Re: [Savannah-hackers] Re: Next5Minutes and more on future of Savannah (fwd)

[Jaime E . Villate]

On Wed, Jun 05, 2002 at 09:30:56AM +0200, Loic Dachary wrote:
> Zeljko Blace writes:
> 
>  > I also know this from before. But there is a GPL Plugin available
>  > http://www.swift-tools.com/Flash/ (which is not fully compatible
>  > with version 4...but it is almost 95% done).
> 
>       The problem with this tool is that it *may* contain non-free
> files. That should be solved before we can rely on it.

Another problem is that there are already thousands of pages that will display
an annoying publicity page of Macromedia if you do not have a flash plugin
installed. They will not tell you that there is a GPL Plugin available. I do
not know if showing that annoying Macromedia page is some requirement or a
built in mechanism of Macromedia's software, but even if it isn't, it will be
practically imposible to have author's change that.

I've had many discussions with our local network authorities because our
Portuguese Academic Network has an Acceptable Users Policy (AUP) that clearly
states that webpages in the network must not show any commercial
advertisement. I gave them a list of several pages that display advertisement
for Macromedia, but since they have installed Macromedia's proprietary plugin
they don't see that advertisemnt. I have even taken my laptop to public
presentations and show them what happens when I open those sites in my list,
but they are still not convinced that the AUP is being broken.

To me, flash is a non-standard, abused technology that we should reject.

Cheers,
Jaime