Linux now an equal Flash player (Linux-Watch) [LWN.net]

Linux now an equal Flash player (Linux-Watch)

Posted Oct 16, 2008 18:29 UTC (Thu) by pabs (subscriber, #43278)
In reply to: Linux now an equal Flash player (Linux-Watch) by xach
Parent article: Linux now an equal Flash player (Linux-Watch)

I think it is not nice, they should pay people to work on swfdec and gnash instead, at least they are free software (and are portable to amd64).

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I think we should say "thanks" to swfdec and gnash for Adobe Flash.

Posted Oct 16, 2008 20:57 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Remember: JDK was opened when GCJ and other free Java compilers almost reached parity in features. Likewise Adobe Flash will be opened once swfdec and/or ghash will be usable for most web sites... if it'll ever happen.

I think we should say "thanks" to swfdec and gnash for Adobe Flash.

Posted Oct 16, 2008 21:03 UTC (Thu) by mrshiny (subscriber, #4266) [Link]

I don't think Flash will ever be suitably open-sourced; even if the basic engine were open-source there'd still be the minefield of video and audio codecs.

I think we should say "thanks" to swfdec and gnash for Adobe Flash.

Posted Oct 16, 2008 21:22 UTC (Thu) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link]

If Silverlight gains enough traction then Adobe might be spurred into doing the same thing that Microsoft did. That is, endorse a free software implementation and distribute an official package of codecs (which have to be binary-only in the USA, sadly) to use with it.

I think we should say "thanks" to swfdec and gnash for Adobe Flash.

Posted Oct 16, 2008 22:34 UTC (Thu) by gmaxwell (subscriber, #30048) [Link]

Flash ain't done till gnash won't run.

In any case: "It's the authoring tools stupid". The fact that the official client is closed helps prolong the authoring empire only slightly. Even if a working and complete client becomes Free Software workable authoring will only be available to those who fork serious bucks for a long time to come. These problems remain even if flash is somehow cleared of its dependence on patented codecs.

The Web standards have caught up with most of what flash can do: SVG, Canvas, Video, Audio, fast JS engines, etc. Unfortunately, you can only use those things if you target the few aggressively standards following browsers. Thank you IE. :(

I think we should say "thanks" to swfdec and gnash for Adobe Flash.

Posted Oct 17, 2008 11:09 UTC (Fri) by renox (guest, #23785) [Link]

Well, IE doesn't run Flash either, it runs a plugin which run Flash!

So perhaps there should be a plugin to make IE standard compliant..