Spread Open Media

Spread Open Media (or SOM) is a project to promote the different Xiph.Org Foundation formats. You may help create or edit content in the official site by making edits in this wiki.

Why Open Media Matters

• You can use, modify, and distribute Free software for open formats without needing permission from (or paying royalties to) software patent holders.
• It has equal or better quality compared with formats that stuff DRM up your nose and get you sued in court.
• You can share media files across P2P and different operating systems, and it will work on those computers because the specification of the formats are open.
• No matter your needs, be it music, speech, video, playlists, or slideshows: open media will cover them.
• If you help spread the word, then you will see more support and compatibility in portable players, which will benefit everyone.
• You can buy music or videos online, and they won't be crippled with DRM.
• You can save your bandwidth in case you author podcasts or stream content, and those will have better quality than when using proprietary formats.
• The more people that use open media, the better formats you can expect in the future, so if you use open media you are making the world a little bit of a better place.

Idea Map

• Design

Roadmap

Milestone 0

• (DONE) Get accounts to key developers
• (DONE) Fill out this wiki with information from our discussions and slides
• Explanation of what spread open media is and what not (in multiple languages?)
• Examples of best practices such as an interview I did with SJ Klein for the OLPC
• Clear and concise description / definition for open media formats, until now I focussed on using Bruce Perens' Open Standards definition (ivo)
• When all accomplished, launch PR + news posting about this release (cameron)

Milestone 1

• blog 10 posts using the tags and standards setup (Cameron + Jon + Bjorn + Ivo)
• A nice looking theme for the website (keep multiple languages in mind?)
  • Wordpress theme based on mockup by Ivo and Sebastian Kraft's pirate-smile logo (IVO)
• When all accomplished, launch PR + news posting about this release (cameron)

Milestone 2

• Prepare initial promotional campaigns.
• When all accomplished, launch PR + news posting about this release (cameron)

Milestone 3

• When all accomplished, launch PR + news posting about this release

Milestone 4

• When all accomplished, launch PR + news posting about this release