Speex dev - Apr 2007 - Re: Re: [xiph-rtp] Re: Proposal: An extension to rules all others

(What list should this be on?  I realise some of these lists are
to get attention from slightly peripheral groups, but should it
be moved to ogg-dev/advocacy?)

On 17/01/07, Tom Grandgent <tgrand@canvaslink.com>
wrote:
> Sorry, but I think generic extension names are far from perfect.  Here
> are some additional problems to consider:
>
<snip perfectly sensible objections>
The reason I made the suggestions I did is that extensions aren't really
a technical issue, except for one (unfortunately major) player which I'm
led to believe needs to be told content type through the extension, but
a PR one. So what needs to be considered is how well the extensions
communicate.
> Finally, I disagree with your assessment of .oga/.ogv on all counts.
> Three letter extensions are good for many reasons: easy to display,
> easy to read, easy to type, and overall it's a familiar, consistent,
> and tried-and-true approach.  I also don't see how they're hard to
> remember (people are quite used to remembering TLAs), especially if
> they follow a logical and consistent naming convention like .oga/.ogv.
>
They're not hard to remember, if you have to remember them.
Most people don't seem to, and shouldn't really have to.

-- 
imalone

Sorry, but I think generic extension names are far from perfect.  Here 
are some additional problems to consider:

1) Language.  When people talk about file types, they almost never 
say "dot" at the beginning.  They say "MP3 files".  For
example, "Does
that player support MP3 files?"  If you have an extension of
".music"
this ends up being "Does that player support music files?"  Which is 
useless, of course.

2) Search.  In this age of search, it's essential to give things 
unique names so that people can find information on them.  If someone 
gets a .music or .voice file from somewhere and can't play it, do you 
think they're going to have much luck searching for info on the format?

3) Attitude.  Promotion is one thing, but trying to claim such generic 
names in the name of open source is simply arrogant, I think.

4) Confusion about purpose.  When it comes to audio, your proposed 
names are .music and .voice.  What happens when some content falls into 
both categories, or neither?  Example 1: Sound effects for a game.  
They'd have to be called .music, which is confusing.  Example 2: A 
podcast with a little bit of music at the beginning and end, but all 
voice in the middle.  If they're not willing to take a big quality hit 
on the music, they'd have to make it .music.  Again, confusing.  It's 
better to have .ogg (associated with music and high quality audio) 
and .spx (associated with efficient encoding of speech).

Finally, I disagree with your assessment of .oga/.ogv on all counts.  
Three letter extensions are good for many reasons: easy to display, 
easy to read, easy to type, and overall it's a familiar, consistent, 
and tried-and-true approach.  I also don't see how they're hard to 
remember (people are quite used to remembering TLAs), especially if 
they follow a logical and consistent naming convention like .oga/.ogv.  

As for not telling what the file is about, it seems more helpful to me 
for the extension to differentiate between formats as opposed to media 
types.  People usually have at least a hint about media type from 
context (i.e. where the file came from, what the name before the dot 
is, file size), but they usually don't have any such guidance when it 
comes to format.

So, in my opinion, Xiph format adoption is best advanced by continuing 
to promote OGG as an MP3 alternative while following established 
conventions in introducing additional extensions.

I hope you will consider this as feedback and not flames.

Tom

"Ivo_Emanuel_Gon=C3=A7alves?=" <justivo@gmail.com>
wrote:
> 
> > What is wrong with the MP4/Matroska/Windows Media/RealVideo model?
> > .oga (Vorbis, Speex)
> > .ogv (Theora, Theora + Vorbis, Theora + Speex, Tarkin, etc)
> 
> All kinds of things are wrong there.  Those extensions use a three
> letter namespace, they are hard to remember, easy to confuse, and
> moreover they tell the user nothing much about what the file is
> supposed to be about.
>
> ...
>
> Although .music-perfect has a nice sound to it, it's possibly too
> large for an extension.  Of course that applies to .video-perfect as
> well, but those are so far only a suggestion asking for feedback.
> 
> Personally, I stand behind .video, .music and .voice.  It's simply
perfect.
> 
> It's a shame that we are apparently going over yet another extension
> flamewar, but things as they are, are not all right.  There wouldn't
> be this kind of talk all the time if things were okay.  Let's hope a
> consensus is achieved soon, because there's far more important things
> to fix around here.
>
> ... 
>
> Finally, I also believe that this change means also a change of
> attitude from Xiph.  Many in the industry, or even in the
> mailing-lists here, have quite a few times pointed out that we are not
> promoting our projects well, or even at all.  This, I hope, is a step
> in the right direction.

On 7/18/07, Ian Malone <ibmalone@gmail.com> wrote:
> Those two cases are specific allowances for the .ogg
> and .spx extensions.  OggPCM and Ghost will be .oga,
> Vorbis in .oga is audio/ogg.
I don't mind the different extensions, but the specific MIME types are
a bad idea.  I'll be changing the proposal to audio/ogg only.
> Of course the restriction of .ogg to Vorbis may not
> happen.
It has already happen.  We all, including Monty who was reluctant
about it, are endorsing it now.

.ogg wasn't supposed to be only Vorbis, but that's how it ended up.
We have to work around the public, not against it.

-Ivo

[Trimmed CC's to the same subset that Ralph Giles posted to further down
the thread]

On Wed, 2007-01-17 at 10:18 -0500, Tom Grandgent wrote:
> Sorry, but I think generic extension names are far from perfect.  Here 
> are some additional problems to consider:
> 
> 1) Language.  When people talk about file types, they almost never 
> say "dot" at the beginning.  They say "MP3 files".  For
example, "Does
> that player support MP3 files?"  If you have an extension of
".music"
> this ends up being "Does that player support music files?"  Which
is
> useless, of course.
I think it's less of pronouncing the filename extension without the dot,
than using a more generic, widely understood term. I personally refer to
"MPEG audio" where the context needs disambiguation and/or I want to
make it clear I'm not talking exclusively about MPEG 1 layer 3 audio.
> 2) Search.  In this age of search, it's essential to give things 
> unique names so that people can find information on them.  If someone 
> gets a .music or .voice file from somewhere and can't play it, do you 
> think they're going to have much luck searching for info on the format?
Quicktime files can contain just audio as well. What is truly needed is
for the operating system to recognize what's actually in the file, not
just rely on the characters after the last dot in the filename!
> 4) ... It's better to have .ogg (associated with music and high quality
audio)
> and .spx (associated with efficient encoding of speech).
Speex in a file is technically Ogg Speex and thus also qualifies
for .ogg as well as .spx. As stated below, I think .spx should be
shunned.
> So, in my opinion, Xiph format adoption is best advanced by continuing 
> to promote OGG as an MP3 alternative while following established 
> conventions in introducing additional extensions.
This "established convention" is an ill-conceived artifical dependence
on the characters after the last dot in the filename as gospel as to
what type of data is in the file. It dates from the MS-DOS era, and was
broken enough then. It is still broken just as badly now, and needs to
be fixed. It will only be fixed for good when it is broken badly enough
that customers have no choice but to complain to Microsoft.

So, to me, the right thing to do, and what we need to do, is break it,
and break it bad. I believe this starts with an official Xiph.org
position that .ogg, and only .ogg, is the only officially blessed
"filename extension" for Ogg multimedia container files, regardless of
content contained therein.

For what it is worth, VLC plays audio-only Ogg as well as video and
audio or video-only, just fine. Complaints that you can't set up Windows
to use two different players based on non-video Ogg versus video Ogg are
a Windows problem, and can only be truly fixed by Microsoft. So, let
Microsoft fix it after people complain.

-- 
Shawn K. Quinn <skquinn@speakeasy.net>