Gone and dead, motherfucker. Actually, that’s an exaggeration for dramatic effect. It’s what we in show business call lying.

In all seriousness though, every time music or movies are discussed amongst the slashdot crowd it inevitably forks into a discussion of open standards vs. the evil proprietary m4p/wmv formats and, without fail, someone gets on a horse of Brobdignagian proportions and starts wailing on everyone in particular about the lack of support for Xiph’s OGG container and their Vorbis and Theora codecs (for audio and video respectively). Now these formats have a grand vision which if fulfilled would be great for the Open Source culture: you could have video and audio tracks that were created and stored using completely patent, copyright, and royalty free software and formats. No more relying on mp3 and divx to make DVD backups, just watch them using your open-source ogm file containing OGG vorbis audio and OGG theora video.

Some people might wonder why people would care if they’re using mp3′s or divx avi’s but most people don’t consider (or even realize) that mp3 is a patented file format and compression scheme which could come back to bite you in the ass if one day – in the not too distant future – there’s a crackdown on "illegal" mp3′s. I’m not talking about illegally downloaded mp3′s. No no, I’m talking about mp3′s that were made via software that is not properly licenced to create mp3′s. Granted, this is based on my very weak understanding of the various issues stemming from the various patented aspects of mp3 audio, but it sums up the possible issues in a simple manner. Beyond that, many people find OGG files to have better sound for the same size when compared to mp3′s. Obviously, this is a subjective test and speaks nothing for the capabilities of theora, but it’s another badge to sew on OGG’s sash.

So you may be wondering why the world hasn’t embraced this wonder of wonders. Well I’ll tell you, but first a lesson in a commonly misunderstood physics concept: inertia. Many believe that inertia is the tendency of something moving to continue moving until resistance (such as friction) is applied, but it is in actuality the tendency of something to remain in its current state whether moving or stationary. A subtle but important distinction. One of the biggest problems with OGG’s expansion is inertia, both mp3′s near ubiquity and OGG’s penumbrous status in the collective eyes of society; OGG has to work harder to escape it’s inertia while at the same time fighting the continued success of mp3. A solution to this problem would of course be an explosion in OGG usage thanks to a simple to use program with a massive database to search from. In other words, OGG needs a napster. Why not iTunes? Well, iTunes supports more than just AAC, so it doesn’t provide an incentive to quit the old habits; let’s put it this way: a nicotine patch doesn’t stop you from smoking, it only works if you are already looking to quit.

Beyond this problem with exposure, OGG also needs to delineate itself from the rest of the pack in some way other than saying it’s less legally questionable. The same problem will appear when consumers are told to upgrade to Blu-Ray and HD-DVD when they think their DVDs look fine: a distinct advantage has to be made easily visible to the layman. High definition formats have a (relatively easily) noticeable advantage in that the video looks better and the sound is richer but OGG’s aren’t drastically better than mp3′s or avi’s as they are merely replacement formats.

So let’s face it: there’s no chance of OGG vorbis ever usurping mp3; it’s just too friggin’ big. When people think of music on their computer they think mp3′s. But what about movies? There are myriad video formats strewn about the internet with no real clear victor in the format battle. Not only is this a blessing for theora, but it could be a Trojan Horse to blast vorbis into recognition as well; if OGG movies with theora and vorbis inside become the next big video format, this would bolster vorbis’ reputation and provide it with a public face.

We’ve discussed the advantages of the OGG container, theora video, and vorbis audio, though we’ve avoided discussing specifics mostly because I’m too lazy to research that kind of stuff, but let it suffice to say that beyond the patentless nature of OGG and its compression schemes there are some technological advantages to their more popular competitors. Well now that that’s been cleared up, we can release all new internet movies with theora-encoded video, right? Well that seems to be the concensus of the open-source zealots but they seem to actively forget that theora isn’t even finished yet! You can go to the OGG pages yourself and see that theora reference implementation is still in alpha stages; that means that it’s not even ready for public testing, let alone for public distribution of films. Which brings me to my title: wherefore art thou theora? While the odds of theora actually bringing about OGG supremacy are slim to nil, they will remain at nil until theora has a stable reference implementation.

Really what I’m trying to say here is, shut the fuck up about people not supporting theora until it’s fucking finished.