While the technologies used on the web have always been mostly free, with non-free technologies delegated to non-essential parts of the net, this has been changing fast, lately. The popularity of YouTube has demonstrated the pervasiveness of Adobe's Flash, to an extent where not having Flash is one of the big downsides to any alternative operating system. And to possibly make matters worse, Microsoft is pushing its proprietary Silverlight technology. The founder of Mozilla Europe, Tristan Nitot, warns for "the dangers of the proprietary web".
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Member since:2005-07-06
thanks, i was starting to feel a bit alone...
btw, can one reliably develop flash based content without some kind of tool from adobe?
i think that is the classic plan for all these systems. give away the "player", charge a fee for the "recorder"...
its been done that way in one form or other since the first realplayer plugin...
Edited 2008-05-01 05:04 UTC
Member since:2005-07-07
> btw, can one reliably develop flash based content without some kind of tool from adobe?
Adobe have open-sourced the Flex SDK, so yes, actually.
To me that seems the wrong way round. They should've opened up the Flash format and kept the authoring tools proprietary. That's where there strength is and it's a model that's been shown to work for Photoshop, Acrobat and so on.
The short-sightedness of this plan will show if people start using Silverlight, thinking that Moonlight makes it a more open format. To me, Moonlight is a disaster waiting to happen.
I support Mono because you are always in control of the apps. Banshee or F-Spot will not break because of what Microsoft or some web developer did. If Mono and .Net ever diverge, who cares?
I can't support Moonlight because you are never in control of the app/content. Someone else compiles and stores in their own server. They have free reign to change something that breaks compatibility whenever they want, as do Microsoft.
It seems that most people ever support both or neither, but there's a huge distinction there.
Member since:2005-07-03
Yes, even using only open-source software: http://osflash.org/ames
Member since:2006-10-08
Don't mind. Most who are tired to be bombarded by unusable "Flash" overloaded pages are tired to open their mouth, too. And if they do, they get modded down, because "Flash" is cool and you cannot exist without it. :-)
Well, I think there are encoders that are free - for example the port swftools, p5-SWF-Builder, -Filer, sswf, vnc2swf (taken from FreeBSD's ports collection), as well as there are fre "alternatives" such as gnash or swfdec. Sadly, the last two mentioned are not 100% capable of what the OS-pedantic "Flash" players are, and furthermore, I'm not sure how good the free "Flash" encoders are - I have to admit that I'm avoiding "Flash" since I (1) didn't find any use for it and (2) the format isn't compatible to the OSes I use.
Would work vice versa, too. "You need to by (insert name of application) to view this important and entertaining adverdizing content." :-)
Hmmm... Realplayer... I think I heared this word years ago... :-)
Member since:
2006-10-08
Yes.
As it has been mentioned before, this is the main playing field of "Flash", but not its only one. Of course, regarding multimedia content, we seem to share the same ideas. Video playback should be handled at the user's site (i. e. from within the browser), just like libraries and plugins to it with any other content (images, audio files, Java applets). The user should be able to use whatever player he likes, for example, ebmedded inside the web page, playing in an external player, maybe in fullscreen, or maybe just save the file onto disk. Encapsulating and streaming techniques for video and audio content existed before "Flash", even good free alternatives, but as long as they are not widely used, users (or, to be more correct, the creators of web browsers and plugins) won't adopt to free standards.
Furthermore, "Flash" seems to have developed into an "HTML replacement"; this makes web content (if you can call it that way) completely unusable for disabled people. For example, blind users win't see anything. This is not entirely a problem of "Flash" itself, no, it's a problem of web developers unable or unwilling to encapsulate "Flash" content in a correct manner. HTML (and scripts) to allow to do it correctly. And what animated GIFs have been years ago, that's "Flash" today: a means to make web pages look ugly, overloaded with blinking, jiggling, beeping and blurring animations, oh what a joy - if you suffer from ADS. :-)
Things that are important to see should be put into a form that allows anyone to see it, or at least get a clue why it isn't possible to see. Todays browsers handle nearly any web content out of the box - you don't need an OS-specific plugin to see a PNG image or to connect to a web page that requests an SSL connection. And if your OS comes with the proper codecs, plugins and programs, you can play music files, watch movies and run Java applications. No big trouble.
In my opinion, anything that isn't entirely free (and "Flash" isn't, I'm sure we don't need to discuss this) has no place within a free (and barrier free) web. Don't get me wrong: There are places where "Flash" is a great solution, but as long as its availability is restricted, ... I think you get my idea. (A personal note: I'm living fine without "Flash" for years.)
One important argument seems to be that "Flash" hooks so deeply into the system that it cannot be implemented in an OS agnostic manner. That's poor. Even Java can run on any system. Why can't "Flash"? (I may give the answer just right now: Because it is not intended.) Should something that seems to see itself as a "standard" be allowed to decide what OS a user has to run?