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<h2>Abstract</h2>
The formats with which we encode our data are a critical and often under-appreciated aspect of multimedia distribution. Some popular formats include technologies which are intended to interfere with the free distribution of multimedia assets. There are also, at times, unnecessary requirements imposed by patent holders on end-users and software developers who wish to use certain formats. In order to avoid intentional lock-in, and other invasive and limiting circumstances, it is important to start embracing open standards and tools. The following tables contain information regarding Software Libre and patent free multimedia coder/decoders [Codecs] and container formats.
<h3>History</h3>
Computer technology was born out of a community of collaboration and knowledge sharing. In the early 1980s the practice of sharing efforts and ideas was losing momentum. Richard Stallman, taking the initiative to restore the culture he endeared, founded the GNU Project and Free Software Foundation.

GNU and FSF are cornerstones of modern Copyleft. Copyleft intends to remind people of the freedoms which Copyright takes away and allow them to share these liberties with others. Software Libre is so named to remind us of the distinction between financially free (gratis) and freedoms, which are granted (libre.)

The following tools are protected by the <a href="http://gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html" target="_blank">gnu_gpl</a>.
<h2><a name="animation_and_illustration"></a>Animation and Illustration</h2>
<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" width="551"><col width="73"></col> <col width="271"></col> <col width="44"></col> <col width="75"></col> <col width="68"></col>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th width="73">Name</th>
<th width="271">Short Description</th>
<th width="44">Linux</th>
<th width="75">Macintosh</th>
<th width="68">Windows</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="73"><a href="http://www.apophysis.org/" target="_blank">Apophysis</a></td>
<td width="271">Fractal design and animation interface.</td>
<td width="44"></td>
<td width="75"></td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="73"><a href="http://www.blender.org/" target="_blank">Blender3D</a></td>
<td width="271">3D content creation suite.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75">♥</td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="73"><a href="http://www.inkscape.org/" target="_blank">Inkscape</a></td>
<td width="271">Vector Illistration with Jabber integration.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75">♥</td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="73"><a href="http://www.synfig.com/gallery.php" target="_blank">Synfig</a></td>
<td width="271">Film-Quality 2D Vector Animation</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75">♥</td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<h2><a name="audio"></a>Audio</h2>
<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" width="642"><col width="101"></col> <col width="335"></col> <col width="44"></col> <col width="75"></col> <col width="68"></col>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th width="101">Name</th>
<th width="335">Short Description</th>
<th width="44">Linux</th>
<th width="75">Macintosh</th>
<th width="68">Windows</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="101"><a href="http://trac.zeitherrschaft.org/aldrin/" target="_blank">Aldrin</a></td>
<td width="335">Modular music sequencer/tracker.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75"></td>
<td width="68"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="101"><a href="http://ardour.org/" target="_blank">Ardour</a></td>
<td width="335">Digital Audio Workstation</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75">♥</td>
<td width="68"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="101"><a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about/features" target="_blank">Audacity</a></td>
<td width="335">Multi-Track Recording</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75">♥</td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="101"><a href="http://solfege.org/" target="_blank">GNU Solfege</a></td>
<td width="335">Smarten your ears.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75">♥</td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="101"><a href="http://www.hydrogen-music.org/" target="_blank">Hydrogen</a></td>
<td width="335">Advanced beat sequencer.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75">♥</td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="101"><a href="http://lilypond.org/" target="_blank">LilyPond</a></td>
<td width="335">Sheet music layout(ASCII input)</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75">♥</td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="101"><a href="http://lmms.sourceforge.net/" target="_blank">LMMS</a></td>
<td width="335">Linux MultiMedia Studio</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75"></td>
<td width="68"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="101"><a href="http://openmpt.xwiki.com/xwiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome" target="_blank">OpenMPT</a></td>
<td width="335">Tracker interface music sequencing.</td>
<td width="44"></td>
<td width="75"></td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="101"><a href="http://psycle.pastnotecut.org/" target="_blank">Psycle</a></td>
<td width="335">Modular music creation studio with tracker interface.</td>
<td width="44"></td>
<td width="75"></td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="101"><a href="http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/" target="_blank">Rosegarden</a></td>
<td width="335">Audio/MIDI sequencer.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75"></td>
<td width="68"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="101"><a href="http://zynaddsubfx.sourceforge.net/" target="_blank">ZynAddSubFX</a></td>
<td width="335">Software synthesizer capable of making a countless number of 			instruments.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75"></td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<h2><a name="photography"></a>Photography</h2>
<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" width="533"><col width="96"></col> <col width="231"></col> <col width="44"></col> <col width="75"></col> <col width="68"></col>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th width="96">Name</th>
<th width="231">Short Description</th>
<th width="44">Linux</th>
<th width="75">Macintosh</th>
<th width="68">Windows</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="96"><a href="http://www.digikam.org/?q=about/features09x" target="_blank">digiKam</a></td>
<td width="231">Photo organizer/tagger</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75"></td>
<td width="68"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="96"><a href="http://www.gnome.org/projects/eog/" target="_blank">Eye 			of Gnome</a></td>
<td width="231">Photo browser/viewer.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75"></td>
<td width="68"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="96"><a href="http://www.gimp.org/about/" target="_blank">The GIMP</a></td>
<td width="231">GNU Image Manipulation Program</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75">♥</td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="96"><a href="http://hugin.sourceforge.net/" target="_blank">Hugin</a></td>
<td width="231">Panoramic photo stitcher.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75">♥</td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<h2><a name="video"></a>Video</h2>
<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" width="613"><col width="89"></col> <col width="317"></col> <col width="44"></col> <col width="75"></col> <col width="68"></col>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th width="89">Name</th>
<th width="317">Short Description</th>
<th width="44">Linux</th>
<th width="75">Macintosh</th>
<th width="68">Windows</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="89"><a href="http://avidemux.sourceforge.net/" target="_blank">Avidemux</a></td>
<td width="317">Video cutting, filtering and encoding tasks.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75">♥</td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="89"><a href="http://www.gephex.org/" target="_blank">Gephex</a></td>
<td width="317">Modular multimedia synthesis and manipulation.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75">♥</td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="89"><a href="http://cv.cinelerra.org/about.php" target="_blank">Cinelerra 			CV</a></td>
<td width="317">Non-linear video editing.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75"></td>
<td width="68"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="89"><a href="http://www.jahshaka.org/" target="_blank">Jashaka</a></td>
<td width="317">Hardware accelerate editing and effects system.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75">♥</td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="89"><a href="http://www.kdenlive.org/" target="_blank">Kdenlive</a></td>
<td width="317">Open Source video for GNU/Linux</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75"></td>
<td width="68"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="89"><a href="http://kinodv.org/" target="_blank">Kino</a></td>
<td width="317">Non-Linear Digital Video Editor.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75"></td>
<td width="68"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="89"><a href="http://lives.sourceforge.net/index.php?do=features" target="_blank">LiVES</a></td>
<td width="317">Live Video Mixing Application</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75">♥</td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="89"><a href="http://biggmatt.com/winff/" target="_blank">WinFF</a></td>
<td width="317">Video conversion tool.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75"></td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<h2><a name="communications"></a>Communications</h2>
<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" width="642"><col width="83"></col> <col width="353"></col> <col width="44"></col> <col width="75"></col> <col width="68"></col>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th width="83">Name</th>
<th width="353">Short Description</th>
<th width="44">Linux</th>
<th width="75">Macintosh</th>
<th width="68">Windows</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="83"><a href="http://thecoccinella.org/" target="_blank">Coccinella</a></td>
<td width="353">A chat application with whiteboard.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75">♥</td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="83"><a href="http://ekiga.org/" target="_blank">Ekiga</a></td>
<td width="353">VoIP and video conferencing application.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75"></td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="83"><a href="http://pidgin.im/" target="_blank">Pidgin</a></td>
<td width="353">Instant messaging client that supports many commonly used 			instant messaging protocols.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75">♥</td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="83"><a href="http://www.twinklephone.com/" target="_blank">Twinkle</a></td>
<td width="353">Voice over IP and instant messaging communications using the 			Session Initiation Protocol.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75"></td>
<td width="68"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="83"><a href="http://www.openwengo.org/" target="_blank">OpenWengo</a></td>
<td width="353">A softphone which allows you to make free PC to PC video and 			voice calls, and to integrate all your IM contacts in one place.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75">♥</td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<h2><a name="media_players"></a>Media Players</h2>
<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" width="642"><col width="83"></col> <col width="353"></col> <col width="44"></col> <col width="75"></col> <col width="68"></col>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th width="83">Name</th>
<th width="353">Short Description</th>
<th width="44">Linux</th>
<th width="75">Macintosh</th>
<th width="68">Windows</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="83"><a href="http://elisa.fluendo.com/" target="_blank">Elisa</a></td>
<td width="353">Media center solution designed to be simple for people not 			particularly familiar with computers.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75"></td>
<td width="68"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="83"><a href="http://www.videolan.org/vlc/" target="_blank">VLC 			media player</a></td>
<td width="353">Highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video 			formats.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75">♥</td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<h2><a name="utilities"></a>Utilities</h2>
<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" width="549"><col width="46"></col> <col width="296"></col> <col width="44"></col> <col width="75"></col> <col width="68"></col>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th width="46">Name</th>
<th width="296">Short Description</th>
<th width="44">Linux</th>
<th width="75">Macintosh</th>
<th width="68">Windows</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="46"><a href="http://home.gna.org/colorscheme/" target="_blank">Agave</a></td>
<td width="296">Color scheme creator.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75"></td>
<td width="68"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="46"><a href="http://exelearning.org/" target="_blank">eXe</a></td>
<td width="296">SCORM/e-learning content creation.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75">♥</td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="46"><a href="http://gobby.0x539.de/trac/" target="_blank">Gobby</a></td>
<td width="296">Collaborative text editor. Syntax highlighting.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75">♥</td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="46"><a href="http://mathrick.org/software/purrr.html" target="_blank">Purrr</a></td>
<td width="296">Bulk file re-namer.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75"></td>
<td width="68"></td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<h2><a name="navigation"></a>Navigation</h2>
<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" width="552"><col width="66"></col> <col width="279"></col> <col width="44"></col> <col width="75"></col> <col width="68"></col>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th width="66">Name</th>
<th width="279">Short Description</th>
<th width="44">Linux</th>
<th width="75">Macintosh</th>
<th width="68">Windows</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="66"><a href="http://www.gpsdrive.de/" target="_blank">GpsDrive</a></td>
<td width="279">A car (bike, ship, plane) navigation system.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75"></td>
<td width="68"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="66"><a href="http://roadmap.sourceforge.net/" target="_blank">RoadMap</a></td>
<td width="279">Car navigation system.</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75"></td>
<td width="68"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="66"><a href="http://roadnav.sourceforge.net/" target="_blank">Roadnav</a></td>
<td width="279">open source street navigation solution</td>
<td width="44">♥</td>
<td width="75">♥</td>
<td width="68">♥</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<h2><a name="license_choice"></a>License Choice</h2>
Most software users receive comes packaged under various EULAs [End-User License Agreements.] All of these applications are released under the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/" target="_blank">GNU's Not Unix</a> <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#GPL" target="_blank">General Public License</a>. The GNU GPL is a liberating license designed [and recently re-designed] to promote <a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html" target="_blank">software freedom</a>. The freedoms at stake are individuals' ability to access software, examine it's structure, modify the structure to suit one's needs and give a copy of [or redistribute] the software to a friend or person in need.

It is a principal of GNUmedia to promote, first and foremost, licenses which <strong>preserve</strong> the freedoms which they allow.

Those of you familiar with <a href="http://www.opensource.org/" target="_blank">OSS [Open Source Software</a>] and <a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical" target="_blank">OSS licenses</a> might wonder why GNUmedia is not promoting software, on this page, which is released under other licenses - even <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#SoftwareLicenses" target="_blank">GPL compatible licenses</a>.

Further reading:
<ul>
	<li>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html" target="_blank">Why 	not LGPL?</a> by Free Software Foundation</p>
</li>
	<li><a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-power.html" target="_blank">Freedom 	or Power?</a> by Bradley M. Kuhn and Richard M. Stallman</li>
</ul>
<h2><a name="codecs"></a>Codecs</h2>
<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" width="642"><col width="75"></col> <col width="494"></col> <col width="62"></col>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th width="75">Name</th>
<th width="494">Description</th>
<th width="62">Lossless?</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="3" width="638"><strong>Audio</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="75"><a href="http://flac.sourceforge.net/" target="_blank">FLAC</a>¤</td>
<td width="494">Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) is a file format for audio 			data compression. Being a lossless compression format, FLAC does 			not remove information from the audio stream, as a lossy 			compression format such as Ogg Vorbis does.</td>
<td width="62">√</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="75"><a href="http://www.monkeysaudio.com/" target="_blank">Monkey's </a><a href="http://www.monkeysaudio.com/" target="_blank">Audio</a></td>
<td width="494">Lossless audio compression.</td>
<td width="62">√</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="75"><a href="http://speex.org/" target="_blank">Speex</a></td>
<td width="494">Audio compression format designed for speech.</td>
<td width="62"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="75"><a href="http://vorbis.com/" target="_blank">Vorbis</a>¤</td>
<td width="494">Vorbis is a free and open source, lossy audio codec project 			headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation. It is most commonly used in 			conjunction with the Ogg container and is therefore called Ogg 			Vorbis.</td>
<td width="62"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="3" width="638"><strong>Documents</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="75"><a href="http://opendocument.xml.org/overview" target="_blank">ODF</a></td>
<td width="494">The OpenDocument format is a file format for electronic office 			documents, such as spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word 			processing documents.</td>
<td width="62"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="75"><a href="http://tbt.dyne.org/" target="_blank">TBT</a></td>
<td width="494">Time Based Text</td>
<td width="62">√</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="3" width="638"><strong>Graphics</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="75"><a href="http://jpeg.org/jpeg" target="_blank">JPEG</a></td>
<td width="494">Joint Photographic Experts Group</td>
<td width="62"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="75"><a href="http://libpng.org/pub/png/pngintro.html" target="_blank">PNG</a></td>
<td width="494">Portable Network Graphics (PNG) is a bitmapped image format 			that employs lossless data compression. PNG was created as an 			image-file format not requiring a patent license. PNG is 			pronounced “ping”</td>
<td width="62">√</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="75"><a href="http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/About" target="_blank">SVG</a></td>
<td width="494">Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is an XML specification and file 			format for describing two-dimensional vector graphics, both static 			and animated. SVG may include scripting. Images can contain 			hyperlinks. It is an open standard created by the World Wide Web 			Consortium.</td>
<td width="62">√</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="3" width="638"><strong>Video</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="75"><a href="http://dirac.sourceforge.net/" target="_blank">Dirac</a></td>
<td width="494">Video codec created by the BBC.</td>
<td width="62"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="75"><a href="http://lags.leetcode.net/codec.html" target="_blank">Lagarith</a></td>
<td width="494">Lossless video codec with good compression.</td>
<td width="62">√</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="75"><a href="http://theora.org/" target="_blank">Theora</a>¤</td>
<td width="494">Theora is a video codec being developed by the Xiph.Org 			Foundation as part of their Ogg project. In the Ogg multimedia 			framework, Theora provides a video layer, while Vorbis usually 			acts as the audio layer. Speex, FLAC, and OggPCM may also act as 			audio layers.</td>
<td width="62"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="75"><span style="text-decoration: line-through;">Xvid</span></td>
<td width="494"><span style="text-decoration: line-through;">Compressed video format</span></td>
<td width="62"></td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
¤ ≈ ♥
<h2><a name="containers"></a>Containers</h2>
<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" width="642"><col width="63"></col> <col width="54"></col> <col width="513"></col>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th width="63">Name</th>
<th width="54">License</th>
<th width="513">Description</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="63"><a href="http://annodex.net/" target="_blank">Annodex</a></td>
<td width="54">?</td>
<td width="513">Open standards for annotating and indexing networked media.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="63"><a href="http://matroska.org/" target="_blank">Matroska</a></td>
<td width="54">LGPL</td>
<td width="513">An open standard free Container format, that can hold an 			unlimited number of video, audio, picture or subtitle tracks 			inside a single file.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="63"><a href="http://xiph.org/ogg/" target="_blank">Ogg</a></td>
<td width="54">BSD</td>
<td width="513">An open standard for a free container format for digital 			multimedia, unrestricted by software patents and designed for 			efficient streaming and manipulation.</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
See also:<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_codecs_and_containers" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_codecs_and_containers</a>

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