Spread Open Media

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/SOM_180x60-blue.png

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 4

• Build a strong community
• Create SHARE application

How to translate SOM content

This is easy. If you have a XiphWiki account (you may login through OpenID) go to the original page, say Spread Open Media/en/FAQ and replace "en" by whatever language you speak (e.g. ja for Japanese, pt for Portuguese, etc.)

If the link is Spread Open Media/en/It_is_a_nice_day, then it becomes Spread Open Media/fr/It_is_a_nice_day if you are translating to French. Then, at the top of the article, the header, translate "It is a nice day" back to your language. Why? Because the link's name has to remain equal or the staff will not understand where is the French/Chinese/etc counter-part of the "It is a nice day" page, but if there's no translation of the title "It is a nice day" somewhere in the page, the staff won't know what to call the translated page when it's time to import it to the main site.

Don't forget to also sign at the end. Put a "Translated by " in your language so that you get appropriate credit.

You may also want to translate the site's interface.

How to contribute original content

• Go to Spread Open Media Contributions for a list of proposed additions to SOM. You can add your own, too.