Simply change the Ogg/Vorbis ogg suffix to mpx [LWN.net]

Simply change the Ogg/Vorbis ogg suffix to mpx

Posted May 21, 2007 5:58 UTC (Mon) by markc (guest, #4419)
In reply to: Simply change the Ogg/Vorbis ogg suffix to mpx by rqosa
Parent article: Two new initiatives from the FSF

> It shouldn't matter what the suffix of a URL is;

Technically true, real-world incorrect. Unless it's registered with the
IANA, and comes default in /etc/mime.types and most browsers and
applications respect whatever the official audio/vorbis suffix is, then
any individual diddling with an arbituary suffix is as good as useless
outside of that individuals range of influence.

> any URL can have any MIME type (not "mime.type").

It's actually "Internet media type".

> but they didn't in 1994... and they didn't gain
> usage share by being named similar to older ones.

In 1994 there was no prior mass saturation of the digital audio space with
a legacy format to compete with. I vaguely remember that Napster unleashed
somewhere near 1/2 billion mp3s on the planet before it was shut down...
near on a decade ago.

> iTunes and Winamp support video playback "out of the box".

I haven't checked lately but I'm pretty sure both require extra plugin
downloads to play back Theora streams.

> Amarok currently requires the NMM or
> Phonon engine to be able to play video

Wow, thanks, that is good to hear. I was under the impression that Amarok
would always remain an audio-only player but I guess with KDE4 they have
little reason not to allow for video playback as well. I'm looking forward
to Strigi and Phonon managing all my desktop media regardless of the
frontend media viewer.

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Simply change the Ogg/Vorbis ogg suffix to mpx

Posted May 22, 2007 8:15 UTC (Tue) by rqosa (guest, #24136) [Link]

> > It shouldn't matter what the suffix of a URL is;

> Technically true, real-world incorrect. Unless it's registered with the IANA, and comes default in /etc/mime.types and most browsers and applications respect whatever the official audio/vorbis suffix is, then any individual diddling with an arbituary suffix is as good as useless outside of that individuals range of influence.

Are you aware that server-side programs can set an arbitrary "Content-Type:" header? For example, the URL of the page with the form I'm using to write this comment is http://lwn.net/Articles/235132/comment, with no ".html" suffix, yet the value of the "Content-Type:" header is "text/html; charset=iso-8859-1". /etc/mime.types only applies to static files, and even then doesn't necessarily apply (see cortana's comment earlier in the thread).

> I vaguely remember that Napster unleashed somewhere near 1/2 billion mp3s on the planet before it was shut down... near on a decade ago.

Despite that, there are still many other audio codecs (AC3, the various RealAudio codecs, Windows Media Audio, DTS, AAC, etc.) and container formats (QuickTime, RealMedia, ASF, VOB, MPEG-4 part 14, Matroska, Nullsoft Streaming Video, etc.) in use. MP3 doesn't have as large a usage share as you claim it does.

> > iTunes and Winamp support video playback "out of the box". (emphasis added)

> I haven't checked lately but I'm pretty sure both require extra plugin downloads to play back Theora streams.

That's true, but it's not what I said. I said that they support video playback out of the box. (iTunes also requires a third-party plugin for Vorbis, whereas Winamp supports it by default.)