few 'Windows sucks' types who are gonna get scolded if they
represent this as the position of the Ogg project.

2) Ogg, the exact same file format, is to be used for audio, video, and 
everything else we can eventually put in.  The "audio and video players are 
seperate" argument doesn't really fly, and "it's always been that way" isn't a 
good enough reason.  There are other good reasons, but that isn't one of them.

For example, if I want to make a still-frame slideshow in .ogg format, why
would I want to need a third player?  "Because the programmers wish to be lazy"
is the wrong answer (but, to be fair, "because we want to build a tightly
defined, focused application" *is* a valid reason).  However, wouldn't you want
the default .ogg player to handle everything Ogg can do?

3) It is true that Windows [regardless of what I think of it] associates a
single application with each extention.  That's how it does doubleclicking (you
can specify an application on a case by case basis, but this takes time).

So, let's drop the dogma on both sides of the argument and get clever.  We're
supposedly the best and brightest here.

Even if doubleclicking an Ogg file on the Windows desktop launches a specific
player, any other player can still play this file or add it to a playlist. That
solves *most* of the trouble right there.

To solve the rest of the problem, I suggest an 'Ogg launcher'.  Doubleclicking
an Ogg file would run the *launcher* (associated with the .ogg extention/mime
type) which is smart enough to know exactly what the file is (audio/video/
multilanguage/still frames/subtitles/etc) and can either immediately launch one
of a number of predetermined players, or present the user with the contents of
a file and a list of players to choose from.

4) "It's hard to tell what to donload via FTP"  

Do you often FTP to randomly chosen dotted quads to poke around for interesting
music?  No, you you a search engine, find what you want, and go get it.  The
search engine need only make a slight additional effort to determine file
contents.

...and if you are in the habit of downloading additional interesting looking
things while there (as I am), all you need is an additional /ogg/audio /ogg/
video subdir.

Monty

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