What's Wrong With Flash
(http://www.gnewsense.org/Main/WhyNotFlash)
Using or recommending Flash is equivalent to promoting proprietary software.
In addition, the audio and video codecs claim to be patented, and the
complete specification for making a compatible Flash player is not available.
This page aims to document these problems and provide alternative
suggestions.
Non-Free Software
The ActionScript code for a page's own Flash player is usually not free which
means that you're still running non-free software in the end, even if you're
using a free software player to interpret it. See "The JavaScript Trap" for
more information.
A better solution is to use free and unencumbered audio and video codecs like
Theora and Vorbis along with the HTML 5 video element and a free software
browser that supports it, like GNU Icecat.
Patents
A major problem with the current Flash specification is that the audio and
video codecs claim to be patented. This is a problem in countries that
consider software patents to be valid because anyone who implements Flash
must either pay for a patent license to use the audio and video codecs
specified (namely the Sorenson Spark video codec, the most widely-used Flash
codec, used by default on YouTube) or they must pass that cost onto the
distributors and/or consumers. Most free software projects don't have the
money to obtain patent licenses but even if they did, keeping track of the
number of installed copies would be impossible due to the nature of free
software distribution. Setting a requirement that the end user seek a patent
license is normally incompatible with most free software licenses as well.
The Flash specification needs to allow for the use of free and unencumbered
audio and video codecs like WebM, Theora, Vorbis or Dirac for this issue to
go away. Eliminating software patents would also help:
http://endsoftpatents.org.
See "The Danger of Software Patents" for more information: or RMS speak on
the subject: High Res | Low Res
Non-Free Specifications
Adobe's Open Screen Project may have confused people into thinking that the
Flash specification is totally open and free but, according to the Swfdec and
Gnash project leads, it omits "huge amounts" of information needed to
implement Flash. Additionally, the Flash specifications available from Adobe
are distributed under a non-free license:
"This manual may not be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated, or
converted to any electronic or machine-readable form in whole or in part
without written approval from Adobe Systems Incorporated."
When people try to create their own independent implementations, Adobe steps
in to stop them: In May 2009, Adobe submitted a takedown notice to
SourceForge.net requesting that the rtmpdump project be removed from their
site. SourceForge.net complied.
The major implication of this takedown notice is that Adobe has definitively
told us that a fully-compliant free software Flash player is illegal. This is
because RTMPE is part of Flash, circumventing RTMPE is illegal (in the U.S.
at least), and Adobe will never give a key to a free software project since
they cannot hide the key. As a result, we can never have a fully compliant
free software Flash player that's legal to use and distribute, even if we
ignore the codec patent problems.
How To Help
You can help by:
•refusing to install software to play Flash, even free software players,
•
asking websites to support free and unencumbered audio and video codecs like
WebM, Theora, Vorbis or Dirac, along with the the HTML 5 video element, as
opposed to Flash,
•supporting sites that use free video formats,
•telling others what you are doing.
Related documents
•
http://audio-video.gnu.org/video/#Guide explains why using Ogg format for
audio and video files is important.
•
http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/playogg/en/ helps you read Ogg files and promote
Ogg format.
•
The libreplanet website has a page documenting video conversion to Webm.
