Topic: Mo3 file format specs petition

[discontinued]

I hereby petition you, Ian Luck, to release the mo3 file format specifications.

Others who may wish to sign this may do so

http://www.petitiononline.com/Mo3/petition.html <- here

[Ian @ un4seen]

It seems that your main concern is to get MO3 support added to the Mod Archive? Coincidentally (or maybe not ), Eric Himbeault (Rikimbo) contacted me about this a few days ago, and said that they'd only need to be able to extract the text from the MO3 files in their "uploading" script. It'd obviously be a lot simpler to document (and implement) just that, rather than the whole file specs. Everything (including the text) is compressed though, so I told him that some decompression code will be required in the script, and asked what language the script was written in. I've not heard back yet.

[John Marwin ()]

Well, I decided to petition you on account the fact that I've heard alot of people everywhere talk about the mo3 format in various circumstances, some want the specs to use in their new 1337 game code, or some want to incorporate it as a plugin in some software (winamp and similar) or some like me, just want it for something else, the reason I just chose to do this, is that it seems like alot of people would benefit from this around the scene, and not just us musicians of the modarchive.
but, as I've stated before, it's just a petition, a shot in the dark so to speak, Im just playing it for what it's worth.

And btw, I'll try to get the admins over at Modarchive to send you some sort of description of the kinds of code samples they want for their extraction script, but I'd rather see you release the whole deal online, it would benefit alot more people that way =)

Anyways, it's nice to see that you care to answer directly, some people don't give you that much credit. (glad I've proved them wrong now)

//John Marwin

[Rikimbo]

Oh yeah, sorry about not responding yet.  I'm usually quicker than that.  Exams kind of have me tied up at the moment.  Plus, things happen naturally slowly at The Mod Archive.

Anyway, yes, I did tell you that, and I've talked to Limestar about that and he would very much rather have the specs, than try to figure out some decompression code.  I'm sure if Limestar had his hands on such a document, he'd have it implemented in less than a day's work (he certainly has the skill).  It's probably a good idea to try and get into direct contact with the guy.

However, I still doubt that absolutely everything in the MO3 format has to be documented in order for it to become more widely supported.  I am strongly for the idea of preparing and releasing an official fileformat spec, even if it doesn't explain absolutely everything in the filetype (though if it did that would be even better).  It just seems like a professional move to take.  It would be a worthy investment of your time to prepare such a document, and bring closure to this MO3 project of yours. 

PS:  And, as John Marwin said, a spec would not only help the Mod Archive, but many others as well.  It's definitely something to put some thought into.

[Zarggg]

Ian, far be it for me to dictate what you do with your own things, but is there any specific reason not to release the file specification? Are there licensing issues involved, do you make money from the file format, etc?

[Ian @ un4seen]

Nope, no particular reason. It's just fairly complicated in relation to the standard MOD formats, and so it would probably need some detailed documenting to avoid the spawning of incomplete/incompatible implementations - and writing any documention is of course a pain in the arse

Also, in the past, a concern was that making the format public would take it somewhat out of my control, and so would make it harder to modify/improve it (incidentally, there have been 4 MO3 format revisions). But it's pretty mature now, so that's less of an issue.

Anyway, as I hinted to above, I'm not averse to showing how to extract texts and other basic information (possibly as a first step to documenting the whole lot).

[Lau]

Be patient.
I know that a group of people is currently reverse engineering
the .mo3 format to 'open' it. The output should be a text file explaining the format.
Don't know more.

Lau.

[Rikimbo]

A group of people reverse engineering the MO3 format?  I want to know more about that!  Do you have a link to a website or something?  Contact information maybe?  Anything at all?

[raina]

I know that a group of people is currently reverse engineering the .mo3 format to 'open' it.

Sounds messy and not cool considering Ian has practically agreed to make the specs public.

[Irrational86]

I would personally consider it a disrespect just saying that in a place where Ian himself can read that...way not cool...

[@]

A group of people reverse engineering the MO3 format?  I want to know more about that!  Do you have a link to a website or something?  Contact information maybe?  Anything at all?

http://www.scenemusic.net/commentnews.htm?id=583

[Zarggg]

Completely not cool.

Twiterror and myself have discussed this format as a viable option for producing games and demos, unfortunately I believe part of Ian Luck's concept with MO3 was to use it as a hook for getting people to pay the insane liscencing fees for BASS if you want to use MO3's in your commercial project.

[discontinued]

It would seem money rules the world... even so here...

[Zarggg]

Or in this case, the inaccurate assumption that everything must be free.

My "not cool" comment in this case was in reference to the quoted party's insinuation that Ian would have to resort to such underhanded tactics, not in reference to Ian.

BASS was created with commercial entities that could afford the $900 licensing fee in mind.

[dreamcastrulez]

Ian, if you are too tired because your work, you can simply send the source code of a MO3 decoder/player to someone and he will write the specs, or put the MO3 decoder/player sourcecode in public as LGPL or BSD/MIT license

PS: I was signed the MO3 specifications petition! I want hear MO3 everywhere and use it on own projects! I like hear it on my dreamcast console and other "exotic" devices...

[Ian @ un4seen]

I'm not sure it'd be possible to conclusively document MO3 from the code alone (it's not pretty ), but I guess it could be an idea to just throw the code out there under some GPL license, and let people try to work it out. I'm planning to start porting it to OSX soon, so maybe after that (it'd make sense to make the code big-endian portable before any release).

[MorphOS-1.5-is-a-dream]

Better LGPL license for use it with freeware projects

Thanks for your reply, you rule!

[tunesfanatic]

Or use some modified LGPL license that only allowed for freeware projects or something like that...

[timofonic]

Very interesting...

Ian, any news?

[Ian @ un4seen]

When I said "soon", I didn't mean that afternoon

[amigarulez]

Ian, did you seen this?
http://exotica.fix.no/tunes/formats/index.html

Could be very nice if you add support for more file formats and being able to "encapsulate" more of them, do you add the features of the mods or are encapsulated like in sc68? Amiga mods rulez!

Did you seen this player?
http://xmp.sourceforge.net/

And here some info about amiga editors...



This player seems interesting, and his format too!
Symphonie Pro v3.x
Author(s): Patrick Meng    Updated: 01/01/1998
Requirements: OS 3.0, 68020+
Description: Symphinie Pro is the most powerful tracker available.
Features:

    * 256 Physical Audiochannels, 16 Bit Software DSP, 16 Bit Samples MODs have a resolution of at least 20 Bit if you use 16 Bit Samples hires frequency resolution, hires volume resolution
    * Midi
    * Digital output (Audio Rendering) in WAV, AIFF, MAESTRO or RAW, 8/16 Bit, 5-500 kHz
    * Realtime Timestretching, Realtime Pitchshifting, an independent realtime resonant filter for every Audiochannel
    * 3 Phase Oversampling, 500 kHz Mixrate, 3D Surround Sound
    * 256 Independent Digital 16 Bit Outputchannels. Non destructive sample manipulation
    * DSP PLUG IN SYSTEM: Flanger, LP/BP/HP Filters, Echo, Delay...
    * Platform and Hardware independent Fileformat
    * Running on Amiga, MAC (via UAE), DOS/WIN95 (via UAE), Linux (via UAE)
    * Samples supported: IFF-8SVX, AIFF, WAV, MAESTRO, MAUD, 8/16Bit resolution, 5 - 599 kHz sample rate

http://exotica.fix.no/websites/dreamland/amiga/editors.html

[mo3-rulez]

An interesting changelog from XMP:

- added more module format specs
        - added MO3 unpacking support
        - added file detection to the XMMS plugin
        - added Beep Media Player support to the XMMS plugin
        - added Epic Megagames PSM module support
        - added Epic Megagames old PSM (Silverball) module support
        - added DSMI/DMP Advanced Module Format support
        - added support to Ultimate Soundtracker modules
        - added ALSA 0.9/1.0 sound output support
        - fixed recursive decrunching of module files
        - fixed QNX6 portability issues (by Mike Gorchak)
        - fixed heavy memory leak in the XMMS plugin
        - fixed --time command-line parameter
        - fixed portamento-after-keyoff bug (Jeronen Tel's "Nine One
One"
          now plays correctly)
        - fixed IFF file loading to avoid data alignment errors
        - fixed endianism issues in MDL loader
        - updated OPL emulation (by Mike Gorchak)
        - default verbosity level changed to 1
        - default sound mode set to stereo
        - disabled MED loader (nonportable, didn't work well)


Soon... http://xmp.sourceforge.net and on his CVS...

[Ian @ un4seen]

Could be very nice if you add support for more file formats and being able to "encapsulate" more of them, do you add the features of the mods or are encapsulated like in sc68? Amiga mods rulez!

I'm not familiar with sc68, but MO3 has it's own structures/etc - the other formats (XM/IT/etc) are converted to it. The channel/sample/effect/etc limits are probably large enough to support any other existing formats, but I'm not sure I'll be adding others myself. Maybe someone else can if the source is released.

An interesting changelog from XMP:

- added more module format specs
        - added MO3 unpacking support

I remember adding MO3 support to XMP when testing the Linux UNMO3 - as I recall, it was something like 1 line of code

[lau]

I doubt Ian will release the specs.
Its linux unmo3 executable is packed with http://upx.sourceforge.net/,
and the unmo3 win32 executable packed with http://www.un4seen.com/petite/ and
obfuscated. Anyway it can be disassembled, for education purpose.

Lau.

[mo3rulez]

Any news about MO3 specs or portable source code?