The fourth alpha release of Gnash has just been made at version 0.8.1. Gnash is a GPL'd Flash movie player and browser plugin for Firefox, Mozilla, Konqueror, and Opera. Gnash supports many SWF v7 features and ActionScript2 classes. Gnash also runs on many GNU/Linux distributions, embedded GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, non x86 processors, and 64 bit architectures. Ports to Darwin and Windows are in progress for a future release. The plugin works best with Firefox
1.0.4 or newer, and should work in any Mozilla based browser. There is also a standalone player for GNOME or KDE based desktops.
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Member since:2005-07-07
I wouldn't be surprised to see Adobe open-source the Flash Player before Gnash gets ActionScript 3.0/Flash 9 support.
In my mind, everything points towards that. The Flex SDK is open-source and the ECMAScript interpreter for ActionScript was donated to Mozilla. Their AJAX framework, Spry, is open-source (rather than just being viewable JavaScript with a restrictive license). I can't imagine Adobe feel they've done too badly out of the PDF standard either.
Then there's the competition. Microsoft are open to the Moonlight open-source project right now - they're smart enough to know it promotes Silverlight more than it promotes Linux. Being "unofficial" support, they get goodwill from Mono developers and people who like open-standards, but crucially they keep control. Meanwhile Windows Update does its work.
Of course, there are risks, but open-sourcing the Flex SDK was extremely telling IMHO. It's easier to build a Flex Builder replacement on top of Eclipse than it is to build a full Flash authoring app so they seem ready to face those concerns.
Flash Player 9 itself is effectively two players in one. The ActionScript 3 side is a nice new code-base that's ideal for open-sourcing. If Adobe are smart they'll act swiftly.
Member since:2005-11-15
Member since:
2005-10-02
To some extent because these systems are all posix-compatible to a fault
Another one is that FLOSS-persons are geeks. They are doing it for the fun of it.
And a third: FLOSS is often developed after the KISS-principle.
And a four: Don't underestimate the amount of man-power available for FLOSS. Adobe doesn't have that kind of man-power available.