Re: [playogg-discuss] playogg/faq: unclear phrase

[ineiev]

Jeff wrote:
> On May 1, 2010, at 1:45 AM, ineiev <address@hidden> wrote:
> > "RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, iTunes own formats,
> > and other popular formats require people to use non-free software:
> > controlled by companies, not by the users."
> I'm sure it's something close to this.

Ok, I'll stick to this interpretation in my translation.

The rest is not concerned with that passage directly, but
I'd like to discuss it in more details -- for general understanding.

> > Not quite sure what "open source formats" are. propably it is not
> > the same as "formats decently supported by some open source
> > software,"
> Correct again. Open source formats / file types means that the code 
> and codec needed is freely available for any software to use.

The code? that is, the specification of the format?
or the source code of an implementation?

> These "plug-ins" are developed and maintained by 3rd parties, not 
> maintained by the company itself.
...
> Things may have changed since 
> 2006, but I was unsuccessful at remotely helping others install this.

I think I see the point: the user can't comfortably play Ogg
with those players. which means that my example was invalid.

> what I call hacking is the developers of these so called plugins, 
> getting around limitations of these sofware. And don't get me wrong, 
> in this case, hacking is a good thing.

In this case it is questionable, because that code empowers
proprietary software, and this is a bad thing.

> Winamp truely has plugin feature, and also comes with the full free 
> version.

Isn't Winamp a proprietary program? the campaign is about
advertising VLC rather than Winamp.

Generally, Ogg is not the goal. the goal is free software, that is,
users' freedom. Ogg is an unencumbered format, and without
such a format no free multimedia software is possible.

> The problem is that many people know and prefer WMP, and 
> because ogg is so scarce, they don't bother.

Now the question is which we should convince them first:
to migrate from WMP or to migrate to Ogg.

Thank you for information; it is very valuable for me
since I have no experience in that area.