Re: [playogg-discuss] Playogg template letter: please comment

[Paweł Cisło]

Good idea, I think. 
I believe it would be better to say directly which browsers it works in, since e.g. 'Firefox' sounds more convincing (being a widely known name) than 'almost 25%' - you could mention the market share in the brackets. 

Pawel

---- On Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:58:34 +0100 Holmes Wilson <address@hidden> wrote ---- 

> Wanted to share a letter I sent to a publisher offering mp3s but not oggs
> of an author podcast. Eager for your thoughts on using this as a template
> in future campaigns.
>
> Holmes
> --
>
> Dear []:
>
> I noticed that your service only provides books in MP3 format. MP3 is a
> format covered by software patents, and it doesn't work on my GNU/Linux
> computer, since free software developers face penalties for distributing
> players for patented formats--even when they write those players
> themselves.
>
> There's a new audio format called Ogg Vorbis that is not restricted by any
> patents. It also achieves a much higher sound quality for a given file
> size than MP3, and it works in a wide range of portable audio players,
> cellphones, and car stereos. It also works--without the need for any
> special plugins like Flash or Quicktime--in almost 25% of the world's web
> browsers. Wikipedia is exclusively using Ogg Vorbis (and a similar video
> format Ogg Theora) for all its audio and video offerings. In other words,
> this is something that is proven to work on large sites, at a large scale.
>
> The costs of converting your audiobooks to Ogg format are pretty minimal,
> it could be a small project for your team, and I'd be happy to provide
> them with some tools that could help.
>
> My organization, The Free Software Foundation, has an interest in
> promoting adoption of these free formats, and we may be able to arrange
> publicity for your announcement and your ongoing offering, if you decide
> to undertake this project.
>
> Please let me know if you can commit to offering your books as Ogg within
> the year.
>
> More info here:
>
> http://playogg.org/
>
> Thanks,
>
> Holmes Wilson
>
> FSF Campaigns Manager