Frank Laszlo wrote:
Ádám Szilveszter wrote:
Ok, after reading all of this, I start to wonder... There is lots of
talk about asking Macromedia for a flash player for FreeBSD, some
would be even ready to pay up...
At the same time, I see little to no movements in creating alternative
flash players... as if it was a natural given that only Macromedia
software could be used to ever touch flash. Interesting. <Irony> Why
no fundraise for an MS Office port for FreeBSD then? </Irony>
Openoffice.
Unfortunately in the past there were some attempts here and there with
alternatives but they are mostly abandoned by now, except for the GNU
sponsored project which is n very early stage. It would be interesting
to know why this is so? (Apart from major lazyness on the part of many
open source developers who consider that since they can use their
Linux boxes with the Macromedia software, there is no problem to
solve)
Laziness has nothing to do with it, most open source developers have
other (paying) jobs that are more important than a non-paying hobby.
As for "only occasional" releases (that you even pay for!) just to be
something for FreeBSD: no thanks. We already had that with the
"official" Netscape binaries for FreeBSD: it was really major fun to
load all the compatibility crap because their application only ever
existed in aout format. Such things also become outdated. This is not
the way. Imagine if Macromedia once released a version 5 binary for
FreeBSD and that's all you'd be left with until say version 9. Good
luck with using that on today's sites.
This is only speculation, As long as there is a market, macromedia will
continue to release software.
If you want to raise money, raise it to support the development of an
alternative open source flash player so that everybody can make use of
it.
Ok, so we need to get macromedia open release the technical
specifications for the flash format to do this, and continue to release
updates for it as the time progresses, this isn't much different from
having them release a compatible version.
-Frank
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I still say its all bit of a day dream to choose to wait for Macromedia
to open the Flash spec, when it seems that the reason they are now
banning the use of their flash modules to only OS's they specify are
reasons such as they feel that one day maybe they could loose control of
they own flash products because of projects like the GNU flash project.
The GNU flash project has been around for years and its moving slower
then a snail pace I don't see it ever amounting to anything, I have been
watching it in the ports tree for at least 2 years and I don't think its
even changed versions over that time.
And I think its just going to far, I mean Linux had a fully functional
flash module but that wasn't enough? Seems like we now loose it all due
to greed.
To me I feel almost certain the reason why Macromedia have gotten mean
with their flash products is purely so they are in a better position to
lawyer death star the GNU flash project if it ever amounted to something.
Seems like there is a lot of naivety in the tech industry, its just like
recently how AMD sued Intel, "AMD said Intel engages in worldwide
coercion of customers to stop them dealing with AMD. / AMD says Intel
has paid Dell and Toshiba huge sums not to do business with AMD. "
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=24236
Sure enough after about 1 month later Dell start selling boxed packages
of AMD CPUs, this is pretty pointless for Dell as not many people just
want to buy CPUs by them selves and it increases support problems for
them as people would be putting them into motherboards that Dell did
sell etc.
A lot of people reported how good it was of Dell to start doing this
after all these years but its pretty clear the real reason Dell started
doing this all of a sudden was as a favor to Intel to crush AMDs
lawsuit. Would you take 100 million dollars from Intel and not do them
favors now and then? I am sorry again this is just how it is.
Until Dell start putting AMD cpus in their home/business Dell brand
computers this is just a very destructive move against AMD and their
lawsuit.
This thread started out being about getting flash NOW as in really soon,
now its just all day dreaming.
You can expect Flash on FreeBSD in the 2 decades while we wait for
Macromedia to open spec flash (which appears to be the last thing they
want to do ) or wait for the GNU flash project which Macromedia might be
planning to sue and looks like will never amount to anything because its
already been around for many years and its unusable.
My original idea/theory seems possible you pull together 20k in a 4 day
fund raise like other FreeBSD projects have done (
http://people.freebsd.org/~andre/tcpoptimization.html
http://people.freebsd.org/~cperciva/funding.html ) and you pay for it,
and have flash in maybe a week? It couldn't take long to port the Linux
flash module sources over at Macromedia to FreeBSD and build a binary.
I really do believe that no amount of naive day dreaming is going to get
anywhere.
As for my PHP Zend encoder on 6.x FreeBSD, I bought the encoder during
the 4.x days and I simply haven't upgraded the encoder yet.
Mike
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