[Fedora-marketing-list] idea on explaining the mp3 question

[Sam Folk-Williams]

Hi,

I know this is an overly-discussed issue, but since I get so many
questions on it I wanted to run this idea past everyone. 

A common complaint I hear is that people think Fedora is "broken" when
it doesn't play MP3s. This leads to mailing list and forum traffic,
negative word-of-mouth exposure, and needless confusion. 

I think the problem is that when you try to play an MP3 file... nothing
happens at all or you get an ugly codec message -- both of these indeed
seem to indicate something is broken. Why not have a pop up that
explains why Fedora doesn't play MP3s and give a link to the wiki where
it is explained in further detail?

I could file an RFE on this.... I think it would cut down on the
confusion. Has this been previously discussed? Thoughts?

Sam
-- 
Sam Folk-Williams, RHCE
Global Support Services

[Rahul Sundaram]

Sam Folk-Williams wrote:
>  Hi,
>  
>  I know this is an overly-discussed issue, but since I get so many
>  questions on it I wanted to run this idea past everyone. 
>  
>  A common complaint I hear is that people think Fedora is "broken" when
>  it doesn't play MP3s. This leads to mailing list and forum traffic,
>  negative word-of-mouth exposure, and needless confusion. 
>  
>  I think the problem is that when you try to play an MP3 file... nothing
>  happens at all or you get an ugly codec message -- both of these indeed
>  seem to indicate something is broken. Why not have a pop up that
>  explains why Fedora doesn't play MP3s and give a link to the wiki where
>  it is explained in further detail? 
We had a dialog box popup when trying to play MP3 in XMMS in earlier Red 
Hat Linux releases.  That didnt have much of a benefit though for 
whatever reasons. The problem was that we had a number of different 
players and the user experience on some was worse than the others.

>  I could file an RFE on this.... I think it would cut down on the
>  confusion. Has this been previously discussed? Thoughts? 
Now that we have mostly settled down on Rhythmbox by default and 
Gstreamer as the multimedia framework that can be shared across desktop 
environments etc, its easier to do this. You can file a RFE against the 
"distribution" component instead of specific players so we that if we 
implement anything, we do it across the players we provide. Should 
probably look at installing the fluendo plugin after a agreement or 
things like that depending on how far we need to extend support to this.

Rahul

[Nicu Buculei]

Rahul Sundaram wrote:
>  Sam Folk-Williams wrote:
>  We had a dialog box popup when trying to play MP3 in XMMS in earlier Red 
>  Hat Linux releases.  That didnt have much of a benefit though for 
>  whatever reasons. The problem was that we had a number of different 
>  players and the user experience on some was worse than the others.
>  
> > I could file an RFE on this.... I think it would cut down on the
> > confusion. Has this been previously discussed? Thoughts?
>  
>  Now that we have mostly settled down on Rhythmbox by default and 
>  Gstreamer as the multimedia framework that can be shared across desktop 
>  environments etc, its easier to do this. You can file a RFE against the 
>  "distribution" component instead of specific players so we that if we 
>  implement anything, we do it across the players we provide. Should 
>  probably look at installing the fluendo plugin after a agreement or 
>  things like that depending on how far we need to extend support to this. 
I proposed the same thing back in March but the idea was shot down for 
both technical and political reasons, even if the landscape was the 
same: gstreamer, rhythmbox, totem and fluendo plugin. Nice to see it 
raised again.

-- 
nicu
Cool Fedora wallpapers: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro/wallpapers/
Open Clip Art Library: http://www.openclipart.org
my Fedora stuff: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro

[Siddharth Upmanyu]

Good Idea...
What the Developers and marketing people think about it?

SiddharthUpmanyu

----- Original Message ----
From: Sam Folk-Williams <samfw(a)redhat.com&gt;
To: Discussions on expanding the Fedora user base
<fedora-marketing-list(a)redhat.com&gt;
Sent: Monday, October 2, 2006 10:11:16 PM
Subject: [Fedora-marketing-list] idea on explaining the mp3 question

Hi,

I know this is an overly-discussed issue, but since I get so many
questions on it I wanted to run this idea past everyone. 

A common complaint I hear is that people think Fedora is "broken" when
it doesn't play MP3s. This leads to mailing list and forum traffic,
negative word-of-mouth exposure, and needless confusion. 

I think the problem is that when you try to play an MP3 file... nothing
happens at all or you get an ugly codec message -- both of these indeed
seem to indicate something is broken. Why not have a pop up that
explains why Fedora doesn't play MP3s and give a link to the wiki where
it is explained in further detail?

I could file an RFE on this.... I think it would cut down on the
confusion. Has this been previously discussed? Thoughts?

Sam
-- 
Sam Folk-Williams, RHCE
Global Support Services


--
Fedora-marketing-list mailing list
Fedora-marketing-list(a)redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list

[Karlie Robinson]

I think it's a step in the right direction.

One thing Linux in General needs to stay away from is feeling unfriendly 
and that someone should just know what's going on.

It wouldn't have to be more than a quick simple statement about Why MP3 
support isn't native as long as the link you're sending people to gives 
enough information on the ways they could still use their MP3 collection.

After all, we don't want to loose someone just because they didn't know 
they could convert their MP3s to OGG.

Siddharth Upmanyu wrote:
>  Good Idea...
>  What the Developers and marketing people think about it?
>  
>  SiddharthUpmanyu
>  
>  ----- Original Message ----
>  From: Sam Folk-Williams <samfw(a)redhat.com&gt;
>  To: Discussions on expanding the Fedora user base
> <fedora-marketing-list(a)redhat.com&gt;
>  Sent: Monday, October 2, 2006 10:11:16 PM
>  Subject: [Fedora-marketing-list] idea on explaining the mp3 question
>  
>  Why not have a pop up that
>  explains why Fedora doesn't play MP3s and give a link to the wiki where
>  it is explained in further detail?