Hi
I am not sure my points were out of place - I was not intending to
have a go at Strk personally, I was sticking my £0.02 in there and
highlighting a couple of points he had made - sorry if it seemed like I
was singling you out Strk - it's email and difficult to communicate
totally effectively all the time.
Like I said, I have a lot of respect for OS and I think that this is
a discussion about it in certain sense even though it's not totally
related to OSFlash - the replies and discussion are interesting.
I don't think it's bad thing to be critical of elements of Open
Source - in my experiences it has been frustrating to use various
software in the past, but like I said it has got a million miles
better. I do understand it's a passionate issue - from everyone's side,
but I have read so many posts on OS software forums where people dismiss
Flash because it's "closed source is evil" or similar - why can't I
respond to that?
Believe me, I get completely fed up with MS & Adobe software too,
but from a practical perspective, the Flash Player is the only one at
the moment that works on Linux for AS3.
I also totally agree with Radsl's comment too -
"The open source built what is Internet today, not Microsoft or
whatever...."
- but whether people are working for closed or open source, everyone
seems to be trying to drive the internet somewhere and most of that
driving is positive, it's just sometimes we have to compromise.
Glen
Juan Delgado wrote:
Even if I agree with your rant, Strk has only made a comment about
supporting AS2 because the fact Gnash only supports that. He hasn't
blamed anybody of or went all Stallman-ish about anyting. Still you
come out with a huge rant, which I might or might not agree with, but
I think it was out of place.
As he also points out, this is list is about Open Source Flash, so
asking if there's support for Open Source players is not an OT
question by any means.
I'd personally love an Open Source Flash player, but I reckon many
people don't (fragmentation, bla, bla). I think Adobe has a good
balance between Open and Propietary, so can't complain much. I thank
them everyday for putting up a platform that I use to pay my bills
every month.
But I also thank all the Open Source movement and people like Stallman
because they've done A LOT for the industry as we know it today.
Cheers!
Juan
2009/3/19 Glen Pike <[email protected]>:
"Adobe's Flash player is not free in the "freedom" meaning
of the word. A free-as-in-freedom software should be able
to run on a free-as-in-freedom platoform."
So what if FP is not open source. It still works on many flavours of Linux
and a generally works out of the box a lot better than an awful lot of open
source software. It was easy to install - I downloaded the binary and did
not have to spend hours compiling and resolving dependency issues left right
and centre unlike my latest Lamp upgrade on Gentoo or my SVN setup on
Ubuntu. Admittedly, there are a few issues with 64 bit and the myriad of
Linux flavours, but these are being worked on...
Adobe's FP on our Linux boxes at work was the only player I could get
working properly with the requirement of our projects - and that was with
AS1 / AS2 code. Admittedly, I am not a sysadmin guru, but I prefer decent
doc's and help over obscure chatrooms and mailing lists any time and like to
get on with the work of creating nice Flash things rather than fanny around
all day with software that does not work out of the box. Saying that, the
install/update process for Linux distro's is getting better and the Ubuntu
support infrastructure is a great example of OS goodness, so kudos to the
developers who are working on improving all this stuff.
But... Strk's point highlights a big problem I keep encountering with OS
software including Linux - too much hair splitting and not enough GTD. If
people want an open source flash player, they should stop moaning about x, y
& z and write one. Or bite the bullet and use the one that's free - in
monetary terms. I know which path I would take from a time=money
perspective. I am not saying that Open Source is a bad thing - I think it's
great and I try/hope to contribute in various ways to the system, but I also
have to do my job, be efficient and help my company & me earn money / put
food on the table. At the end of my day, if there is spare time, I will
often try and give something back somewhere, but I can't look the gift horse
in the mouth for too long, hence my choice to use Flash.
Adobe's FP may be restricted by a license, but how many times do you
actually read a license when you install the software? How many end users
actually give a toss about the license? Do you really think Adobe are going
to pull the plug on all these people because they are flouting their rules
in principle? I think that would be a very bad business move from anyone's
perspective. Fair enough, if someone is making loads of money out of their
product without licensing it properly, but then people doing that probably
have the resources to write their own player.
Besides, AS3 has been out for ages, so how come Gnash does not support it
yet :)
And believe me, I would switch from Windows in a second if I could get
PhotoShop, Flash & Cool Edit working on Linux because I hate Gimp & Audacity
and I don't believe there is a Flash IDE equivalent for Linux yet, but I
maybe wrong.
Sorry to rant, I don't mean to be offensive, but I am passionate about Flash
and even though the player is not Open Source, there is a ton of OS stuff
going on around it which is good.
Glen
--
Glen Pike
01326 218440
www.glenpike.co.uk
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Glen Pike
01326 218440
www.glenpike.co.uk <http://www.glenpike.co.uk>
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