[Vorbis-dev] Proposal: An extension to rules all others

[Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves]

On 1/15/07, Ian Malone <ibmalone at gmail.com> wrote:
> There is a point of view that Apple is quite bent on preventing uptake
> of other formats.

I've been thinking about that.  Considering Apple is an American
company, can't they be liable for an anti-trust case against other
formats?  They do have an interest in keeping little competition in
AAC'a territory.

> First, there is apparently a new version of MS DOS coming out shortly,
> does anyone know if it is any more sensible than it's predecessors?

I've not heard of anything in that regard.  Actually, I'm not sure it
would make sense for Microsoft to develop a new version of DOS.
Although, I did hear something about a new completely different
Command Line in Windows Vista, but I doubt that would be affected by
8.3 limits.

> Secondly, it's become increasingly clear that end users are less
> computer literate (yes more people can type, but a decreasing
> proportion understand how their computers work, maybe I should say
> the quality of computer literacy is decreasing).  They don't care
> about technologies (or people wouldn't use iPods), what they do
> care about is branding.  I immediately thought about being flippant
> and suggesting .mp3 for Ogg containing audio only and .avi for
> Ogg containing .avi, making it the WMP's problem.  But, that would
> make Xiph the bad guys...
>
> However there's something to this idea; it recognises the recognition
> that .avi and .mp3 posses (having recently had to load someone's iPod
> for them I suspect there may be quite a few people using iPods
> thinking that mp3 is aac).  So what about:
> .music (Vorbis)
> .video (Theora + audio)
> .voice (Speex)
> .music-perfect + .voice-perfect (FLAC & PCM)
> .video-perfect (Lossless video codecs + audio)?
>
> I really am serious.  They're unused (AFAIK), they tell you about
> content.  If people start trying to call other things .music (or
> similar), then they'll run into any extension problems, and if
> MS suddenly find people whose mp3, wma etc. isn't working
> complaining they are more likely to try and do something about that
> than they have been to act on Ogg.
>
> The downside is losing the Ogg/codec branding, though I think this
> is more important for content publishers than consumers.

Yes!  Your extensions list is actually more sensible than mine.  This
is aggresive marketing!  And it can work.  As long as software
developers are warned to support both new and legacy extensions, and
content developers encouraged to use the new extensions, it might just
work.  Pretty much, it's still a dual extension proposal, but with
foresight of promotion and locking illiterate users to think .music is
actually music, and .video is actually video, and nothing else.

And I'm sure audiophiles will be happy with .music-perfect.

What do others think?  Monty, Josh, Ralph, Jean-Marc, Mike?  Do any of
you agree on this proposal?

The intent to get rid of extension flamewars due to exclusive use
of.ogg is still here.  Other priorities at work here are promotion and
clear confusion from the part of users.

-Ivo

P.S: There's still the disposition-type proposal to discuss.  Should
we schedule a Monthly Meeting to discuss this and the above?