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Interesting. Gnash is broke. It is a high-priority project of the FSF, but the FSF doesn't support any software projects financially.

Here is the donate button :) http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32

After such ringing endorsements, the response in the free Flash community makes for an almost comical contrast. "Our reaction is pretty much, 'Ho-hum,'" said Rob Savoye, lead developer for the Gnash project, which is creating a free Flash player. "It's a really good thing when corporations figure out that being more open to the community is important but, at the same time, it's not a huge deal."
...
One reason for the lack of excitement over the project in the free software world is that it omits "huge amounts" of information needed for a complete implementation of Flash. In particular, Savoye points out that the announcement contains no mention of the Real Time Messaging Protocol(RTMP) that is required for the Flash media server. Nor does it mention the Sorenson Spark Codec that is used for video encoding in Flash 6 and 7, and remains the choice of some users still for Flash video because other formats convert easily to it. Both may be encumbered by patents but, without them, the information that Adobe has released is of limited use.

Just as important, what Adobe released is not new to the free Flash community. "Pretty much all of that stuff was known," Otte says. Savoye agrees, remarking, "We figured that all out years ago, or we wouldn't have gotten as far along as we have." Moreover, although Gnash and Swfdec are clean room implementations -- that is, developed without the aid of any information from Adobe -- Savoye suggests that, "Most of this documentation, if we really wanted it, has already leaked out on the Internet years ago."

Via
http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/21

Gnash is all fine and good, except that it's a piece of shit and doesn't work. Just like open-source Java.

What isn't working for you? Sure, Gnash doesn't work on every website yet, but the Gnash devs are working this summer on v9 and v10 support for popular websites.

Look, I like open source as much as the next guy (more, probably), but more than anything I like working software. Google can either spend lots of man-hours making Gnash work properly with all the Flash out there on the web today, and then spend more man-hours keeping it up-to-date as Adobe adds new features that various popular websites take advantage of, or they can just partner with Adobe and use real Flash, spending just a few man-hours to integrate it into their system.

Gnash is making large strides towards covering the feature set provided by the Adobe Flash Player. Rob Savoye (lead programmer for the project) has stated that Gnash has actually been ahead of Adobe in several areas, including first with 64bit support, first ARM support, lower CPU usage, and so forth. Gnash is improving much faster than Adobe Flash is introducing new features.

I think it would be worth Google's time to invest in Gnash at this point. Investing in Gnash would mean that they wouldn't be beholden to a company like Adobe, and it seems like one of the main reasons for having Chrome OS is so that Google can get out from under the control of another large company: Microsoft.

Shameless Plug: If you have some free time or money, please consider donating either one to the project.

Gnash is all fine and good, except that it's a piece of shit and doesn't work. Just like open-source Java.

What isn't working for you? Sure, Gnash doesn't work on every website yet, but the Gnash devs are working this summer on v9 and v10 support for popular websites.

Look, I like open source as much as the next guy (more, probably), but more than anything I like working software. Google can either spend lots of man-hours making Gnash work properly with all the Flash out there on the web today, and then spend more man-hours keeping it up-to-date as Adobe adds new features that various popular websites take advantage of, or they can just partner with Adobe and use real Flash, spending just a few man-hours to integrate it into their system.

Gnash is making large strides towards covering the feature set provided by the Adobe Flash Player. Rob Savoye (lead programmer for the project) has stated that Gnash has actually been ahead of Adobe in several areas, including first with 64bit support, first ARM support, lower CPU usage, and so forth. Gnash is improving much faster than Adobe Flash is introducing new features.

I think it would be worth Google's time to invest in Gnash at this point. Investing in Gnash would mean that they wouldn't be beholden to a company like Adobe, and it seems like one of the main reasons for having Chrome OS is so that Google can get out from under the control of another large company: Microsoft.

Shameless Plug: If you have some free time or money, please consider donating either one to the project.

And what about open rich web media initiative..?

Oh sure, but we'd have to come up with a name like... I dunno.... Open Media Now!.

And we'd probably also want to come up with some goals like:

• furthering the creation of an open media infrastructure.
• improving upon both the functionality of, and access to, open media solutions.
• promoting an infrastructure that enables the creation, the streaming, and the viewing of digital content (using free software) in a legally conforming way.

And then we'd have to find someone to lead us.

I like the idea, but as you can see there are just too many hurdles to make this happen right now. I guess we'll have to continue along with the proprietary solutions for now...

And what about open rich web media initiative..?

Oh sure, but we'd have to come up with a name like... I dunno.... Open Media Now!.

And we'd probably also want to come up with some goals like:

• furthering the creation of an open media infrastructure.
• improving upon both the functionality of, and access to, open media solutions.
• promoting an infrastructure that enables the creation, the streaming, and the viewing of digital content (using free software) in a legally conforming way.

And then we'd have to find someone to lead us.

I like the idea, but as you can see there are just too many hurdles to make this happen right now. I guess we'll have to continue along with the proprietary solutions for now...

Search on google for: gnash clean room

What you will find is that Adobe made it difficult to legally work on an open source viewer, and that the specs that exist are either (1) leaked, and therefore it is questionable whether you can legally use them, or (2) from a clean room reverse engineering.

From: http://lwn.net/Articles/270056/

Gnash development has been done using a Clean room reverse engineering technique. By agreeing to the license for the Adobe (formerly Shockwave) Flash player, a developer gives up the right to develop a competing product.

From: http://www.gnashdev.org/?q=node/30

Rob: The Adobe EULA for Flash forbids anyone who has installed their Flash tools or plugin from working on Flash technologies. This has had a chilling effect on the development of free Flash players, since a developer must either choose to decide that Adobe won't sue them over this, or to do what Gnash does, which is a slow and inefficient, clean room, reverse engineering project.

Adobe has declined to comment on this issue, since the confusion benefits their lockin of the market. Although Adobe has said they support Open Source projects, and donated Tamarin to Mozilla, we'd love to see a public statement that Gnash developers won't be subject to a lawsuit. It's very difficult to find developers that have never installed the Adobe software ever, which is what we've been doing to maintain our clean room approach.

From: http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/21

Savoye suggests that, "Most of this documentation, if we really wanted it, has already leaked out on the Internet years ago."

On the contrary, what the specs provide was something Gnash devs figured out 5 years ago. Gnash devs still have to reverse engineer swf in a clean-room environment, and still can't install any of the Adobe tools. Here's an article by Bruce Byfield regarding the Open Screen Initiative: http://openmedianow.org/?q=node/21