Finally, The Arrival Of Ogg Vorbis 1.0Finally, The Arrival Of Ogg Vorbis 1.0

The open-source phenomenon has finally hit the music world. With the unveiling this week of the long-awaited Ogg Vorbis 1.0, developers can begin to question whether they should be paying all those licensing fees to use the already-established formats. In development for almost three years, Ogg Vorbis, named for a character in Terry Pratchett's novel Small Gods, is an open music code that's expected to emerge as a cost-effective alternative to the increasingly expensive MP3, Windows Media Audio, and RealAudio formats.

But Jack Moffit, executive director of Xiph.org, which has overseen the development of Ogg Vorbis, says the potential is much greater. Moffit says Thomson Multimedia's release last week of MP3Pro presents an opportunity for Ogg Vorbis because it's likely that software developers considering a change will be attracted to the lack of licensing fees associated with Ogg Vorbis. Even so, Moffit acknowledges that Ogg Vorbis isn't about to make people forget about MP3. "My personal feeling is that digital music is going to be called MP3 until the day we die."

Streaming-media pioneer Brian Zisk, who has advised on and promoted the development of Ogg Vorbis, agrees that the renegade format isn't about to take over the market. "I'm not here to say MP3 and Windows Media are going away," he says. "But Vorbis is a strong alternative." The Ogg Vorbis development team is hoping to build momentum by creating plug-ins for Windows Media Player, QuickTime, and RealPlayer. In the meantime, the release candidate is now publicly available for download at www.oggvorbis.com, and after all the bugs have been worked out in the next few weeks, the official Ogg Vorbis 1.0 will be finalized.

Not everyone is convinced that Ogg Vorbis will develop a following beyond the software development community, however. Webnoize analyst Ric Dube says that for it to ultimately succeed, Ogg Vorbis has to achieve some level of consumer acceptance, and he's skeptical on that front. Dube says that because consumers aren't being charged directly for the MP3 format and thus don't view cost as an issue, Ogg Vorbis has to separate itself technologically. "What problems does Vorbis solve for the consumer?" he says. "None."