Boston NPR station streams in free format

Good news from the Free Software Foundation: Boston National Public Radio broadcaster WBUR has begin streaming its content in the free Ogg format. The importance?

Unlike MP3, Windows Media, Real Audio or Quicktime, Ogg Vorbis is not restricted by software patents. The threat of these patent lawsuits chills independent development of multimedia software tools. The use of unencumbered formats like Ogg Vorbis is necessary for providing access to publicly funded news and other programming without dependence on the patent-holding corporations and proprietary software vendors.

Patent-encumbered formats owned by companies like Microsoft and Apple require listeners to use non-free software; controlled by them, not by the users. They design their software to restrict the users and spy on their activities. If users choose Ogg Vorbis for audio and Ogg Theora for video, they can use many different media players, including free software designed to respect their freedom and privacy. (Full press release at FSF)

In short, you shouldn’t have to go through a proprietary gate to get to content supported by the public purse. For more background, I wrote about the Ogg format twice last year here and here.

Good for WBUR. You can listen to the stream (in a number of different formats) here.