On 14/12/2007, Matthew Cashmore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 13/12/07 20:27, "Dave Crossland" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On 13/12/2007, Matthew Cashmore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> > >> Sorry Dave - we can't drop the NC restriction... > > > > Please explain why :-) > > The backstage podcast is from the BBC - so like all other BBC Content it > can't be used in any commercial sense
Okay cool, thanks for clarifying :-) I thought the situation was possibly more fine grained than this. > > > ...and we've talked about the Ogg Vorbis version before :-) > > MP3 works on everyone's computer with free (as > in cost) software - it just works for everyone and we're more than happy for > people to take the podcast and re-encode them to what-ever format people > want. I do understand your concerns about the patents surrounding the MP3 > format, but do not feel our time is best spent encoding into separate > formats when we know MP3 will work for everyone. You are mistaken in your belief that MP3 "just works for everyone." This is precisely the problem. Many large free software projects - like the Fedora and Debian distributions, and the Audiacity audio tool - do not include support for MP3 audio. This means that they do not ship support for _converting_ from MP3. Here is the Fedora policy statement on MP3: "MP3 encoding and decoding support is not included in any Fedora application because MP3 is heavily patented in several regions including the United States. The patent holder is unwilling to give an unrestricted patent grant, as required by the GPL. Other platforms might have paid the royalty and/or included proprietary software. Other Linux distributions not based in a region affected by the patent might ship MP3 decoders/encoders or they might have included proprietary software. However, Fedora cannot and does not include MP3 decoders/encoders in order to serve the goal of providing and supporting only free and open source software that is not restricted by software patents by default. Fedora Suggests: If possible, use patent unrestricted formats such as Ogg Vorbis (a lossy audio codec that has better quality than MP3), or FLAC (a lossless audio codec)." - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ForbiddenItems#head-69c9770fc2ef79ea9a691d03aa2f475eed113bfa explains LAME is a very high quality MP3 codec. Here is a search of the Debian package archive for it in any version of Debian stable: http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=lame&searchon=names&exact=1&suite=all§ion=all 0 results. As I wrote before, the core mission of Backstage is to support "open innovation" - yet by supporting only a patent encumbered format, it is not supporting open innovation in media formats. Please reconsider supporting Ogg Vorbis in addition to MP3. This is not a random format request because I am too lazy to convert it myself, it is a request to expand the great work Backstage is doing in supporting innovation to all areas of its activity. > > Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs > > I'll go and fix that right now Many thanks! :-) -- Regards, Dave - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
