[vorbis] Re: FhG $15k minimum

[Tom Bishop]

Hey Jack,

I understand you can look back and see where you have been..
..and it looks awesome. And I am impressed!

Leonard Cohen had a wonderful line in one of his songs:
    "We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky"

There is a long way to go..

These companies are HUGE... and would step on Ogg and
not even notice (if they could)..

To be "as successful" as they are you have to have everything 
that they have (since they don't have enough, clearly) and you 
don't have (or even want) "patent" protections.

You must understand that much (clearly not all) of the money that
people will pay Thompson-FhG will be funneled back into R&D
of yet better codecs, and tools around their products.
And clearly marketing...

The FhG products of the year 2003 will yield the results of some
of the HUGE sums of money that they are getting now..

They have (they say) 9000 engineers in Germany.. 

Will FhG's circa 2003 products be as efficiently produced, and as 
"programmer pure" as those that could be produced by those
"lean mean altruistic gurus" at Ogg Vorbis.. NO... but there will
be a lot of stuff.. and it will not all be junk... ;-)

What I am saying is, think about the affect that money has on
the development possibilities of FhG.

They will turn that money into "More" intellectual property.
Merrily patenting, and trademarking, and copyrighting as they go...

Ogg Vorbis is for the most part, not even on the radar screen
at this point..  To compete in the marketplace with a company
(hell.. they are a conglomerate) that has some potentially HUGE 
resources in a few years is a daunting task.  

I think it would require a CEO of extraordinary
qualities.. and that is hard to get when you don't have money..
..since if you thought programmers were expensive, try pricing
high powered CEO's of software startups... ;-)

Sorry I rant on like this..

I wish you luck though!   ..unfortunately, I am more interested
in a voice codec right now.. and Ogg is unlikely as good as 
ACELP or other vocal tract modeling codecs. Right?

Regards,
Tom

--------------------------
Jack and I said:

> > Just my opin.. The above plan would at least seem to "Help"
> > push Vorbis into more of the spotlight..
> 
> I'll definately be thinking about your ideas.
> 
> > Am I missing something?
> 
> No, you're on the ball.  You just don't realize how far down this path
> we already are :)
> 
> jack.

--- >8 ----
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