Simply change the Ogg/Vorbis ogg suffix to mpx

Simply change the Ogg/Vorbis ogg suffix to mpx

Posted May 22, 2007 8:15 UTC (Tue) by rqosa (guest, #24136)
In reply to: Simply change the Ogg/Vorbis ogg suffix to mpx by markc
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.

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.)

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