Mike Ashton wrote:
If anyone is looking to build a flash based HowTo, there is a great open
source tool called Wink (http://www.debugmode.com/wink/).
This looks like a useful tool, and thanks for posting it.
A minor point I'd like to add, under the "precision in language" dep't,
is that this is not an open source tool. It is a closed-source
proprietary tool of which the author chooses to distribute the current
version without charge. You can easily confirm this by going to
http://www.debugmode.com/wink/download.php and seeing that there is no
"download source code" link. It may sound picayune to quibble over this
distinction, but it does matter, because (and most of these are true of
any closed-source program, including even the Asterisk G729 CODEC):
a) People can NOT use the program on other platforms (LinuxPPC,
FreeBSD/OpenBSD, etc) than those the author chooses and has time to
compile and test for;
b) The author could (I'm not saying he would) release a new version
tomorrow with a lot of bug fixes and new features that you have to pay for;
c) The author could (I'm not saying he did) have put in a "time bomb"
disabling the free version to coincide with (b);
d) The author could (ditto) be spying on you as you run it, and you'd
probably never know;
e) The author could lose the source code in a disk crash or a house
fire, ending future development and support (I almost added a ":-)" but
I bet this has actually happened...).
By all means use this tool - it looks good for the job. Just be aware of
the risks for future use of it. And please, keep the distinction
straight between "closed-source software that you don't have to pay for
this version of" and "open source"; it does matter.
