Flash on the Web was mostly used for video (with occasional ads and even more occasional other things). With the expectation that HTML5 video will gradually take over displaying videos, and free implementations of HTML5 video in Firefox and other places, volunteers seem to have less interest nowadays in keeping a free and non-DRM'd.
Flash player running.With all the tout about HTML5 replacing Flash a year or so ago and then not seeing it going away in the majority of sites so much later, I was not considering it as a reason to abandon a free version of Flash. AFAIK Adobe is only retreating from Linux, Android, and ARM, and they plan to keep updating and developing their Flash player for desktop systems, so they are not going away anytime soon. I think content providers know this and continue to develop Flash applications which is why Flash has not been replaced by HTML5 in most sites. In fact, there are mobile version of sites still just beginning to pop up thanks to the lack of Flash on mobile devices. As I am a desktop user, I am not expecting to live without Flash anytime soon, for the mobile *versions of* sites are the only places where a majority of content is distributed in HTML5 and not Flash. Note that this task wouldn't be adding AVM2 support to Gnash. It would be a new code base, with as much code refactored from current Gnash as possible. A complete rewrite of Gnash this way could have substantial performance benefits, but as mentioned, this could easily turn into a multi-year task nobody wants to fund. Also after several years of development, Lightspark is still barely able to handle YouTube videos, much less generic flash files. I suppose if AVM2 cannot be added to Gnash, Lightspark cannot be added to Gnash either. Yes, and since there are only maintainers for Gnash now and none of the organizations want to fund a developer to add to Lightspark's limited progress, there is little hope. I'll just keep using Flash, patiently wait for Lightspark, and adopt mobile HTML5 as much as I can. On Sat, Nov 3, 2012 at 9:00 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Send Gnash mailing list submissions to > [email protected] > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnash > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > [email protected] > > You can reach the person managing the list at > [email protected] > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Gnash digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: There is another OSS Flash alternative. (John Gilmore) > 2. Re: There is another OSS Flash alternative. (Rob Savoye) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2012 09:09:17 -0800 > From: John Gilmore <[email protected]> > To: Devin Harper <[email protected]> > Cc: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [Gnash] There is another OSS Flash alternative. > Message-ID: <[email protected]> > > The Gnash team spent significant effort toward making gnash work with > AVM2, but AVM2 was very badly documented and we never got it to > initialize a working AVM2 environment. Then gnash's traditional > funding sources ran out (for unrelated reasons). > > Now that we have Lightspeed as a "proof of concept" about how AVM2 > works, it should be possible for volunteers to debug and evolve the > AVM2 support in Gnash. But few free software volunteers know or care > much about Flash. It takes substantial expertise to debug and > complete an interpreter whose main job is to run other peoples' > mostly-binary-only programs, from a poorly-documented binary > representation. > > Flash on the Web was mostly used for video (with occasional ads and > even more occasional other things). With the expectation that HTML5 > video will gradually take over displaying videos, and free > implementations of HTML5 video in Firefox and other places, volunteers > seem to have less interest nowadays in keeping a free and non-DRM'd > Flash player running. > > By the way, there IS no "funding from GNU". In case you hadn't > noticed, in this decade the Free Software Foundation doesn't spend its > time or money writing software. It figured out that there were > (almost!) enough volunteers doing that -- and that it should focus on > policy issues (like DRM and crystal prisons and cloud computing) that > threaten to subvert the freedom to write and understand your own code > and run it on your own purchased hardware. The Free Software > Foundation has, very infrequently, chipped in some thousands of > dollars on specific projects, and gnash got such a donation years ago, > but it was something like 1% of the total gnash funding. > > John Gilmore > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2012 11:31:53 -0600 > From: Rob Savoye <[email protected]> > Cc: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [Gnash] There is another OSS Flash alternative. > Message-ID: <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > On 11/02/12 11:09, John Gilmore wrote: > > > The Gnash team spent significant effort toward making gnash work with > > AVM2, but AVM2 was very badly documented and we never got it to > > initialize a working AVM2 environment. Then gnash's traditional > > funding sources ran out (for unrelated reasons). > > I've often considered restarting a significant AVM2 implementation for > Gnash, but this would be full-time work for many months. To launch such > an effort would require stable funding at a level enough that a > developer could at least pay their basic bills (mortgage/rent, food). > Nobody seems willing to fund such a task, I've talked to most everyone, > Google, Mozilla, Canonical, etc... They all prefer users just install > the Adobe flash player. :-( Obviously these Open Source companies care > little about Free Software. > > Note that this task wouldn't be adding AVM2 support to Gnash. It would > be a new code base, with as much code refactored from current Gnash as > possible. A complete rewrite of Gnash this way could have substantial > performance benefits, but as mentioned, this could easily turn into a > multi-year task nobody wants to fund. Also after several years of > development, Lightspark is still barely able to handle YouTube videos, > much less generic flash files. > > - rob - > > > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Gnash mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnash > > > End of Gnash Digest, Vol 64, Issue 3 > ************************************ >
