Take your music open-source with Ogg Vorbis
Wired recently published an article about the Ogg Vorbis audio format. Developped by the Xiph Foundation and promoted by the Free Software Foundation, this open-source audio format is completely free of licensing and patent restrictions.
For the same memory weight, a Vorbis audio file will retain much more quality than its MP3 equivalent. I’ve been using Vorbis as my preferred audio format on Ubuntu for the last 4 years, even going to the extent of purchasing only Vorbis enabled hardware such as portable players and car audio system. The format isn’t supported by default on Windows and OSX, but the Wired articles explain how to easily start using it. Even the ubiquitous iPod can be enabled to play Vorbis files by dual-booting Rockbox, an open-source operating system developped for audio players.
That being said, Vorbis algorithms are a little bit more demanding on processors compared to MP3 and WMA. In the case of portable audio player, the result is a power autonomy shortened by at least 10%. Jack Schofield, a columnist for The Guardian, wrote about his skepticism regarding the long-term sustainability of Vorbis due to his perceived lack of support by the industry and a narrow user base. However, readers questioned Schofield’s backup research in the comments thread of an article by Bobbie Johnson dealing with the BBC’s choice of locked-down formats for its TV delivery system.
In contrast with Schofield’s conclusion, the Wikipedia page on Vorbis reports broad use of the format “in video games titles” and “store in-games… Popular software players support Vorbis playback either natively or through an external plugin and a number of Web sites use it, such as Jamendo and Mindawn, as well as several national radio stations like CBC Radio, JazzRadio, and Virgin Radio.” Since Schofield’s article, Vorbis has been adopted by Korean manufacturer Samsung.
Schofield does raise one good point though: unless it gets endorsed by a major company, Vorbis stand little chance to replace MP3. I think that one possible way of achieving that would be for public and non-profit organizations to adopt the format, much like they are doing with GNU/Linux and OpenOffice.
