On 8/7/07, Martin Wood-Mitrovski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: ... > > but its not a joke. its one aspect of the current state of affairs which > *could* > be remedied by not having such a restrictive licence on the spec. >
and that could be remedied how ? let's have a theory, the spec licence is fully open, you can do anything you want with SWF files, write them, read them and play them. now you're problem is the current state of the flash player on a nokia mobile phone does not support screen reader, you need badly a player that support screen reader on that device, you got a spec that allow you to build sofware than can play SWF files, what do you do ? you build a flash player clone and you add screen reader support to your heart content you even comply fully with the spec making that flash player clone renders without bugs any other SWF file. from that point, other people take your work which you obviously put open source and port it to other devices: PSP, WII, WindowsCE based devices, etc.. let's say now we have like 6 different branches of a flahs player clone you move to something else that keep you so busy that you can not maintain your flash player clone source anymore, hey no problem the source code is open others can take care of it. 1 year later Adobe upgrade the official flash player to support real time 3D, they update the spec and the licence still allow you to implement all the changes in your own version of the flash player, except that the project kind of died, you have no time to update it, others branches kingd of the same, and there is that general impression that real time 3D on portable devices like a mobile phone is not that much important, being able to support screen reader is more important. It's a theory, but I try to make a point here, who gonna support those branches of flash player clone ? and I mean not support it for the time being but for years, what if an upgrade of the nokia symbian OS just break your flash player clone ? I'm not here saying the flash player should not support screen reader or whatever other features, but my point is to say that there are things that make sens and afaik Adobe are still making good choices in the development of thier proprietary player, it may not go as fast as you wish, surely does not support all that you wish, but when it's implemented in the flash player, it stays supported by Adobe and it evolve with time. > its a very important aspect and something that is all too easily forgotten, > but > its not the only point. Just because your experience only extends so far > doesnt > mean that the world ends there, unfortunately its a result of that kind of > mindset which is limiting what is available for people who require > accessibility. > well it's not only my experience, games are not designed for impaired people in general, that's been my whole point since the beginning. > I think this point really just highlights that the reasoning behind the spec > licence is actually in direct contradiction with reality. The player landscape > is *less* consistent because people cant use the spec to fill in the gaps. > ok, explain me how you can fill those gaps without making a flash player clone ? I don't fancy that much the screen reader feature as an argument, but as it already started on this one... if you want to support XYZ screen reader in the flash player, unless you create a clone of the official flash player to support XYZ I don't see how this gap can be filled ? > > and I realized that i was just losing my time trying to argument with > > an "universalist" > > which obviously has an agenda against Adobe and Flash and enjoy a > > little too much > > contrcuting a big controversy abotu a sensitive topic such as accessibility > > (cf a troll defintion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll ). > > I know what a troll is, and I still maintain that he's not trolling. He isnt > creating a controversy, the situation exists and it could be better. I > personally feel somewhat ashamed of my own lack of implementation of any kind > of > accessibility in every app i've built, especially considering that most of my > work is for educational usage in schools. > well if you read him well, W3C is at fault, HTML authors are at fault, etc.. like it's everyone fault...wouhouh bad people So I gonna say it again, it's easy to go on a rampage and blame everyone for a problem, it's much much harder to stop ranting and make something constructive about it, like contributing code, tutorials, etc.. > > I would rather spend time argumenting about why/what could change in that > > spec > > to make open source people more happy without just ranting at Adobe > > for the sake of it. > > Well, its not about changing the spec, its about the licencing of the spec. > The > content of the actual spec is irrelevant because I cant read it without > fundamentally undermining my opportunities, whether they be in open source or > in > closed source software. > ok my bad, I meant the licensing of the spec > The current situation with gnash and other tools is one important part which > is > directly affected, but I also have to consider its impact on my own work. Its > not too far fetched to imagine that I could be offered some potential work in > the future that requires some kind of swf reading / playing (in fact its quite > likely for me) so to protect my availability for such work I have to avoid > reading the spec. > you have to avoid reading the spec if only you plane to make a flash player clone, like building a software that can playback SWF, but as much as you want to protect your work opportunities don't you think it's fair enougth that Adobe try to protect also their own opportunities ? zwetan _______________________________________________ osflash mailing list [email protected] http://osflash.org/mailman/listinfo/osflash_osflash.org
