Speex Goes 1.0, Xiph Goes 501(c)3

Emmettfish writes "Hey, folks! We've posted an announcement this morning; Speex (the free and open voice compression codec by Jean-Marc Valin) has gone 1.0, and the Xiph.Org Foundation is now officially recognized as a charitable non-profit organization by the IRS. Donate to help us write more Free Software and get a tax break. Thanks!"

Comments

Speex Goes 1.0...

[paulcammish]

Speex Goes 1.0, Xiph Goes 501(c)3...

.... I go: "wha?"

hmmm

[Miguel de Icaza]

i'd only briefly read about this project before, but just skipping over the links in the article and thinking to myself it would be surprising if these guys could pull a technology like this off without running into a patent problem or two -- anyone know?

certainly ogg to me is a file format/stream protocol that is treading on corporate egg shells :^)

Re:hmmm

[arvindn]

From your fake username, url and sig, I assume you are trolling. However, might as well clear up a point.

From the speex website:

Position regarding patents

The goal of Speex is to provide a codec that is open-source (released under the LGPL) and that can be used in open-source software. This implies that it also has to be free from patent restrictions. Unfortunately, the field of speech coding known to be a real patent minefield and to make the matter worse, each country has its own patent laws and list of granted patents so tracking them all would be next to impossible. This is why we cannot provide an absolute warranty that Speex is indeed completely patent-free.

That being said, we are doing our best to keep away from known patents and we do not patent the algorithms we use. That's about all we can do about it. If you are aware of a patent issue with Speex, please let us know.

Normally there shouldn't be any problem when you use Speex. However for the reasons explained above, if you are thinking about using Speex commercially, we strongly suggest that you have a closer look at patent issues with respect to your country. Note that this is not specific to Speex, since many "standardized" codecs have an unclear patent status (like MP3, GSM and probably others), not to mention the risks of a previously unknown patent holder claiming rights on a standardized codec long after standardization (GIF, JPEG).

Strangely I got a 404 on their website, but got the above info through the google cache.

Re:hmmm

[jmv]

(Speaking as Speex author) Well, you didn't get it because it's outdated and hasn't been replaced yet (e.g. Speex is now BSD). On the patent front, we're now much more confident about our "patent-free" statement. Of course, you can never be 100% sure with patents, no matter what you do.

What's the difference between Speex and OGG?

[zero0w]

What's the difference between Speex and OGG?
Any comparison on that?

Will it benefit game developers in delivering voiceover game speeches?

Re:What's the difference between Speex and OGG?

[shish]

speex is geared to vocals, ie more detail in fewer places rather than the semi-constant bitrate needed by music

Re:What's the difference between Speex and OGG?

[pe1rxq]

Speex is a voice codec used for low bandwidth voice data (ie voip).
Ogg is a container format, you can put speex data inside an ogg file.

You probably mean Vorbis, which is an general purpose audio codec much like mp3. Most of the time vorbis data is also put into ogg files.

Jeroen

Re:What's the difference between Speex and OGG?

[tomzyk]

Could you elaborate more on this? (I actually thought Ogg and Vorbis were just abbreviated names of the same codec "Ogg Vorbis".)

So, you're saying that Ogg is "a container format" and "Vorbis" and "Speex" are codecs.... To make this easier for me to understand, could you give an example of an equivalent of that. (like, is Microsoft's "doc" format a container, but you can actually save different versions of text documents to that container? or would that just simply be using the sae file extension for different formats?)

I'm curious.

Re:What's the difference between Speex and OGG?

[jonathan_ingram]

An example from the media formats world:

AVI is a container format (it standard for Audio Video Interleave, or something similar). Within reason, you can put data encoded with many different audio or video codecs into an AVI file -- the most common choice these days being an MPEG-4 variant (i.e. DivX) for the video, and MP3 for the audio.

A similar situation holds for Apple's container format, which often has the suffix .MOV (this is also the basis for the MPEG-4 container format). Most commonly, you'll see .MOVs with the Sorenson video codec -- and it's the closed nature of this video codec which has (until very recently) held back most .MOVs from being played back in Linux.

Back to Xiph's products: Ogg is the overall container format. It's quite simple, and is currently being submitted to the IETF as an internet recommendation. Inside this container, you can place whatever you like. Until very recently, almost every Ogg file would contain Vorbis audio, which leads to the confusion a lot of people have between the things Ogg and Vorbis stand for. This is slowly changing. Quite a few people in the movie ripping world are using Ogg as an alternative to AVI, as the Ogg container format is a lot happier with containing variable bitrate codecs (such as Vorbis) than AVI is (even variable bitrate MP3 can only be inserted into an AVI container by a fairly dodgy procedure).

Xiph's codecs include Vorbis, which is for medium bitrate music, Speex, which is for low bitrate speech, FLAC, which is for high bitrate lossless audio, and in development is Theora, a video codec which is a reworking of the previously closed VP3 codec by On2.

Re:What's the difference between Speex and OGG?

[mivok]

in development is Theora, a video codec which is a reworking of the previously closed VP3 codec by On2.

Whatever happened to (ogg) tarkin?

Re:What's the difference between Speex and OGG?

[arose]

Whatever happened to (ogg) tarkin?
It's all experimental, expect it about 2010.

This is good

[Quixote]

OSS needs a low-bitrate codec. I've been looking to put toether a netmeeting-type open-source app that works on both Linux and Windblows, for use over low(er) speed dialup lines (like 9600bps or thereabouts). This would be the missing piece.

On a related note: if there are any other active projects for a netmeeting-type application (I'm aware of Gnomemeeting, but I'd like to avoid the whole directory/ILS business, and just do simple person-to-person calls, with possible encryption if desired), please post a link.

Re:This is good

[popeyethesailor]

Isnt that what Speakfreely is about ?
Also available for Unix.
CLI based, but some front-ends are available too.

Re:This is good

[cduffy]

On a related note: if there are any other active projects for a netmeeting-type application (I'm aware of Gnomemeeting, but I'd like to avoid the whole directory/ILS business, and just do simple person-to-person calls, with possible encryption if desired), please post a link.

You *are* familiar with Speak Freely, right?

Re:This is good

[IcePic]

Do *NOT* make the same mistake that H323 and SIP has
done and make a protocol that can handle NAT.
With the shortage of ipv4 addresses (or the silly
admins that NAT anyhow) today, you can't use any simple
net-audio no more. People seem to be able to do
most anything, including GameVoice and stuff, but
all the standardised, "serious" software is designed
by people on univerisities or other places that never
heard of NAT so they constantly design the protocols
to send your ip inside the protocol.

Of course, some 2-bit hack kernel module for
ip--filtering for linux appears
in 6 months, but everyone doesn't want to modify
kernels with random modules and unproven code just
because netaudio folks seems to think NAT doesn't
exist.

I'd love for NAT to go away and die, but unfortunately
it wont, so please, if you make an audio app, make
it able to survive a simple port forwarding so I
can 'call' through my $100 cheap-o-matic SOHO-firewall
box.

Codec progress is great, but we need content

[matthewg42]

It's good to see some open codecs appearing/ reaching some level of maturity, though I'm not sure if we'll ever be free from fear of the IP clans in this area...

The main problem I see now is getting some media available exclusivley in these formats. I have to confess it's an awfully big incentive to use proprietary format players when the alternative is not to listen/watch at all.

How did they manage?

[millwall]

It would be nice to know how the managed to get registered as a charitable non-profit organization by the IRS.

The article doesn't mention what they claimed in all those million pages of documentation and those billion phonecalls....

What i'm curious to know is

[SolemnDragon]

Can they get ties in to other nonprofit organisations? Because i can think of a whole lot of nonprofits that have been LOOKING for software development buddies, especially anything working better than current speech software. It becomes particularly relevant in issues such as advanced neuromuscular diseases. What they need is free, open-source (read: adaptable) voiceware, so that people who are already on disability don't have to pay for it... And i'm thinking that the amount of publicity that they could get by tying onto something like one of the many ALS foundations out there, or the MS etc foundations.... would be good for everybody...

of course, i could be completely offbase, because i was a bad slashdotter today and didn't read all of the material, just enough to think about. On a monday morning, thinking is limited... *sigh* right. In the words of they might be giants: "More coffee for me, dear, 'cause i'm not as messes up as i'd like to be...."

questions

[koekepeer]

hey /. readers/experts (i hope)

how does this translate into RL applications? i would *love* to be able to caal a friend over the internet. but:

do you need hardware (other than pc)?
can you connect to windows computers?

this could seriously reduce my phonecosts, i'd be quite pleased to use it and donate some money if i could get this working with my (not able to run linux because of company policy and low geekness factor) friends abroad.

can someone point me to some good links for info?

tnx

Public Software Fund

[Russ Nelson]

We just went through this at the Public Software Fund. Basically, you need a good lawyer and thousands of dollars. You also need to show that nobody will get any private benefit from the publicly-funded works. You also have to show that what you're doing falls into several categories of public benefits, like scientific research, or charitable works.

But if all you want to do is have your public software project receive tax-free donations, just register with Pubsoft and add your project to the list?

Re:Public Software Fund

[jvkjvk]

"You also need to show that nobody will get any private benefit from the publicly-funded works."

How is this possible with GPL'd (and perhaps other OSS licensed) code? I thought that anyone could repackage and sell it. With specifications such as the OGG Vorbis specification, they clearly state that it can be utilized to make commercial applications.

These seem to include private benefits of publicly funded works.

Sourceforge next?

[dnoyeb]

I have always wondered if I could write off the time I spend on OSS projects as charitable donations. I'm not getting paid for it and it does contribute to the global society. I wonder if sourceforge could not become a charitable organization? At least the software side, the adverts could be a different company that pays the charitable org.

Re:Sourceforge next?

[J. Tang]

Kind of off-topic, but not really, no, you cannot deduct time spent on OSS projects. Under the section "Contributions You May Not Deduct" on page A-4, 2002 1040 instructions, you cannot deduct "Value of your time or services".

So if you're looking to itemize deductions this year, give money to Xiph et al.

Disclaimer: IANALTP (I am not a licensed tax preparer)

Re:Sourceforge next?

[rtaylor]

No... But you can get paid by the OpenSource project then donate the money back to them. Yes, you'll still be paying taxes -- but to the project, you're simply giving them dirt cheap labour.

Tax Breaks

[Spunk]

Must donations be in cash to qualify for tax breaks? What about donations of time, or code?

What sort of speed processor do we need?

[91degrees]

A low bitrate audio codec is useless if it can't compress in real time. Will my 300MHz Linux box be able to compress my voice in real-ish time?

Re:What sort of speed processor do we need?

[jmv]

Will my 300MHz Linux box be able to compress my voice in real-ish time?

Easily. The minimum requirement for real-time encoding with Speex is around a Pentium 100, so you'll have no problem.

Re:What sort of speed processor do we need?

[Master_Flash]

Do you know if it is a balanced algorithm? Some algorithms are heavy on the encode or decoding side. Ideally this would be blanaced or tilted to faster decoding, since you only encode your voice once but may decode many others. How does it compare to some of the other encoders as far as speed goes?

Re:What sort of speed processor do we need?

[jmv]

Speex is asymetric like most other codecs. To give you an idea, at 8 kHz Speex requires 10-20 mflops to encode in real-time, while decoding requires 1 mflops.

tax deductible

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep in mind, currently, charitable donations are only tax deductible if you itemize. I suspect most slashdot readers 1) Aren't in the US or 2)Don't itemize or 3) Are dependents (aka live in parents basement).

Call to the arms /. people!

[borgdows]

Tomorrow, we'll demonstrate in front of the White House to demand Freedom of Speex!!

A few examples..

[Kjella]

AVI: Ever needed the right codec, even if the file is still called .avi? Heard of FOURCC? *Most* codecs come with Windows Media Player, but certainly not all.

TIFF: Do you know TIFF? Well there's uncompressed TIFF and compressed TIFF (I think 4-5 different compression algorigthms) that are all called .tif

DOC: Yep it's a container format. A .doc file from Office95 is not the same as a .doc file from Office XP. The actual spec keeps changing, just ask the OpenOffice people trying to reverse-engineer it. However, it's not quite in the same class as the other two - this is just one format that is changing (versioning), while files like .avi and .ogg are designed to hold different types of audio streams, for different purposes.

Kjella

SpeakFreely 7.6 does NAT!

[nadaou]

The new version of SpeakFreely for UNIX, mentioned here already several times, will handle NAT. From the v7.6 announcement:

The NAT Patch by Tor-Åke Fransson has been integrated into this release and enabled by default; this patch permits users behind routers and firewalls which perform Network Address Translation boxes to contact users who aren't.

Don't forget to try the Tcl/Tk v0.8.1 interface!

The windows version looks like it has been orphaned, so you'll have to patch it yourself if you want NAT on that. And add Speex 1.0 support while you're at it, eh?

This rocks I love speex

[Sir_Stinksalot]

I have been investigating the feasability of moving my church into digital recording instead of to tape. I thought with ogg vorbis I could archive older sermons in mass quantities without too horrible of sound. But alas ogg vorbis sux with plain voice because it still needs the higher bitrates to sound good like 64 or so. But then I found speex. And I found that a good sounding (not taxing to the ear but noticeable compression) could fit forty 45 minute sermons on one cd (assuming the compression I got on small samples would pan out on 45 minute sermons) Then I could archive a lot of sermons to a 5 cent cd instead of 2 sermons per tape. So now I need to setup my latptop and try it one sunday. If the laptop gets decent sound then I assume that a desktop system with a decent sound card will only do better. Has anyone done things similar to this? What compression settings do you like? what program you using (linux or windows) to record before compression?

Re:Is this really a charity?

[Sloppy]

(It's Xiph, not Xing.)

If you give money to a cancer-cure-research organization, it doesn't suddenly become a non-charity if you happen to have cancer.

When it comes to codecs, we all have cancer and we all want the cure. While you do get something in return for your donation, you are not specifically the entity that gets something; everyone gets something for your donation, including your competitors.

Re:Is this really a charity?

[trelanexiph]

first off it's Xiph, not Xing. And secondly, you aren't getting the product because you donated, people that do not choose to donate recieve the product in the same manner and timeframe as those that donate (in fact those that take time to donate before downloading may get their product in a longer time frame (in length by the time it takes to make the donation which Xiph does greatly appreciate.) So legally no you do not get ogg, vorbis, theora or speex out of your donation. This makes the FULL amount tax deductable on your 1040.
This question is part of what makes the 501(c)3 process take so long. One of the main questions is "does the donator get anything from the donatee out of the donation". Since the GPL/BSDL are in place the answer is no, just as with the Apache Foundation.
This is not to say that these charities can continue producing software without the money. Xiph.Org PAYS several of it's coders to code fulltime, their lifestyle and continued productivity do rely on your donations, and other projects which put money in the Xiph coffers. (currently a red shoebox in emmett's closet with the xiph fish on it)