Multimediocre

Nik Butler put out a vlog, vodcast, video today commenting on the state of multimedia in FOSS. This is my response.

I was going to reply in kind – I’ve had a kyte account for quite a while – but the truth is my built-in webcam only sort of works in Ubuntu, and Flash doesn’t see it at all so I can’t use the likes of kyte or Facebook Video. I even went so far as to boot into the dusty copy of Vista that came with my laptop, but I needed to install a bunch of updates, agree (or ignore) the free anti-virus software that came with it, convince it that my wireless network did exist and did use WPA, which triggered a whole new batch of updates, and I still needed to install Flash. So I ditched the idea, and decided to stick to more traditional methods until I find a reasonably priced, decent quality webcam for Linux that a) works and b) works with Flash (which only recognises V4L, not V4L2). This experience did remind me why I no longer use Microsoft Windows though, so some good came of it.

Back to Nik. He complains about the lack of decent support for iPods, how iTunes + iPod is a much better experience, and how multimedia support is “multimediocre” – his term – in FOSS.

Apple = Proprietary

Whilst I agree with his sentiments about the iPod, the simple fact is that the iPod is an Apple product and it is their choice as to which platforms they support it on. Yes there are a lot of people out there who own iPods, and hopefully they will want to try an alternative OS but I don’t believe we as a community should be criticised for imperfect support of a proprietary product. If these users want to use iTunes or their iPod under say, Ubuntu, then they need to ask Apple to let them do so. Apple certainly has the resources and knowledge to enable this, but they will not do so until there is sufficient demand.

That being said, many people are successfully using their iPods with Linux thanks to the efforts of the developers of applications like GtkPod, Rhythmbox, Banshee, and Amarok to name a few. It may not be the same experience as iTunes, but at least the device can be made to work.

Multimedia Support

I see multimedia support falling into two categories – consumption and production. As my tale of webcam support shows, production capabilities are still lacking – especially as the focus moves away from the desktop towards web applications. On the other hand there a huge numbers of applications – and even a few dedicated distributions – out there that support media production at various levels, but they do tend to suffer from the usual FOSS problem of user un-friendliness.

Media consumption however I feel is well supported. With a little effort – mainly caused by patent and/or legal workarounds – most distributions can be made to support the popular forms of media. Applications like VLC will play almost anything you throw at it, whilst GStreamer allows media to be used easily by (yet another) huge number of applications.

Is multimedia support ‘mediocre’? Not in my opinion.

Can it be improved? Yes.

Is it being improved? Continuously.

What needs the most attention? The experience.

Experience

Nik is quite right that the iTunes + iPod experience is excellent, and it’s this level of experience we as a community need to strive for in our multimedia applications but as always we should seek to innovate as well as emulate.

Jokosher is a good example of this. They didn’t just try to make yet another multi-track recorder, or copy an existing application; as well as making a solid application they tried to make the experience of using it as good – and intuitive – as possible.

Sacrificing Freedom

I’m no RMS, although I admire him for his conviction and ideals. I believe that we have to sacrifice some freedoms to encourage adoption of FOSS, but at the same time we have to maintain some boundaries. If someone wants to use a device that does not implement published standards and is not supported by either the manufacturer or the community then caveat emptor. They will require extra effort to use. The problem is how do we consistently make them aware of what works and what doesn’t, and how can we convince manufacturers that there is sufficient demand for them to support (or help the community support) their products.

Caveat emptor indeed

I came this close to buying an iPod myself this week. Thankfully I wasn’t quite decided, and Nik’s vlogcasteo™ got me thinking enough to both write this and re-think my decision.