On 05/12/06, Richard Lockwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
No. Not unreasonable. Patronising, possibly.
Okay. Could you point to which paragraph my tone was off? Many people have heard of 'open source', but confusion can arise because they don't understand the difference between 'free software' and 'open source'. This is mainly because 'open source' isn't totally honest about whats going on here. The views espoused by 'open source' culture dont explain why it is essential to replace all 'closed source' software with 'open source'; it just explains why its might, perhaps, make more reliable/powerful software in certain cases. In this particular case, 'open source' people are able to "make use of Flash-based functionality all over the net" because they have no objections to using the Flash player that Adobe makes available for GNU+Linux. But I object to it because it is not Free Software, and believe that it is essential to use Free Software, because non-free software is unethical and unsustainable. Rather than being patronising, I hope to have a friendly and calm, reasonable tone. If that's not being communicated, I'd love to know where, and why :-)
And it wasn't just aimed at you Dave. It happened a few months ago - someone suggests Flash as a powerful and (used properly) useful tool, and the list suddenly fills with vitriolic posts about how evil it is and how all software should be free and open. I don't know why it seems to be Flash in particular that brings this out in folk.
Okay, I think that's conflating two issues - the poor status of free-libre Flash software, and how it goes against the grain of other W3C web technologies/standards. Flash is a powerful, useful, and even 'accessible' tool, when used properly. However, any tool that is not free-as-in-freedom is unethical, because it cannot be shared, and unsustainable, because it cannot be independently improved. Today I'm more interested in Free Software than web standards, because I think that the practical problems with Flash about 5 years ago have largely been resolved, and the remaining problems are due to the cultural inertia of Flash developers. That Macromedia provided a better solution to on-demand web video than Microsoft, Apple, or Real could isn't certainly an irony of this history-in-the-making :-) -- Regards, Dave - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
