[vorbis] Comment field spec needs to be expanded and tightened

[Bacchus 13]

---- Beni Cherniavsky <scben at techst02.technion.ac.il> wrote:
> On Mon, 5 Mar 2001, Moritz Grimm wrote:
> 
> It's worse than this.  I have a song whose lyrics I know to have been
> written on 4 Sivan, 5694 (Jewish date) and I'm both lazy and deliberately
> unwilling to translate it to a Gregorian date. 

Whoa!  This is a culture shock.  Wasn't Einstein Jewish?

> The comments are intended to be human-readable, not fancily
> machine-processable (the simple open flat namespace w/o structuring
> abilities is just not flexible enough to represent arbitrary metadata).
> I
> believe that there should be guildlines promoting common usage of the
> comments but no strict standartization: everything that can be reasonably
> understood by a human being that got the file is a good comment.

Well, however, 'human being' has cultural groups and they have various
languages.  Furthermore, cultural groups have individuals, who have various
preferences.

Here, the minimum condition for comments is machine processable.  In
the evangelic mythology, it would be taken as the logos before the destruction
of the Tower of Babel (Just a metaphor, OK?  I mean, I'm not a nerd!).
 The minimum condition for the format is that it is written in the common
language for computers (If not, it will work on your computer.  For they
cannot understand each other).  So, format itself should be open.  What
we need is efficient comment editors that satisfy our various needs -
i.e. comment editors which allow us to use various languages, various
calendars, various fields.

I think this tendency will be getting common in Vorbis project.  The
latest programs are released for linux as developers are using this OS
(Many of them are highly customisable but not quite beginner friendly).
 After that, they will be adopted into the more popular and commercial
OS such as Mac and Windows through individual programmers or private
companies.  Some programmers seem to be already working on Winamp plug-in
for Vorbis with comment editors as you can see from the list.  So, what
you are telling about 'the guidelines promoting common usage' will be
decided in this phase of adaptation.  I wonder if someone will make a
comment editor that can translate Jewish dates to Gregorian ones, though...
;-)

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