>On the other hand, I don't see the community which surrounds FLAC
and Ogg as being nearly as driven or committed as the Apple people have
been, as such, I think there is *some* concern about FLACs long-term
viability.
I think this is debatable. My experience so far with the online trading
community is that FLAC seems to be the standard. There is an enormous
amount of that format floating around, enough to suggest that there will
be some kind of demand for it, albeit limited to the collecting community.
Even if it is phased out, there may be a transitional period. This
happened with Shorten. It used to be the standard, and you still see it
being circulated (quite a lot, actually), but I've been transferring those
over to FLAC, just in case. Then again, I'm talking about a limited
community of users, so perhaps the point is moot?
On a related point, and somewhat off-topic, what are the relative merits
of WinRAR (the new kid on the block) and Winzip?
Matt Snyder
Music Archivist
Wilson Processing Project
The New York Public Library