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Apple's Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) Now Open Source
Revotron writes "Apple has released the full source to their Apple Lossless Audio Codec under the Apache license. ALAC was developed by Apple and deployed on all of its platforms and devices over the last 10 years. Could the release of the ALAC source code mark a possible first step in opening up more of the iOS platform?"
...just use FLAC?
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
Apple has a lot of patents on audio/video compression. Have they licensed those for free for this implementation? How about another implementation or fork? Will those have the same license?
Phase 1: DRM-laden, 128Kbps music. Phase 2: DRM-free, 256kbps music. Phase 3: lossless music. But the RIAA is scared of Apple, so they insisted on a non-proprietary lossless format.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Keep in mind any Airplay compatible device can use ALAC, but can't use FLAC. This includes the Airport Express units that have been out since ~2004 or so, and the newer non Apple devices with Airplay compatibility. This is likely a move to assist with 3rd parties wanting to integrate more with Airplay, as the relevant network pieces (Bonjour) are already out there in source form.
Sadly I'm sure most people here will go on and on about how it's not FLAC, and whatever. For once, just at least appreciate that Apple is continuing to throw some interesting things out to the OSS crowd instead of deciding to nitpick it to death. If you don't want to use it, thats fine. Just really tired of the nitpickery and general negative outlook geeks around here tend to have. Cheer up for once :-)
Apache license clause 3, coward.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Only because they HAD to. They made Webkit from opensource Konqueror (KDE) code which ran on POSIX, to use in their new POSIX style OS. Apple uses Webkit in everything on Mac OS X+.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
f we're free to convert between the two now, what advantage is there in using FLAC instead of ALAC?
There are no differences between the two in terms of music quality, but FLAC:
* Supports replaygain
* Has better tagging support (subjective)
* Is better known
* Contains better (any!) error detection (able to batch-verify downloaded files)
* Is preferred lossless codec for vast majority of digital music vendors.
But honestly, all of this is irrelevant compared to how well flac / alac fit into the rest of your ecosystem. If you're using itunes (gag) / ipods, use alac. If not, use flac. If you're technically proficient & want to have lossless files that you reecnode for your portable device, I'd probably go flac for that too.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
If you're a non-audiphile trying to learn how to detect the difference with your ears, I suggest this:
Rip a CD into ALAC. Then re-rip one of the tracks into 256k mp3. Open each track side-by-side in music player apps and set the volume the same. Play each version 10 seconds at a time, paying attention to the perceived location of each instrument in the room.
You may find that it is easier to perceive that location while listening to the ALAC track.
I won't bore you with the scientific details. GIYF.
I doubt you'll ever even see Darwin for ARM.
What ?
iPhone:~ root# uname -a
Darwin iPhone 9.4.1 Darwin Kernel Version 9.4.1: Mon Dec 8 20:59:30 PST 2008; root:xnu-1228.7.37~4/RELEASE_ARM_S5L8900X iPhone1,2 arm N82AP Darwin
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
I can think of a few things; in particular, how good the metadata support is and whether you can seek. At least for me, both of those are more important than a 10 or 20% compression difference.
Though I strongly suspect both FLAC and AALC are pretty comparable on this point.
What is speculative about a fact that they used code that was already licensed as open-source and so they had to release source?
"Was already licensed as open-source" wasn't the reason why they had to release source. For example:
Developing your own engine is much harder, just like developing your own OS layer is harder when BSD is sitting there all ready with the basics.
...the BSD license is an free software/open source license but doesn't require you to make source to derived code available. KHTML was licensed under the LGPL, so Apple did have to make source to their derived-from-KHTML WebKit available (but, as it's the LGPL rather than the GPL, didn't have to make source to anything using WebKit available, or require all third-party code that links with WebKit to have its source code available).
Three reasons why your post is entirely off-base:
1) The codec may be 10 years old but it's the codec used on every single Apple multimedia product. ALAC is required by Airplay. Thus, opening ALAC will allow third parties to implement Airplay interoperability into their products. Old =/= Useless
2) I didn't say they would open source iOS as a whole. Basic English comprehension skills indicate that my last sentence asks "Might they open up more iOS features for third-party utilization?"
3) I'm looking at Darwin on ARM right now, on my iPhone. And my iPad. And the iPod Touch located nearby. ARM is an architecture, not some exclusive hardware platform.
Lossless audio compression is pretty brain-dead simple. If you think of how sticking a wav file in a .zip or .gz only saves about 10% of space, (give or take,) the most basic lossless codecs work by essentially zipping the mathematical difference between each sample. Because storing the difference between each sample, instead of the sample itself, is more likely to have repetition in audio; algorithms like .zip and .gz can then be applied.
What I'd like to know is, considering how brain-dead-simple lossless audio compression is, are there technical merits for using ALAC, especially on embedded devices? Does FLAC rely on floating point when ALAC is purely integer, thus making ALAC easier to implement? Is it easier to seek within an ALAC? Or, is Apple's insistance on ALAC purely a "not invented here" mentality?
No, I will not work for your startup
Yeh, clearly apple only open sources things they have to. Because clang, alac, cups, ... don't exist.
Yet apple has kept darwin open-source, anyway.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
The only reason Apple doesn't support FLAC on their devices/iTunes is because FLAC music usually comes from outside of their iTunes store. And they surely don't want people to not get music elsewhere.
If Apple had any regard for open (source) standards they would've added support for FLAC, since technically it's a good format (maybe not the best, but good) and it's pretty much the de facto lossless standard, even tho lossless in general is not very popular.
And now with open sourcing ALAC it seems like they want to make it more accessible to manufacturers, so that they can freely sell ALAC (lossless) music in iTunes and hardware/software manufacturers will have no choice but to support yet another redundant format (well, if they want to serve Apple costumers).
I wouldn't mind it so much if ALAC had some clear technical advantages, but it doesn't. FLAC is pretty much the same in compression ratio, but is more efficient in encoding and decoding.
I don't want to sound like a fan of FLAC. If you have better alternatives, bring them on. But ALAC is not one, sorry.
IOW, it's business as usual from Apple.
Two questions:
1- Who but a knuckle dragging moron would accept a software license and then try to sue the software's creator?
2- Why is this clause evil when it's software from Apple, but not a problem when it's from the Apache Foundation?
Blank until