"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 <http://www.glenpike.co.uk>
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