On Sat, Jul 23, 2005 at 08:05:18AM -0400, Paul Davis wrote:
if fraunhofer
restricts the widespread use of its codec, mp3 will die. ogg
vorbis is the better alternative, and the only reason why it hasnt defeated
mp3 is the awkward name.
are you blind? the only reason it hasn't defeated mp3 is that the
overwhelming majority of all compressed music format music players do
not support it. do you have any idea how hard it is for a windows user
to play even an ogg file? its like a bizarre inverse of the situation on
some linux distros, where you can play oggs but not mp3's out of the
box, and fixing it means tracking down an obscure repository and
figuring out which of the many mp3-related packages you need. ugh, not
ogg.
...
the business phrase "barriers to entry"
springs to mind here. like most
walls, it may eventually fade, but the one that mp3 has set up is a well
constructed, many-feet-of-reinforced-concrete-thick affair.
Thats true, thought there are only a handful of companies that make the
chips that drive those cheap flash players, and they are starting to
support ogg. Companies like Apple who have a genuine interest in not
supporting ogg are likly to be more of a problem.
- Steve