Summary: Open question about the future of MP3 format in TechBytes
THE next episode of TechBytes will revolve around office suites, LibreOffice in particular. After Richard Stallman's advice that we should omit MP3 versions of the show altogether I wish to ask readers of this site (or listeners of TechBytes for that matter) what they think about the subject. It's going to be a group decision. My main concern has been, having no MP3 versions would render the show unplayable on many portable devices, cars stereos, etc. Much of the target audience uses FOSS operating system, so Ogg is typically supported out of the box and the Ogg downloads by far exceed those of the MP3 anyway. So, today'a small poll (members-only vote) will help determine if future episodes of Techbytes will be encoded as MP3 as well as Ogg or just Ogg (encouraging people to download Ogg-playing software and buy Ogg-supporting gadgets, as Stallman would allege)
"If you are registered with this site, please consider voting right now, with or without listening to Stallman's advice in advance."If we drop the MP3 versions, the show will be Ogg only, as well as VP8/WebM-supporting (as fallback) for browsers that are less Ogg-tolerant. The vote will be considered and taken into account within the next 24 hours or so.
For those who wish to know Stallman's views on this subject, I have just encoded his conversation with me (as ogg of course), allowing folks to hear his side in this. He does make a rather compelling argument.
To the right side of this post (scroll down a little) I have added a poll question. If you are registered with this site, please consider voting right now, with or without listening to Stallman's advice in advance. Also consider leaving a comment. ⬆
Richard Stallman on MP3 Options for Techbytes: Download:
Richard Stallman on MP3 Options for Techbytes: Embedded (HTML5):
Comments
tinus61
2012-08-05 11:07:04
Thanks for posting the RMS interviews and especially this one. It made me convert my latest album in Ogg-Vorbis and my previous one will be up later today.
All the best,
Marti
Michael
2012-08-06 00:05:11
I believe in choice... and it is your right to offer the show in whatever formats you wish.
But a call to reduce choice? No, I cannot support that. It is completely contrary to the open source philosophy that choice is a *good* thing. You currently have a limited number of choices that serve people well without being overwhelming. To reduce these choices based on the philosophy of Stallman with his double-talk and absurd view point would be a massive mistake. Stallman is not a good representative for anything dealing with the open source world.
IBM basically laid off almost 1,000 people last week [...] At the moment about 75% of the 'articles' we see about IBM (in recent days) are some kind of slop
Very ill-prepared for the deteriorating situation caused by their clients' past behaviour towards many people, including high-profile figures who offered to testify
Last week IBM laid off almost 1,000 people in Confluent and the media didn't write anything about it, so don't expect anyone in what's left of the media to comment on Fedora's demise and silent layoffs at Red Hat
In an age when ~1,000 simultaneous layoffs aren't enough to receive any media coverage, what can we expect remaining publishers to tell us about Microsoft layoffs in 2026?
Is the "era of AI" an era when none of the media will mention over 800 layoffs? [...] There's a lesson here about the state of the contemporary media, not just IBM and bluewashing
Comments
tinus61
2012-08-05 11:07:04
All the best,
Marti
Michael
2012-08-06 00:05:11
But a call to reduce choice? No, I cannot support that. It is completely contrary to the open source philosophy that choice is a *good* thing. You currently have a limited number of choices that serve people well without being overwhelming. To reduce these choices based on the philosophy of Stallman with his double-talk and absurd view point would be a massive mistake. Stallman is not a good representative for anything dealing with the open source world.