Re: [Sugar-devel] Flash at Sugar Labs
David Farning wrote: Fourth, the Standards - Flash deliverables come in two formats .swf and .flv. Swf and ActionScript, the development language use to create .swfs have been open sourced. I believe that the ActionScript source code is jointly held by Adobe and Mozilla. There are possible legal questions about the patent encumberment status of some of the media codecs used in swfs and flvs. We would need clarification from the Software Freedom Conservancy on these issues. We wrote our own ActionScript library, and now the specifications are freely available. We haven't implemented a complete AS library, that's a huge project we haven't had the resources for. We have implemented most of the AS classes that actually get used, and have been working on AS 3 support as well. FLV is not patented, but it uses sorenson for compression, which is patented. Gnash supports Theora streaming to get around this, although I think only the Internet Archive is doing this. So, counting backwards how does this affect Sugar Lab? Fourth, the Standards - We need to wait for feedback from the SFC and Open Media Now. Already talked to the SFLC on the issues, the main legal issue is basically the codecs, SWF itself has never been patented. I've met with EFF lawyers too about reverse engineering issue,and we're good there. But flash movies use MP3 as the codec for sounds in animations. While Gnash does support the streaming of vorbis or theora, there so far aren't any creation tools that will let you use vorbis for sound effects yet. We'd love to add this to our swf creation tool, Ming, one of these days... Third, the authoring tools - Adobe has done a very effective job eliminating the competition for flash authoring tools. http://osflash.org/ has a number of open source development tools. I am not enough of a flash developer to judge if the authoring products are mature enough to be useful or not. Are there any Flash developers out there, can you judge the quality of some of these products? None of the free flash authoring tools have a GUI. We support the Ming project, then there is mtasc (as2, v8 only), and haxe. We've tried to raise funding to put a GUI on top of any of these swf compilers, but nobody seems that interested. The existing free authoring tools I've seen don't even generate swf yet, they're bare prototypes. I've wondered about a SWF backend for etoys though... Second, the player - The Free Software Foundation has flash player project called Gnash. The project is makin slow yet steady progress towards being a fully capable swf player. The project suffers from lack of support. Many Open Source users either download the Adobe player or forgo using flash. The itch factor is pretty low. Yep. We get little support, as at the slightest problem, people just install Adobe, and nobody sticks to Gnash unless they're a free software fan. That and although we make good progress for a small team, many distributions (OLPC included) have a bad tendency to stick to old, out of date versions. There was a steady decrease in the availability and usability of sites with Xo and Gnash. We need to wait for feedback from Gnash about the product's technical limitations and the project's development limitations. We suffer mostly from lack of resources, even when we had some funding for the core team. There is just so much a handful of volunteer developers can do... and reverse engineering is often slow and tedious. Finally, the brand - Adobe has recently asked Gnash to call their player a SWF player rather than a flash player:) Actually Adobe asked Canonical to call it a swf player, they've never talked to us about it directly. As they said then, swf is the name of a format that gets played, flash is the trademarked term of the creation tools itself. - rob - ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] More about Flash on the XO
Because it may help others on this list, here's a reply I received regarding my problem with Flash on the XO. Carlos Nazareno wrote: Hi Stan! I'm having problems: Adobe FlashPlayer doesn't detect the XO's built-in webcam so it can't transmit video out to the Internet on Flash-enabled web sites, I've documented this problem as well at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Adobe_Flash - The XO's webcam is not interfacing properly with Adobe Flash 9 10. Adobe's done a lot of work towards getting cameras in various Linux distros working with webcam enabled-Flash apps, and they finally got V4L2 running last year, but apparently the XO is using some kind of not-as-common chipset/software combo (in 8.2.0 I think the OS is using a weird mishmash of old new software/drivers because of problems with the cam in the webcam activity on newer drivers?). I got in touch with some Adobe guys last year before Flash Player 10 final launched about Flash's webcam interfacing problems on the XO, filed the bug report, followed their instructions and submitted the hardware info gathered from the data-gathering tool at Penguin.swf's (Adobe's official Linux Flash dude) blog: http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2008/07/paparazzi_v2_1.html Anyway, I haven't heard a word from the Adobe folks yet as I guess that was a very busy time for them with Flash 10 final release going out the door at the time, the report probly got lost in all the hubbub. Anyway, I'll try following up with them as I'd like to play with writing some Flash webcam toys that would work on the XO myself. I can't get Flash to activate the XO's camera... ...This was while running on the XO's Browse activity. The camera works with the Browse Activity, just not properly (the camera turns on and it displays red green static that reacts to objects waved in front of the camera) I thought that maybe Opera for the XO would do better. No luck. Yup, Same as with the Browse Activity. XO's weird camera chipset/software combo interface still hasn't been fixed with the linux Adobe Flash 10 plugin. Opera as installed from the wiki.laptop.org/opera instructions does not even play the Flash on the Adobe web site nor any other Flash embedded in a web page. All that Opera shows is a gray rectangle where the Flash should be, no text saying to click to play the Flash. As documented in the Adobe Flash wiki: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Adobe_Flash and Adobe Flash The official Opera Activity is based on Opera 9.12 and it isn't compatible with Flash 10. The newest Adobe Flash plugin compatible with it is an older version of Flash Player 9. Newer non-Sugarized Linux desktop versions of Opera like 9.63 latest work fine and dandy with latest Flash Player 10 final. Again, you're going to have to use the Terminal (type "opera" at the prompt) to launch Opera. I submitted a comment to the Opera programmer who maintains the Opera blog about the OLPC version, but that blog has had very little activity in the past year so I'm not hopeful of any results from the Opera people. Ditto. I've tried Sugarizing newer versions of Opera myself, but we're out of luck because of the Rainbow Security implemented in newer XO OS builds don't allow writing of files by Activities to certain directories that Opera installs to. The Opera dudes will have to create a special OLPC Opera Activity for us like with 9.12 since Opera is not open sourced and we won't be able to do the proper modifications for Rainbow Security compatibility ourselves. Has anyone here tried to run a recent release of Opera on the XO, not the very old version that was customized for the XO according to our wiki? Runs fine and dandy, you just have to launch it via terminal :) - Launch Terminal Activity, type "opera" at the prompt (assuming of course that you'd already installed Opera). That instance of terminal will then be inaccessible until you exit Opera. Once you exit Opera, you regain control of the terminal prompt. (Yeah Skier, the Opera wiki entries are next on my hit list for editing: they're due for massive updates :P) Even without the 2-way video streaming, www.vyew.com is a nice application for collaboration over the Internet. Try it. Thanks for the link Stan! I was looking to build a Flash app just like that, only less ambitious (crud, someone beat me to the punch! ;P) Cheers! -Naz -- Carlos Nazareno http://www.object404.com -- interactive media specialist zen graffiti studios http://www.zengraffiti.com -- Philippine Flash ActionScripters http://www.phlashers.com ___ Devel mailing list de...@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Flash at Sugar Labs
Bert Freudenberg wrote: IMHO that activity should be a wrapper for Gnash, perhaps as a native GTK+ application, without the browser baggage (maybe such a stand-alone player does exist already?). Since the content is authored specifically As Gnash was created originally as the UI layer for a stereo, it's always run standalone. I only made an additional plugin since most people are used to only running flash in their browser. for Sugar (and in Nepal's case even more specifically for Sugar on the OLPC XO-1) it can easily be tuned to work well in Gnash. Hopefully Gnash's current limitations are well documented so authors can avoid pitfalls. That sugarized SWF player could even be extended to integrate nicely with the Journal (being able to do that is the point of having a free implementation after all) - there is no need to be compatible with Adobe's Flash player. Exactly. If the people creating he content work with us a little, and test with Gnash, the flash content will always work fine. You don't need any of the features of the latest flash anyway. At the same time, we need to figure out how to keep up to data builds for Sugar, as much of the problem has been old versions of Gnash. - rob - ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Flash at Sugar Labs
Hi, This might be of interest: Salasaga is a GTK/Gnome based IDE used to create eLearning for applications. With it, you take screenshots of your applications, add highlights, text and external images, then generate learning objects. Present output is in swf (flash) format. Here's another app that appeared in my RSS reader today, I haven't tried it; it seems to contain some of the ideas Bryan's interested in, though: http://www.blueskyonmars.com/2009/01/05/build-desktop-apps-with-web-ui-and-python/ http://titaniumapp.com/ - Chris. -- Chris Ball c...@laptop.org ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Flash at Sugar Labs
This might be of interest: Salasaga is a GTK/Gnome based IDE used to create eLearning for applications. With it, you take screenshots of your applications, add highlights, text and external images, then generate learning objects. Present output is in swf (flash) format. It would certainly be useful for making flash based learning objects for Moodle. The site for the soft is here: http://www.salasaga.org/ kind Regards, David Van Assche On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 3:16 PM, Wade Brainerd wad...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 7:15 AM, Bert Freudenberg b...@freudenbergs.de wrote: On 05.01.2009, at 05:24, John Watlington wrote: On Jan 4, 2009, at 9:23 PM, Wade Brainerd wrote: Currently Sugar is incapable of running software which is not specifically designed for it. Sugar runs simpler SWF applications just fine, through the Browser. They don't have to be designed for Sugar. I think this goes besides the original point of Bryan. He is well aware that software needs to be specifically designed for Sugar, and wether this is good or bad is not the current debate. The point is what tools one can use to implement a proper Sugar activity. Bryan says the tools many content developers are familiar with are HTML, Javascript, and Flash. I agree completely - I proposed a swf-activity launcher script as the solution, in my initial response to Bryan. I think it would be relatively easy to come up with an activity template that just has a subdirectory for SWF content. Creating an SWF activity then would involve copying the template, editing the meta data, putting the SWF content into the directory, zipping it up and voila, a nice XO bundle. That process could easily be done by a script, even on Windows. I think the template should be built into and supported by the Sugar dev team, rather than something that has to be copied around. That way it's able to be updated and improved over time, and as better Flash solutions become available we can incorporate them easily. I agree with the rest of Bert's plan. It should be a PyGTK activity with just an activity toolbar, which launches Gnash or Adobe Flash into its canvas. It should also find the Flash persistence database and copy it to/from the Journal. A nice additional feature would be to make use of Jordan's screen resolution dropper on the XO to allow Flash activities to run at 600x450, which would likely quadruple performance. -Wade ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) i...@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Flash at Sugar Labs
On 05.01.2009, at 05:24, John Watlington wrote: On Jan 4, 2009, at 9:23 PM, Wade Brainerd wrote: Currently Sugar is incapable of running software which is not specifically designed for it. Sugar runs simpler SWF applications just fine, through the Browser. They don't have to be designed for Sugar. I think this goes besides the original point of Bryan. He is well aware that software needs to be specifically designed for Sugar, and wether this is good or bad is not the current debate. The point is what tools one can use to implement a proper Sugar activity. Bryan says the tools many content developers are familiar with are HTML, Javascript, and Flash. So how could an activity look like that can be authored primarily using Adobe's Flash tools? I think it would be relatively easy to come up with an activity template that just has a subdirectory for SWF content. Creating an SWF activity then would involve copying the template, editing the meta data, putting the SWF content into the directory, zipping it up and voila, a nice XO bundle. That process could easily be done by a script, even on Windows. IMHO that activity should be a wrapper for Gnash, perhaps as a native GTK+ application, without the browser baggage (maybe such a stand- alone player does exist already?). Since the content is authored specifically for Sugar (and in Nepal's case even more specifically for Sugar on the OLPC XO-1) it can easily be tuned to work well in Gnash. Hopefully Gnash's current limitations are well documented so authors can avoid pitfalls. That sugarized SWF player could even be extended to integrate nicely with the Journal (being able to do that is the point of having a free implementation after all) - there is no need to be compatible with Adobe's Flash player. My 1/50 € ... - Bert - ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Flash at Sugar Labs
Wade Brainerd wrote: I think the template should be built into and supported by the Sugar dev team, rather than something that has to be copied around. I strongly disagree. We should send the clearest possible message that SWF, a language with no good free spec and no good free interpreter, is not recommended, even if it is supported. Software Freedom is a key part of the Sugar labs mission, both officially and in fact. A nice additional feature would be to make use of Jordan's screen resolution dropper on the XO to allow Flash activities to run at 600x450, which would likely quadruple performance. We can do even better. http://wiki.gnashdev.org/Release_0.8.5#Release_Goals shows XVideo scaling support as one of the goals for the next Gnash, due in a month. --Ben ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Flash at Sugar Labs
On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 7:15 AM, Bert Freudenberg b...@freudenbergs.de wrote: On 05.01.2009, at 05:24, John Watlington wrote: On Jan 4, 2009, at 9:23 PM, Wade Brainerd wrote: Currently Sugar is incapable of running software which is not specifically designed for it. Sugar runs simpler SWF applications just fine, through the Browser. They don't have to be designed for Sugar. I think this goes besides the original point of Bryan. He is well aware that software needs to be specifically designed for Sugar, and wether this is good or bad is not the current debate. The point is what tools one can use to implement a proper Sugar activity. Bryan says the tools many content developers are familiar with are HTML, Javascript, and Flash. I agree completely - I proposed a swf-activity launcher script as the solution, in my initial response to Bryan. I think it would be relatively easy to come up with an activity template that just has a subdirectory for SWF content. Creating an SWF activity then would involve copying the template, editing the meta data, putting the SWF content into the directory, zipping it up and voila, a nice XO bundle. That process could easily be done by a script, even on Windows. I think the template should be built into and supported by the Sugar dev team, rather than something that has to be copied around. That way it's able to be updated and improved over time, and as better Flash solutions become available we can incorporate them easily. I agree with the rest of Bert's plan. It should be a PyGTK activity with just an activity toolbar, which launches Gnash or Adobe Flash into its canvas. It should also find the Flash persistence database and copy it to/from the Journal. A nice additional feature would be to make use of Jordan's screen resolution dropper on the XO to allow Flash activities to run at 600x450, which would likely quadruple performance. -Wade ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Flash at Sugar Labs
Wade Brainerd wrote: just talking about shipping and supporting a 200 line Gnash-based-activity launcher script, which can also launch Adobe if it happens to be installed. Assuming you can talk Adobe into giving you a standalone version of their plugin... - rob - ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Flash at Sugar Labs
Hi, When the primary mission - educating the world's least served children - comes into conflict with Software Freedom, which one wins? How do you explain that to the deployments? This is a fine question. Here's my shot at it. First, I think it would be a mistake to think that we're the only group of people, or the only software project, interested in educating these children. It would be helpful for me, then, if we could be more specific about what we in particular are trying to do (although it contains the risk that we won't agree on that). It seems to me that Sugar exists because we claim at least the following failings of most educational software projects: * they don't allow the knowledge they contain to be *appropriated*. For example, translated into other languages or cultures so that it can be useful for the entire world, or modified, commented on and discussed. They might choose to disallow this technically (by not providing a method to perform the appropriation) or socially (by actively disallowing it). * they don't allow children to be *creators*, and not just consumers. We believe, as a consensus, that the best way to learn is by creation and problem-solving rather than by being dictated to. * they don't allow learning to be *collaborated upon*, critiqued, and conducted jointly. I'm sure this is less eloquent than the text that's already been written on our goals, but it's a start. What follows from it is that we should build software that: * is eminently modifiable by all, so that it can be appropriated into areas of the world and use cases that its authors did not consider. * should allow not just the consumption of content, but its outright creation. * should provide for pervasive sharing. Why did I just repeat all of this? It makes it easy for me to see that a system like Flash is not (yet) appropriate software for learning as we envision it, because it would not support our strategy of _how_ to achieve education of the world's children, and that strategy is our reason for not sitting back and letting the rest of the software projects out there solve the problem for us. For this reason, I would support having Sugar Labs advocate against the use of Flash, and think I can do this in an intellectually honest way. This doesn't mean I would stop someone from writing a Flash player wrapper if they want to, and it means I would likely change my mind if free Flash players and editors became more available. Thanks, - Chris. -- Chris Ball c...@laptop.org ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] File transfer in Telepathy
Le mardi 02 décembre 2008 à 17:51 +, Guillaume Desmottes a écrit : This new release depends on glib 2.16, dbus 1.1.0 and libsoup-2.2. I just released telepathy-salut 0.3.7 depending on libsoup-2.4 instead of 2.2. This release also fixes some file transfer related bugs. See http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/telepathy/2009-January/002719.html for the announcement. Regards, G. ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] possible additional talks for XOCamp2?
Hi Bryan, Both sound like very good subjects. I have you down for two hours Monday afternoon: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XOcamp_2#Monday_January_12.2C_2009 My goal for the first day is to give an overview of the challenges faced by deployments and how we hope to address them in release 9.1.0. Hopefully your slot Monday can address Nepal's experience and next stage plans. After you on Monday afternoon, is a working meeting to define how we ensure the latest Sugar is stable and how we include it in 9.1.0. Then we cover the technical details of each 9.1 area Tues. and Wed. Thursday and Friday are more open. John Gilmore is confirmed for Thursday afternoon but otherwise those meetings are mostly open and can be changed. Do you want to take Friday AM 10AM - Noon or Thursday afternoon 3PM - 5PM? Pick a slot and fill it in. Add a section below with more detail and link to it from the calendar if you want to give people a chance to see the agenda in advance. I'm not sure how many sugar focused people will be there late in the week but I expect you can get all the regulars from OLPC HQ at a minimum. Thanks, Greg S Bryan Berry wrote: I would like to give the following talks at XOCamp2 if there is space in the schedule for them and others are interested. Please let me know if you would be interested 1. Evolution of a deployment organization. About the challenges of building a deployment team from scratch and lesson learned along the way. Not a very technical talk. 2. Karma - Not for Hackers, for Designers Talk about my still evolving ideas for a flash-based activity framework called Karma ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
