John Gilmore wrote:
Unfortunately, many popular video sites have evolved to need a recent
kind of Flash support that gnash still implements poorly. We're
working on it, but haven't caught up yet. Embedded video tends to use
older Flash interfaces and therefore tends to work better in gnash.
First up, you all do an excellent job. A Free Flash player is very
important to me, as it is the only non-Free software (as opposed to
firmware) that I routinely run on my computers. I am an FSF member and
have donated to Gnash several times. (On that note, I would prefer it if
OpenMediaNow allowed me to donate only to Gnash.)
Each release of Ubuntu/Mythbuntu (maybe since as far back as 2004), I
upgrade my machines, install Gnash instead of Adobe and try it out. I'm
not sure if it is just the sites I use (nearly entirely video sites,
such as tvnz.co.nz), but I have a terrible success rate with Gnash.
Within a month, I install Adobe Flash for a (video) site that doesn't
work and then do not usually change it back. Given how strongly I feel
about the project, I fear that other users are even less resilient.
For what it is worth, I think three things could help:
1) Gnash as a Firefox extension. I remember this being talked about a
lot for a while and then heard of no more. If a problem is that Gnash
needs to evolve faster than a six-monthly release cycle, perhaps this is
a way forward.
2) Add a LinuxFund project for YouTube support. I was on there the other
day looking to donate to Gnash and the two options were the OSM support
that will no longer work and RTMP support. I would guess that I know far
more about video protocols than the average person, but the description
for RTMP gave me no help as to whether this would help me with my
video-playing problem on sites that I actually use. What I would like,
and what I would donate to help achieve, is for Gnash to work on popular
sites. While I fully appreciate that support for Free software servers
is important, people are more likely to "buy" popular features like
YouTube (I doubt there are enough NZ users for a TVNZ fund). If that can
be implemented in a way that has collateral benefits to Free/open
alternatives, all the better. I would guess that supporting Free options
is important to the developers, so let us pay you to do the things that
are important to us. While it may be wishful thinking, I can see people
getting more excited about a drive/pledgebank pledge to get Gnash
supporting YouTube.
3) Come up with a way to reload a page with the Adobe player. While I'm
dreading the response I'll get to this, I would be much more likely to
use Gnash in Firefox if I could reload a page using Adobe's player
whenever Gnash failed. Yes, I would be using Adobe's player sometimes,
but at least most of the time I would use Gnash.
Please take these comments in the positive way that I intend them. I
wish only the best for Gnash.
Regards,
Aaron
