Re: Macromedia Flash player distribution

[stappers@stappers.nl (Geert Stappers)]

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On Fri, Aug 12, 2005 at 07:55:10AM +0200, Finn-Arne Johansen wrote:
> Eldon Koyle wrote:
> > On  Aug 12  0:03+0200, Finn-Arne Johansen wrote:
> >>Petter Reinholdtsen wrote:

<signalornoise from="Geert Stappers" requested="no" posted="yes">

  There are several bisniss models for pure software companies.
     
  Macromedia sells tools for design & develop "flash files"
  and gives away the player for those files.

  A second source for their player will effect them.

<signalornoise>

> >>>
> >>>We can't put it on the CD without making it available for download.
> >>
> >>Unless we change the way we build the CD ..	
> >>

See below

> > 
> > Is that wise?  Is there anything on the CD that requires flash?  If not,
> > then the user will probably not need macromedia's flash plaugin unless
> > they have internet access, in which case why not save yourself some
> > trouble and use the flashplugin-nonfree package from contrib?
> 
> The trouble by using an installer that downloads from the internet is
> that many sites install without an internett connection, and that the
> last step has to be done after the server is connected to the net.
> Remember that we are talking about a server solution that works out of
> the box.

Coming out the box means exposure to the world, encounters with issues
beyond our control. Expiring life!

This time is a software company saying: Don't touch my bisness model.


We seem to forget that we are talking about free software,
free as in freedom of speech. When our customers want something extra,
then they have to something extra. ( Yes, that is a re-occuring task,
lets call it education ;- )

For the "flash issue" I see two options.

<option number="1" name="iso rebuild, include flash">
   * get all the parts[2] for the main[1] iso
   * fetch the MM flash player, place it in /cdrom/non-free/macromedia
   * assemble the iso   ( with `mkisofs` )
   * burn the iso
   * install, customer doesn't notice difference, because the
     main[1] iso install proces has code like
          if [ -d /cdrom/non-free/macromedia ] 
          then install-flash-magic
</option>

<option number="2" name="wget flash script">
  The main iso contains a script that has to be invoked by the customer.
  Where it is a manual intervention, is has several benefits such as
  knowning for sure there is a Internetconnection and a customer wanting
  something extra is doing something extra.

  The script is something liking

     wget --user-agent="Debian-edu" http://MM/download
     install-flash-magic

</option>

Both need to be documented, something like this:

<doc>
Flash is not free software. That is why it is not included.
To add Flash you have two options:
  link to option "iso rebuild, include flash"
  link to option "wget flash script"
</doc>


Cheers
Geert Stappers


[1] The iso with only free software, such as in Debian main
[2] How to get to this point is not documented. 
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