Xiph.org Releases Free Fixed-Point Vorbis Decoder

volsung writes "A lot of us want portable music players with Vorbis support, right? Well, Xiph.org has decided to help speed the process by releasing their integerized Vorbis decoder, named "Tremor," under a BSD-like license. Tremor is a Vorbis decoding library written for CPUs without floating point hardware, like most handheld devices use. It was previously a proprietary library--licensed by theKompany for their Sharp Zaurus player, among others--but now it's available for everyone to use. The release page also gives contact information for many of the popular hardware manufacturers. If you want Vorbis support in your hardware, now is the time to send some emails! (Also, please say thanks to the Xiph.org crew with a donation if you can.)"

Comments

Re:Isn't this odd.

[volsung]

Actually, no one cares if Fraunhofer (actually Thomson is the one managing the money end) charges for their decoder software since almost no one uses it anyway. On the other hand, people are a little perturbed that you still have to pay Thomson for a patent license even if you write your own decoder.

This is not the case with Vorbis. Xiph.org decided to charge for Tremor in the past, but there never was (and never will be) any restrictions on third-party encoders/decoders. Another person wrote a free integerized Vorbis decoder while Tremor was still proprietary, (though there were some concerns at the time about whether the decoder would produce output equivalent to the floating-point decoder). The Vorbis format is completely open and not hindered by patents, whereas Vorbis software can be licensed however the author wishes.