Re: Off Topic - Open source flash support not looking too hopeless?
On Tue, 10 Apr 2007 00:30:02 -0400
Michael Pobega <pobega@gmail.com> wrote:
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> On Tue, Apr 10, 2007 at 04:17:47AM +0100, Ananda Samaddar wrote:
> > Hi Everyone,
> >
> > After one of my usual bored web browsing sessions I came across these
> > items:
> >
> > http://www.mozilla.org/projects/tamarin/
> > http://applications.linux.com/comments.pl?sid=38263&cid=97469
> >
> > Adobe have opened the source code to their Action Script virtual
> > machine (the Tamarin project) and the main developer of swfdec states
> > in the second link (if it's him) that Flash 8 Video support would be
> > easy to add to swfdec. What does everyone else think of this? I
> > personally find it shocking that a proprietary software product has
> > become a de facto web standard. Surely a FLOSS Flash player would go
> > some way to remedying such a reliance on a proprietary product? Am I
> > clutching at straws? We already have Gnash and swfdec but they are as
> > of yet not fully Flash 9 compatible. Will the Tamarin project be of
> > any use to them?
> >
> > regards,
> >
> > Ananda Samaddar
> >
> >
>
> This is one of those subjects that becomes a question of standards;
> Whether to adhere to the standards or use only DFSG-free software.
>
> Personally I use only DFSG-free software, and I really don't find Gnash
> usable (Of course, if it was what would be the point of this topic?)
>
> There definitely needs to be a FLOSS alternative to Adobe's flash
> player, but I have to say browsing the internet without flash is
> actually much nicer than having flash.
Well I'm using AMD64 Etch on a brand new Dell Inspiron 6400 and I used PowerPC Etch exclusively on an old iBook G3 just before I got this machine. Both of these architectures obviously have no native flash support under GNU/Linux. I have to agree with you though, apart from the very occassional youtube video link I get sent I barely seem to miss having flash available. I just think in the long run it would be useful, especially as we should have access to Sun's Java implementation under the GPL this year. A free software flash implementation would be the 'last piece of the jigsaw'.
Anyway you can't always escape proprietary software, I need to use fglrx for my ATI card and the ipw3945 binary daemon for wireless connectivity. If I could find a way to remove them I would. As an aside anybody know how free software drivers for the newer ATI cards are coming along? I've heard of the Nouveau project for NVidia hardware but nothing on the ATI front.
regards,
Ananda Samaddar
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