On 2/12/06, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller(a)gmx.de> wrote:
Removing foundation-l from CC because we're
talking more about tech than
foundation policy now. Gregory, thanks for adding your considerable
expertise to this debate. It is much appreciated.
OK
Windows also
does not support SVG natively, IE renders PNG with
transparency wrong (at least I think it still does). There was also a
time when Windows included no support for MP3. Windows 2000 didn't
ship with an MPEG4 codec, and I don't think that XP does either
(although it will happily download one).
Yes, these are all good points. It would be interesting to know what
formats _are_ supported natively by Windows XP. We might also want to
talk to the video experts from the Internet Archive and Ourmedia about
their experiences with accessibility. These are non-profits with a
record of promoting the public good.
Looking around on Internet Archive, I do not see
Theora, but I do see
files with the "MP4" extension, which the file command identifies as
"ISO Media, MPEG v4 system, version 1". Is that an open wrapper format
for MPEG streams?
Archive.org supports theora, for example
http://www.archive.org/details.php?identifier=DanRDennedyAmyDennedysFirstDa….
They currently leave the burden of transcoding on the uploader, thus
much of their content is not available in theora although I do
understand that it is a goal.
The .mp4 in that case is mpeg systems format. It's also what you'll
usually find mpeg2 and mpeg1 in.. it's less problematic and complex
than using RIFF encap, but it's less widely supported.
If you want
mostly painless universial support for Windows users, what
you should be arguing for is a java Wikipedia player (which is
certantly possible).
Also an interesting suggestion. Do you know a Java-based implementation
which would support Theora, and which would run out of the box in
Internet Explorer on XP? If it doesn't exist, perhaps it might make
sense for the Foundation to fund development, if it seeks to take an
active role in promoting Theora and Vorbis.
Yes it exists, and it's free software. I'm not sure what support in IE
on XP is... I know the jorbis Vorbis decoder works with gcj/kaffe
however which is a good sign. See
http://www.fluendo.com/products.php?product=applet for the Theora
decoder.
And the
mediawiki code that Wikipedia usually runs is labeled 'beta'.
Can you point out any discussion about bugs in Theora?
I'm not aware of their bugtracking database, but their own FAQ seems to
be fairly clear on what they mean by "Alpha":
http://www.theora.org/theorafaq.html#31
"'Alpha' code is strictly for internal development only, which is to
say, 'No one sees this code, it's not even close to being done yet.' At
the
Xiph.org Foundation, we release everything we do so that people can
help us move the codebase forward by reporting bugs and submitting
patches. So, even 'Alpha' code needs to get out to the world."
ugh. That page hasn't been updated in a long time since 2004. It's not
true anymore. Hm. It looks like I lost my access to update it when it
moved over to subversion. I'll get that page fixed.
I've personally had troubles getting Theora to
work with mplayer, but it
does seem to work fine with xine.
Hmm. If you compile mplayer with the theora option it should just work
(tm). It does here. Elaborate some and I'll help you get it fixed. ...
Many of the binary distributions of mplayer do not ship with Theora
turned on, which is slowly changing.
Grepping my IRC logs, I see many complaints about
crashes, lack of docs
and lack of wide support, from various notable people, but it would
violate Freenode policy to post these. If you have logs as well, I
suggest grepping -i for "theora".
I mostly see complains about encoding, none for playback in a quick
glance... In general transcoding is a pain, theora isn't special in
that regard. Actually, it's somewhat better than other formats if
you're on linux and have ffmpeg2theora working.
The two incidents I remember most vividly are the
problems during
Wikimania to play back the little documentary that was made about the
public domain (if we can't even make it work at our own conferences, we
can hardly expect the average Windows user to do so), and our
discussions on Wikinews when David Vasquez was working on a Wikinews TV
version.
Some of the files put up for Wikimania were not actually Theora but
were 'ogm', a combination of mpeg4 and vorbis in an Ogg wrapper. It
was (is?) very popular for the exchange of illicitly copied Japanese
animation because the support for subtitles was far better than what
was otherwise available for mpeg4 (xvid) and it predated Theora. Ogm
has always been regarded as completely evil by Xiph because embedding
patented codes defeats the purpose of having a patent free format (as
well as a number of technical issues about how Ogm abuses ogg
encapsulation).
As a result some of the Wikimania files would not play on our
recommended software. Unless you also happened to have a xvid codec
installed and the stars aligned correctly. I run a bot which checks
uploads for being OGM, we haven't gotten any new ones for a while.
Perhaps this was the cause of your problems?
I do see a risk that the dual policy might be violated
too easily.
Perhaps a simple hack that "filename.<proprietary format>" is not
allowed if "filename.ogg" does not also exist would be sufficient. Yes,
it could still be violated, but that would then be much more obvious and
malicious.
I think that the other issues make the proposal a non-starter, but we
certainly couldn't do any less than that.
I understand. Believe me, I'd love to see more
mainstream support for
Theora and Vorbis. Perhaps we can brainstorm a bit about how to make
this happen. I like the Java player idea.
Sounds like a plan. In any case, as a top popularity site on the
internet we are in a position to drive adoption. We just need to make
sure that we're making it as easy as possible.
Java player is perhaps a good idea, although I don't like the idea of
Wikipedia distributing more executable code than we must. (The next
request will be for java or flash widgets in articles to act as
interactive illustrations...). That said, I find the idea of shipping
out a GCJ/Kaffe compatible Java module a heck of a lot less
distasteful than shipping out content in a patented codec.
Plus, there is a lot of other potential use for a Wikipedia player...
For example, wikieditable time synced overlays and subtitles... with
working Wikilinks and the like.
The RIFF
wrapper used for most of the microsoft formats is a
multiformat wrapper (Just like OGG) and can happily be coerced into
containing executable code (unlike OGG).
Do you have some useful background links on the topic of executable code
within wrapper formats?
There have been a couple of cert advisories on it.. There are
basically two problems: one, windows apps sometimes have a tendency to
ignore extensions and just follow file magic and end up running code,
this is far less common in the apps typical setup to handle OGG... the
second is exploits in the various substreams, for example embedding
WMF in AVI. It's a corner case concern, I had intended to say it was
probably as much of a real problem as theora being alpha but I hit
submit too early.
'Mode
widely used' is a broken argument by itself. If we were going
for most widely used, for revision controlled text we'd be using
Microsoft Word rather than Wikitext.
Well, that's not a very fair comparison, since at least there are
feature-complete open source encoder and decoder implementations of the
codecs in question. According to Wikipedia, there's also debate about
whether the patents are actually enforcable, at least in the EU.
StarOffice :) ... The patents may not be enforceable in the EU but
they are in the US. ... but even if they may not be enforceable in
some or all places we would be asking all involved to accept
liability. Most of the big media names have pulled out their
checkbooks, the licensing fees are high but they are less than the
cost of the liability, and thats no accident. :)