The Xiph.Org Foundation is a

nonprofit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

that produces free

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms, such as Text (literary theory), writing, Sound, audio, images, animations, or video, into a single presentation. T ...

formats and software tools. It focuses on the

Ogg Ogg is a digital multimedia container format designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of digital multimedia. It is maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation and is free and open, unrestricted by software patents. Its name is ...

family of formats, the most successful of which has been

Vorbis Vorbis is a free and open-source software project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The project produces an audio coding format and software reference encoder/decoder ( codec) for lossy audio compression, libvorbis. Vorbis is most comm ...

, an open and freely licensed audio format and

codec A codec is a computer hardware or software component that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder o ...

designed to compete with the patented WMA, MP3 and AAC. As of 2013, development work was focused on Daala, an open and patent-free video format and codec designed to compete with VP9 and the patented

High Efficiency Video Coding High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2, is a video compression standard designed as part of the MPEG-H project as a successor to the widely used Advanced Video Coding (AVC, H.264, or MPEG-4 Part 10). In compa ...

. In addition to its in-house development work, the foundation has also brought several already-existing but complementary

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

projects under its aegis, most of which have a separate, active group of developers. These include

Speex {{More citations needed, date=May 2025 The Speex project is an attempt to create a free software speech codec, unencumbered by patent restrictions. Speex is licensed under the BSD License and is used with the Xiph.org Foundation's Ogg containe ...

, an audio codec designed for speech, and

FLAC FLAC (; Free Lossless Audio Codec) is an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio, developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation, and is also the name of the free software project producing the FLAC tools, the reference software ...

, a lossless audio codec. The Xiph.Org Foundation has criticized

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

and the

RIAA The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

for their lack of openness. They state that if companies like Microsoft had owned

patents A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

on the Internet, then other companies would have tried to compete, and "The Net, as designed by warring corporate entities, would be a battleground of incompatible and expensive 'standards' had it actually survived at all." They also criticize the RIAA for their support of projects such as the

Secure Digital Music Initiative Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) was a forum formed in late 1998Leonardo ChiariglioneRiding the Media Bits. Opening content protection chiariglione.org, 2003 ostensibly with the purpose of developing technology and rights management systems ...

. In 2008, the

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985. The organisation supports the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed ...

listed the Xiph.Org projects as High Priority Free Software Projects.

History

Chris Montgomery, creator of the

container format, founded the Xiphophorus company and later the Xiph.Org Foundation. The first work that became the Ogg media projects started in 1994. The name "Xiph" abbreviates the original organizational name, "Xiphophorus", named after the common swordtail fish, ''Xiphophorus hellerii''. It was officially incorporated on 15 May 1996 as Xiphophorus, Inc. The name "Xiphophorus company" was used until 2002, when it was renamed to Xiph.Org Foundation. In 1999, the Xiphophorus company defined itself on its website as ''"a distributed group of Free and Open Source programmers working to protect the foundations of Internet multimedia from domination by self-serving corporate interests."'' In 2002, the Xiph.Org Foundation defined itself on its website as ''"a non-profit corporation dedicated to protecting the foundations of Internet multimedia from control by private interests."'' In March 2003, the Xiph.Org Foundation was recognized by the

IRS The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting Taxation in the United States, U.S. federal taxes and administerin ...

as a 501(c)(3) Non-Profit Organization,Xiph.Org (2003-03-24
Speex reaches 1.0; Xiph.Org now a 501(c)(3) Non-Profit Organization
Retrieved 2009-09-01 which means that U.S. citizens can deduct donations made to Xiph.Org from their taxes.

Xiph.Org Foundation projects

– a multimedia

container format A container format (informally, sometimes called a wrapper) or metafile is a file format that allows multiple data streams to be embedded into a single file, usually along with metadata for identifying and further detailing those streams. Nota ...

, a

reference implementation In the software development process, a reference implementation (or, less frequently, sample implementation or model implementation) is a program that implements all requirements from a corresponding specification. The reference implementation ...

, and the native file and stream format for the Xiph.org multimedia codecs **

– a lossy audio compression format and codec **

Theora Theora is a free lossy video compression format. It was developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation and distributed without licensing fees alongside their other free and open media projects, including the Vorbis audio format and the Ogg contai ...

– a lossy

video coding format A video coding format (or sometimes video compression format) is a content representation format of digital video content, such as in a data file or bitstream. It typically uses a standardized video compression algorithm, most commonly based on ...

and codec **

– a lossless audio compression format and software **

– a lossy speech encoding format and software (deprecated) **

CELT The Celts ( , see Names of the Celts#Pronunciation, pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples ( ) were a collection of Indo-European languages, Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancient Indo-European people, reached the apoge ...

– an ultra-low delay lossy audio compression format that has been merged into Opus, and is now obsolete ** Opus – a low delay lossy audio compression format originally intended for

VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as IP telephony, is a set of technologies used primarily for voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. VoIP enables voice calls to be transmitted as ...

Tremor A tremor is an involuntary, somewhat rhythmic muscle contraction and relaxation involving neural oscillations, oscillations or twitching movements of one or more body parts. It is the most common of all involuntary movements and can affect the h ...

– an integer-only implementation of the Vorbis audio decoder for embedded devices (software) **

OggPCM Ogg is a digital multimedia container format designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of digital multimedia. It is maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation and is free and open, unrestricted by software patents. Its name is ...

– an encapsulation of PCM audio data inside the Ogg container format **Skeleton – a structuring information for multi-track Ogg files (a logical bitstream within an Ogg stream) ** RTP payloads – containers for Vorbis, Theora, Speex and Opus. ** CMML – an XML-based markup language for time-continuous data (a timed text codec; deprecated) ** Ogg Squish – a lossless audio compression format and software (discontinued) ** Tarkin – an experimental lossy video coding format; no stable release (discontinued) ** Daala – a

and codec **Kate – an overlay codec that can carry animated text and images. *libao – an audio-output library that operates on different platforms * Annodex – an encapsulation format, which interleaves time-continuous data with CMML markup in a streamable manner *

Icecast Icecast is a streaming media project released as free software maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. It also refers specifically to the Server (computing), server program which is part of the project. Icecast was created in December 1998/Janua ...

– an open source multi-platform streaming server (software) * Ices – a source client for broadcasting in Ogg Vorbis or MP3 format to an icecast2 server (software) *IceShare – an unfinished peercasting system for Ogg multimedia (no longer maintained) * cdparanoia – an open source

CD Audio Compact Disc Digital Audio (CDDA or CD-DA), also known as Digital Audio Compact Disc or simply as Audio CD, is the standard format for audio compact discs. The standard is defined in the '' Red Book'' technical specifications, which is why t ...

extraction tool that aims to be bit-perfect (currently unmaintained) * XSPF – an XML Shareable Playlist Format

OpenCodecs

''OpenCodecs'' is a software package for Windows adding DirectShow filters for the

and

WebM WebM is an audiovisual media file format. It is primarily intended to offer a royalty-free alternative to use in the HTML video and the HTML audio elements. It has a sister project, WebP, for images. The development of the format is sponsored by ...

codecs. It adds Theora and WebM support to

Windows Media Player Windows Media Player (WMP, officially referred to as Windows Media Player Legacy to retronym, distinguish it from Windows Media Player (2022), the new Windows Media Player introduced with Windows 11) is the first media player (application soft ...

and enables HTML video in

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated as IE or MSIE) is a deprecation, retired series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft that were u ...

. It consists of: * ''dshow'', Xiph's

DirectShow DirectShow (sometimes abbreviated as DS or DShow), codename Quartz, is a multimedia framework and API produced by Microsoft for software developers to perform various operations with media files or streams. It is the replacement for Microsoft's ea ...

filters for their suite of

formats, including Theora and

* ''webmdshow'', the DirectShow filter for WebM maintained by the WebM project * An

ActiveX ActiveX is a deprecated software framework created by Microsoft that adapts its earlier Component Object Model (COM) and Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technologies for content downloaded from a network, particularly from the World Wide W ...

plugin adding HTML video capability to Internet Explorer older than version 9

QuickTime Components

''Xiph QuickTime Components'' are implementations of the

container along with the

and

s for

QuickTime QuickTime (or QuickTime Player) is an extensible multimedia architecture created by Apple, which supports playing, streaming, encoding, and transcoding a variety of digital media formats. The term ''QuickTime'' also refers to the QuickTime Pla ...

. It allows users to use Ogg files in any application that uses QuickTime for audio and video file support, such as

iTunes iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...

and

QuickTime Player QuickTime (or QuickTime Player) is an extensible multimedia architecture created by Apple, which supports playing, streaming, encoding, and transcoding a variety of digital media formats. The term ''QuickTime'' also refers to the QuickTime Pla ...

. Since QuickTime Components do not function in

macOS Sierra macOS Sierra (version 10.12) is the thirteenth major release of macOS (formerly known as and ), Apple Inc.'s desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. The name "macOS" stems from the intention to unify the operating syst ...

and above, the project was discontinued in 2016.

References

External links

* {{Xiph.org Free software project foundations based in the United States Non-profit organizations based in Massachusetts Xiph.Org projects