Re: [Fsfe-uk] BBC trial of embedded Flash video

[Jon Grant]

Hiya,

Looks interesting.. it's only a "free programming tool" if it's free to
get involved surely? (darn BBC!) They should have added a note about
users having to agree to Adobe's strict terms before they could use it:
http://www.adobe.com/products/eulas/players/flash/

My view would be that browsers need to intrinsically support video,
animation, audio and other media formats, like they presently support
JPEG, GIF, PNG etc.

Both this new Adobe Flash embedded file, and the "BBC News Player" require
a binary plugin for the browser. The content is running through binary
code we have no control over.

GNU supporting Adobe's Flash format is a shame. If I were them, I would
have put all my effort into getting browsers to incorporate support for
media formats like Vorbis and Theora, at the same time as putting
together some showcase AJAX media applications -- which beat Flash,
RealVideo and Java on all practical levels (to make sure the non FS minded
also adopt!).

But GNU is just shoring up the status quo with their GNUFlash
projects (or whatever its been renamed now..). GNU don't promote Word
documents now that OOo has great support for the file-format:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

I'd love to see GNU lead the way to the future by supporting a modern
media enhanced experience in a browser... they'll get there in the next
15yrs, but seems a shame to have false starts..

Cheers, Jon