OGG support [was Re: KDE RedHat project]

[Rodd Clarkson]

On Mon, 2005-08-22 at 19:49 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> Hi
> 
> >
> >    I'd argue,  however,  that "positive propaganda" is the right 
> > strategy here too:  if RH (and much of the OS community) takes the 
> > principled stand of providing a free media stack,  it ought to put a 
> > little bit of energy into promoting free media formats -- for 
> > instance,  it would be nice to see a web site promoting the Ogg Vorbis 
> > streams that are out there,  just as there are sites promoting the SBR 
> > heresy...
> >
> > http://www.tuner2.com/
> >
> That does seem like a good idea to me. If you got other areas that we 
> can improve the the promotion of free media formats,  do post to the 
> fedora-marketing list.

I'll tell you what else would be very useful here.

A site with simple, easy to follow instructions on how to get OGG
formats playing on other platforms, and preferably in these platforms
default players.

One of the biggest sticking points I've had with getting people to even
try OGG formats is getting their platform (usually OS X) to be able to
support this format.

Having a place where people could be pointed to that tells/shows them
what to do and also has the links to the software that need (hopefully
in small, easy to download bits) would make it a lot easier to get
people to try (and use) vorbis.

As and example, I've tried to get my government in Australia to use OGG
formats for parliamentary needs, but the sysadmin just tells me it's too
hard to install on some platforms and that they will stick with
proprietary formats (and no government should use these for information
distribution) because people just have these installed on their systems.
(Strangely, comments from me that the formats they support aren't even
supported by the manufacturers on my system seem to fall on deaf ears).

Being able to say to these people, go to this page and follow the simple
instructions and you'll be able to use OGG formats would make selling
the idea of OGG much, much easier.


Rodd
-- 
"It's a fine line between denial and faith.
 It's much better on my side"