[vorbis] tags in comment field - why?

[Craig Dickson]

Monty wrote:

> If you'd like to delay release of the codec another decade, I'm sure
> we could come up with a tag format 50% of us agree upon.

I think you may be a little too optimistic there.

> However, the *real* reason is that the comments are for people, not
> machines.  They're not a strict DTD, they're not machine readable
> fields, they're not a turing-complete programming language.  They're a
> strip of scotch tape on top of a CD for someone to scrawl one, maybe
> two, lines of text onto.

Would I be reading too much into your words here if I think that means
that you regard Jonathan's current proposed tag standard as excessive,
what with his distinctions between PERFORMER and ENSEMBLE and so on?

> No, this is entirely up to the user, not us implementors, because if
> we mandate something the users don't like... they'll do what they want
> anyway.

My guess is that within a week of the time Vorbis starts getting really
popular, someone will come out with a GUI Vorbis tag editor that is
hardcoded to put ID3v2-style tags (ARTIST, TITLE, ALBUM, TRACK, DATE,
GENRE, COMMENT) into Vorbis files, and it will be popular enough that
within a year, most users will have forgotten there was ever an
alternative.

This is a cynical comment; it's not meant to suggest that it's the
outcome I want personally.

Craig

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