skullbochs

MPEG-1 Layer 3 (Mp3) audio has not yet been succeeded. Both Apple and Microsoft have been pushing their own newfangled proprietary codecs, but they’re just not sufficiently better for most people to care. Increasing storage and bandwidth have lessened the need for better lossy compression, while lack of widespread compatibility for any of the alternatives forces people to use Mp3 to ensure compatibility. Xiph’s Ogg Vorbis is in fourth-place, but has carved out a respectable niche for itself among GNU/Linux enthusiasts and video game developers.

What wrong with this picture is that, among the four codecs listed, Vorbis is the only one you don’t have to pay to use. The Mp3 format is restricted by a variety of software patents that won’t expire for several years yet. The early years of Mp3 were marred by controversy when many people who wrote implementations of the Mp3 format under the impression that it was royalty-free found themselves facing royalties. Because of this, many GNU/Linux distributions will not play Mp3 files out of the box. Users have to download additional software (usually illegally) to play the same files that will play on the cheap Mp3 player they got for Christmas.

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