[H-GEN] linux weekly news podcast

[David Seikel]

On Tue, 15 May 2012 18:49:51 +1000 "James C. McPherson"
<james.c.mcpherson at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 15/05/12 06:14 PM, David Seikel wrote:
> > On Tue, 15 May 2012 08:53:43 +0100 "Thorne, Stephen"
> > <stephen at thorne.id.au>  wrote:
> >  
> >> All devices that can decode ogg can decode mp3, not all devices
> >> that can decode mp3 can decode ogg.  
> >
> > The point I'm making is that Linux distros tend to NOT support mp3
> > out of the box, so you are wrong there.  
> 
> That's not a proof, that's an assertion and a generalisation all
> wrapped up into one statement.

Which is precisely what Stephen did.  On the other hand, I did research
this, see below.

> What I (and I suspect, a lot of others) want, is for stuff to
> "just freakin' work, damnit" without having to go and grab yet
> another bloody codec. Otherwise the audience will go elsewhere.

And last time I researched this, mp3 format does not "just freakin'
work, damnit" in a lot of the top Linux distros.  You DID need to "go
and grab yet another bloody codec".  That was a while ago, and I did
research it extensively at the time.  Dunno if that situation has
changed by now.

> Making a podcast available in different formats depends on
> 
> #1 how easy is it for *the creator* of the podcast to do so

As has been pointed out before, a simple conversion should do the
trick.  Note that if you don't have mp3 support, the user can't do this
themselves.  Which is why ogg support is good.

> #2 how much demand is there from the audience for different
>     formats

A figure of 10% for ogg was provided earlier in this thread by some one
with some real world experience.  I would count that as "enough demand".

> If you're willing to step up and put your principals to work
> by transcoding from mp3 to [insert random other format here]
> then you should do so.

I don't have the time to deal with the projects I have already.

I don't believe I'm arguing for the merits of supporting open formats
against people that think it's not a good idea, in a group that
supports open source.  I'll leave this thread now.  I've made my
points, they are valid.  :-P

-- 
A big old stinking pile of genius that no one wants
coz there are too many silver coated monkeys in the world.
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