Hi there Noah, <snip> > The GNU Project's goal is to create an operating system according to a > certain set of philosophies. Even then, the GNU Project also includes > GNOME which has many applications opening and creating documents such > as .doc, .ppt, .pdf etc etc.
GNOME does not purely support and work with .doc, .ppt files, if GNU was advocating that I would also not agree with that stance. .doc and .ppt formats can only be used temporarily as part of a migration strategy to something open in my view... > > That's debatable, given at least one FSF webmaster refuses to link to > > UK LUGs because apparently that would imply endorsement of everything > > on their web sites. > > This is totally unrelated and I think, again, you are confusing GNU/FSF. > > > That seems like a refutation of a point that wasn't made. I think the > > question is why isn't FSF developing or supporting a multimedia > > framework, instead of supporting Gnash? > > Again, confusing FSF/GNU. The FSF doesn't develop software. The FSF runs the GNU project, it is even in the title of this page: "Gnash - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)" http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/ People could argue that to all intents and purposes FSF == GNU and vice versa, but that is probably a separate debate. > The FSF's support of Flash is a very clever strategic position and > absolutely essential if we are to get regular users to make the switch > to a free operating system. I'm not sure how clever it is, it seems pretty obvious to support de facto formats when their is no choice otherwise like MS-Word files. However, it shouldn't be the primary format supported and advocated, which is what FSF/GNU are doing as I see it. > No matter how much you dislike Flash, as do I, not including a free > Flash player with GNU/Linux is shortsighted at best, damaging at > worst. Flash is the defacto multimedia format on the WWW at the moment > and that isn't going to change any time soon. > > Sure, build a better, open, format - but until that becomes popular > Flash is still important for the FSF to get support from regular > users. I think we may be arguing the same side of the argument here, why not share some of the resources 50/50 with a better open format? rather than 100% supporting Adobe's proprietary Flash format? -- this is the only real point I wished to make. Kind regards, Jon -- linkme: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jongrant web: http://jguk.org/ _______________________________________________ Fsfe-uk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-uk
