Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
As a thought experiment, imagine a nightmare scenario where someone is granted a patent on html, and for a period of time that patent is vigourously enforced against free software, rendering it virtually impossible to use the web at all without using non-free or semi-free software. Would we just shut down? No, we would make the pragmatic decision to move forward with reluctance.
In that case, I suppose one could still realistically offer two alternatives (HTML for the Windows users and a new alternative that would no doubt emerge in the free-software community for the free-software users). In the case of media files, it would be wasteful to offer all of them in several or even two formats.
My sense of it is that the inconvenience is minor. The point about libraryies and schools is well-taken, but I don't know (none of us do) how many people would actually be frustrated by that. The question about what is required of end users is also a valid one, but it seems like nothing to me to download a plug-in... most people do that sort of thing all the time.
I completely agree with all of that. For the longest time I was opposed to OGG, thinking "We already have MP3, and I can play it with my Winamp, I don't wanna switch!" but then I found out that all I needed was a little plug-in, and it was trivial to install too.
I think the situation is worse than that. I think it is not possible for legal free software to even play mp3s. Am I wrong about that?
According to http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/openletter.html, it was legal up until recently, because the owners of the MP3 patent officially allowed royalty-free use of the decoding technology. They have now revoked this permission and are collecting royalties.
I have Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) installed on my computer, and it can read but not save MP3 files. I downloaded this at a time when royalty-free implementation of MP3 decoders was still allowed. Maybe someone should check if the newest version can still do that or if the functionality has been removed; I don't want to risk losing this functionality by installing the newest version myself.
Timwi