[vorbis-dev] File extensions

[Svante Seleborg]

>> Sylvia Pfeiffer said:
>> 
>> > Now, leading on from here to file extensions is a different issue. I
>> > would recommend to have different file extensions for each of the
>> > defined Ogg media mappings ogg-theora, ogg-vorbis and ogg-speex. My
>> > reasoning is that it makes it easier for programs to map 
>> from the file
>> > extension to the MIME type and from there to the application to use
>> > without having to look inside the file. My check of MIME types also
>> > found that mostly a MIME type maps to many file extensions, 
>> but one file
>> > extension belongs mostly to one MIME type only.
>
>I don't see how this helps, since the MIME type by definition 
>calls one and only one application.  Either that application can 
>support the standard OGG codecs (Vorbis, Speex, Flac, Theora...), 
>or it can't.  If it can, it doesn't need a plethora of file 
>extensions to do so. That information is (or certainly should 
>be!!) encapsulated into the OGG header as some sort of descriptor, 
>ala Quicktime & AVI ("VORB", "SPEX", "FLAC", "THEO").  The point 
>of a format like OGG is to encapsulate these issues into the 
>format; wrangling that info out to the file extension seems just 
>plain wrong, especially if you're not going to have a different 
>MIME type for each (ie a Vorbis player, a Speex player...)

I support this point of view. Encoding meta-information in an arbitrary
label external to the actual data, i.e. extension, is a bad idea from
any point of view. One of the big mistakes of MS-DOS was this idea,
even though better ideas were already in use (i.e. magic numbers,
which although imperfect is so much better). We're still suffering from
that decision more than two decades ago.

If it's at all possible to avoid propagating this error into the sub-
domain of Ogg, please spend some effort to achieve this!

Sometime in the distant future, we may actually see all major operating
systems and environments supporting the migration away from this legacy
errant thinking. If a new format specification has the ability to ease
that transition it's a good thing.

File extensions are evil. IMHO.

/Svante

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