In the wake of Thomson Multimedia’s announcement that they’re going to charge fees for MP3 decoding software and equipment, Emmett Plant of Xiph.org posted a cheerful and amusing Open Thank-You Letter. It’s probably too optimistic to think that this event will drive the masses to switch to Ogg Vorbis audio, but it certainly can’t hurt.

For the record, Thomson MM has for a few years now been charging license royalties on encoding equipment and software, but until now were content to let decoders remain free. And now, like Compuserve before them, they seem intent upon raking in the dough on technology they’ve been giving away for a number of years. Good luck, guys.

Because I feel rather strongly about this sort of thing, I’m going to be terribly gauche and not only link to a Q Daily News snippet that links to some thought-provoking material, but also post here the comment I made to that snippet because dammit, I’m pithy and interesting and stuff:

If only I had a solution to the problems of mob mentality, closed-mindedness and how to achieve understanding through deliberate perspective.

It’s all about the perspective. If you’re willing to take a step away from yourself and truly think about how things must be for a rational thinking being other than yourself, you can learn to understand and appreciate a great deal about your fellow human beings.

Feh. What am I thinking? It’s much more fun to be in a big crowd of people who like to make fun of other people. We merely graduated from high school, we never really left it behind.
Q Daily News