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[daven]

is flac still supported?  could someone familiar with this format help me get it to work with mj?

[xen-uno]

Wow! Good question.

FLAC is nowhere to be found on the plugins page.

Encoding is no problem, just point MJ to an external FLAC encoder (like you would LAME or oggenc). Playback? I believe you can get MJ to use WinAMP plugins, in which case, it will support FLAC.

Xenno

[daven]

there used to be a flac plugin for mj, but it was pulled from the plugin page a while back.  can anyone tell us why? i tried using the flac winamp plugin which works for shn, but when i try to play a flac file, mj quits.  are the libFlac and flac.exe files important?  i don't know what to do with them.

[xen-uno]

Daven,

Hopefully we won't get any flac from JRiver for asking since Matt has gone ape

FLAC's a second banana around here

Xenno

[Nikolay]

Media Jukebox never officially supported FLAC. The only way to play FLAC files is by using WinAmp 2 plug-in.

Why would somebody use FLAC when there is APE.

Nikolay

[xen-uno]

Nik,

'cause FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is open source & non-patented and always will be

PS: Don't get me wrong - I like to monkey around with APE, too

[Matt]

FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is open source & non-patented and always will be

So is APE.

[michel]

Why would somebody use FLAC when there is APE ?

You are free not to support FLAC, of course, but let me free to prefer FLAC against APE because it is an open-source format (even if I have no doubt about the quality of the baby of Matt).

I would say the same thing about YADB against FREEDB but JimH could lock the thread so  

[michel]

So is APE.

On http://flac.sourceforge.net/comparison.html we can read:

only three of the lossless encoders out there (Bonk, flac and Kexis) are truly free (source code for Shorten and Monkey's Audio is available but the licenses are more restrictive).

Is it true ?

[JimH]

I would say the same thing about YADB against FREEDB but JimH could lock the thread so  

Would you rather have source or software that works?
:-/

[KingSparta]

Why not use Binary Encoding all saved to IBM cards! You will only need 5 - 10 tons of paper per song.

Warning: Florida Users Please do not use, MP3 Sync Errors Will Occur.

[michel]

Would you rather have source or software that works?

Both of course !

(You mean FLAC doesn't work ?)

In fact, I don't take care of software, I take care of format. I want to be free to change of software and it is possible if it is using multi-vendor formats (or, much better, open-source formats).

For exemple, I take care of the way MJ9 will store the tags in the file in order to be sure that I could retrieve all my tag informations in another audio manager in case I want to change it.

Yes, I have to admit that I cannot imagine to use any audio manager but MJ at this time, but it is not a reason not to be vigilante.

[Matt]

Open source is overrated.

What I found is that most people don't care, and those that do just belly-ache about something new once you release source. (i.e. non-existent licensing issues)

[xen-uno]

>>Monkey's Audio is available but the licenses are more restrictive).

If that is for quality control purposes then that is fine. The house that Matt built is solid.

I worry, though, that in 60 years I'll need to pull all my lossless music off my CD's and the APE converters may not be around. And because I didn't stay current, I won't have any way to convert from APE lossless to Super FOgg (Super Fractal Ogg - aka lossless Ogg - same size as today's -q 0 ogg's).

With FLAC I can have an unchanging blueprint now, and when 2062 rolls around, be assured that my mother's great-great-great......grandkids will be able to write the code necessary to translate. Do I have the same assurance with APE?

Just making a few points to ponder

Xenno

[michel]

Open source is overrated.

You wrote

The use of Monkey's Audio for any commercial purposes including, but not limited to, implementation in shareware packages is strictly prohibited without first obtaining written permission from the author.

It is a serious limitation that open source software or format don't have, even overrated...

[zevele10]

FLAC is not really open source as far as i know.

You can search hydrogene about it

[Matt]

Why wouldn't you just backup the current version of your decompressor with your files?

Oh, and working source code is the best blue print you could have.

[michel]

I worry, though, that in 60 years I'll need to pull all my lossless music off my CD's and the APE converters may not be around.

It is the same problem for FLAC. In fact for both formats the sources are available so you can hope some people will continue to maintain FLAC and APE decoders.

It si more a problem of rights to use.

[Matt]

The use of Monkey's Audio for any commercial purposes including, but not limited to, implementation in shareware packages is strictly prohibited without first obtaining written permission from the author.

Are you a commercial product -- what do you care?  And you can't use most "open source" licensed code for commercial products. (read the GPL / LPGPL license)

And anyone who's ever asked has been allowed to use APE however they wanted -- free of charge.  That includes some big companies and even military research groups.

It's a crapper to put so much time into something, give it away for free (while turning down lots of opportunities to make money), and then take lumps for it.

[xen-uno]

>>Why wouldn't you just backup the current version of your decompressor with your files?

Excellent idea! (every year or 2)

Matt - Let's get started on Super FOgg. We've got a deadline to meet.

Xenno

>>and then take lumps for it

No lumps intended!  

[KingSparta]

>> Matt - Let's get started on Super FOgg.
don't see it.

Maybe APE with an attitude

[michel]

Are you a commercial product -- what do you care?

Your license says that the use of Monkey's Audio for any commercial purposes including, but not limited to, implementation in shareware packages is strictly prohibited without first obtaining written permission from the author.

That means the use of Monkey to play APE files in a discotheque could be considerated as prohibited (or depending on your authorization).

you can't use most "open source" licensed code for commercial products. (read the GPL license)

I read it, it is not true.

anyone who's ever asked has been allowed to use APE however they wanted -- free of charge.  That includes some big companies and even military research groups.

But we have to ask...

It's a crapper to put so much time into something, give it away for free (while turning down lots of opportunities to make money), and then take lumps for it.

As said xenno, no lumps intended. I just would remember that this discussion started when Nikolay said Why would somebody use FLAC when there is APE.. We just answered to Nikolay.

Nobody tried to blame you to developp a non fully open-source licence software, it is your problem and that doesn't do probably any difference for most of us.

Have a good champagne... in a few minutes !

[John Gateley]

MIchel, from www.gnu.org:

You cannot incorporate GPL-covered software in a proprietary system.

Also, they have some wording that you can sell your product  under the GPL, but anyone you sell it to can publish for free, making sales a little difficult.

j

[michel]

You cannot incorporate GPL-covered software in a proprietary system.

Matt told about commercial products, which can be open-source, not about proprietary products. An example of open source product is Mandrake software (a Linux distribution) which is built from Redhat distribution. Both are commercial products though.

However, I answered on this point to Matt but my initial concern was about the right to use APE freely even for commercial use. I am not free to use Monkey to play APE files in a discotheque, for example (without to ask to Matt). I can do it freely (without asking any authorization) with FLAC because it is open-source.

I am not a discotheque owner... neither a FLAC user.

Anyway, it seems that Matt made a good job with APE.

[daven]

the bottom line is that we should have a choice.  i asked about flac because i just came across a disc of music compressed with flac.  ape may or may not be better, but it would be a pain to convert all my flac and shn files. jriver is very responsive to its users needs.  imho unless it is prohibitively difficult or time consuming, mj should support as many formats as possible.  

[Sergio]

First of all, Mandrake is NOT built on RedHat. Why do people have that impression? Besides, Mandrake owns the desktop

Second, neither Mandrake or RedHat are proprietary in the strict sense. The GPL is very simple: if you use GPL source code in your program then that means that YOU HAVE TO DISTRIBUTE THE SOURCE CODE FOR YOUR PROGRAM FREELY. Both Mandrake and RedHat, and all Linux distros do that.

Third, giving away the source code freely, without questions, and allowing it to be incorporated in other programs without restrictions is not just open source, it is releasing your source code as PUBLIC DOMAIN. Linux doesn't do this, KDE, Gnome, X-Free, etc, don't do this. They all use GPL, therefore you cannot use them in a closed-source program.

What you are asking is too much. You are asking for Matt, who has put countless hours on Monkey's Audio (which is by far the most efficient lossless audio codec, and one of the most "compressing") to mark his source code as public domain and let anyone use it without recognition, for the least? How could he even know if a certain program was using his code? I think he does a lot by granting free access to it, via a simple request.

And what do you mean discotheques can't use it? They just have to use one of the programs that supports APE, the APE tools themselves or, in the unlikely event they have their own software, ask Matt for permission...

On the subject of FLAC support, well, I think JRiver should not spend much time on it if there's not a considerable base of requests. Otherwise, just follow the open-source motto: "here, have this, code it yourself".

Just one more thing, I've been using APE's for a long time and I want to thank you, Matt, for coding this great format. It's helped me a lot. If I knew any Linux programming you could rest assured that by now I'd have done an XMMS plugin Maybe I'll get a nice book for the Christmas holidays and get to work

[michel]

Second, neither Mandrake or RedHat are proprietary in the strict sense.

Somedy said that here ? I said they are commercial products (not proprietary products) even they are GPL products (in order to show that both concepts are not completely incompatible).

What you are asking is too much. You are asking for Matt, who has put countless hours on Monkey's Audio (which is by far the most efficient lossless audio codec, and one of the most "compressing") to mark his source code as public domain and let anyone use it without recognition, for the least?

There is a big misunderstanding. Where you read I am asking such a thing to Matt ?

I was just reacting to a (little bit provocante) post of Nikolay where he answered "Why would somebody use FLAC when there is APE" to an user asking about FLAC support. The discussion raised from this point and I just tried to expose my reasons to prefer FLAC (I would feel more confortable to encode cd using FLAC rather than APE due to licensing reasons: I would prefer a GPL - not necessary PUBLIC DOMAIN as you said - license scheme).

I never tried to blame Matt about the license scheme of APE/Monkey and I never asked him to change it. I have neither reasons nor rights to do that and I am grateful he offered APE/Monkey for free to the communauty (even I am not an user yet) but, on the other side, I don't see any reason not to express my concerns if I have ones.