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Flash 7 for Linux Released
molarmass192 writes "Looks like Macromedia has finally made good on their word and provided Linux with a current version of Flash player. Improvements over Flash 6 include a speed boost and support for SOAP. Here's the requisite download link. I took a few seconds to get it set up and the response is noticeably snappier than version 6. In particular, the audio/video sync problems in version 6 seems to have been taken care of. Now, I wonder where they hid that Shockwave player for Linux?"
... they'd release the authoring tool in a Linux version?
Screw you all! I'm off to the pub
And the Linux/Arm one ? And the Linux/alpha one ? etc.
This is the proprietary magic : you just don't have the control or the possibility to see them come unless Macromedia themselves choose to release one.
A simple and good reason not to use neither encourage or support this kind of proprietary, non-standard format.
theefer
This could of course just be me but it seems that the sync of video/audio is still not exactly right. I tested it by running this clip http://www.cybermoonstudios.com/8bitDandD.html but alas it didn't work. perhaps I should remove the v.6 plugin first. Oh well.
That is a good idea. But I'd really like to see them make a version with source available, so I can build it on FreeBSD, or any other unixy operating system. If that happens to be a winelib compatible version, I'd still be happy.
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
Why would you want it?
Flash is internet pollution. (X)HTML is lighter-weight and thus faster, more accessible for people with disabilities, and just generally less crap. Plus, Google can tell you about the content of (X)HTML pages, but nothing, from Google to grep, can parse the content of a Flash movie. Flash has a nice little niche for silly animations and games, but it has become a cancer on the web as a navigation and content-presentation interface. An increase in its reach isn't something to celebrate.
Now seems a good time to introduce flashblock. Very ironic, isn't it?
My life in the land of the rising sun.
No, uploading it does, as the EULA states that YOU can't distribute it, doesn't mean they can't.
This is one of the few times you'll hear me honestly ask "is it open source?" I ask because I would love to see an IRIX version of this for my Silicon Graphics Octane workstation, and I know it's not going to happen otherwise. The IRIX world is stick at version 5 with few alternatives.
Yeah, yeah, I know, flash sucks. But sometimes you need to have it to visit certain sites. Sure beats having to fire up my PC just o look at the newest movie site.
And yes, SGIs are oldschool. But Octanes are pretty cheap on eBay and are becoming common with we hardware collectors (if you're not that type, you probably know one... house full of computers with at least one working Amiga and probably a NeXT cube too). And it makes for a great main workstation!
It's not the developers' computer. It's MY computer, and a lot of my hardware is "old" and CANNOT HANDLE anything higher than "Low Quality"! And not giving me a freaking VOLUME KNOB is absolutely ridiculous.
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
"Looks like Macromedia has finally made good on their word and provided Linux"
GNU/Linux works on various platforms although the x86 port is the most common. I don't see x86 anywhere in the announcement, do you? If we had the source we had the freedom to compile it on any arch and OS we wanted to. A proprietary software package isn't a contribution to us if our goal is freedom.
It is the problem with non-free software.
Flash is a lead lined cudgel with which talentless unfunny people can flesh out their poorly designed and impossible-to-navigate websites. (or, if they're really talentless, they just ship them off to sites like newgrounds.com) I have personally lost count of the number of times I've had my browsing experience ruined by an annoying as hell flash banner ad spawning in the middle of my screen, or a homepage so slowed and crippled by flash that I left and never returned.
Of course this isn't the only problem, trolls such as the GNAA are known to use this in their browser crashing Shock Sites. Which force users of MSIE to end the entire process to stop the endlessly respawning windows. And this is just the tip of an iceberg of security issues.
As a result of this (and this "last measure" especially) I decided to abandon windows altogether and become another convert to *nix. So I think you can forgive me for not celebrating the porting of this pesterware to Linux, nor will I be letting it anywhere near my linux box. Regular banner ads are annoying enough thank you.
Please disconnect from the internet immediately.
It's impossible that your connection to Slashdot or whatever is only accomplished through "Free" software.
http://blog.astyran.sg
IMHO it would be better if they started contributing to the Wine project instead of making a Wine API version.
Not only would it make the Wine project better, but it would also make most of their own programs Wine-compatible. Most of the things that make Wine incompatible with Flash right now are probably the same as the other Macromedia programs, and that would be a lot cheaper in development costs.
Quantum hacker.
Dreamweaver? What kind of programmer uses Dreamweaver?
I dunno. I'm not even that old; I'm 21. I've been programming since I was 9, and compared to a lot of people that's still nothing to how long they have been. Either way, I absolutely cannot stand that damn program.
How does it pay for itself?? I can understand the color coding helps, but you can get a much less bloated program to do color coding.
WYSIWYG editors for true website design are a waste.
I stand by my theory that you put up your best Dreamweaver man, and your best hand coder, and ask them to fix a problem and then see who pays for themselves.
The greatest experience we can have is the mysterious.
- Albert Einstein
I suppose you never look at Macromedia's 10-Q filings and don't have stock in this company?
If you did you'd note that the concern about bankruptcy is not one listed.
At any rate, the close source of their tool which is becoming ubiquitous within the Web Communities gives Macromedia a business advantage. Why the hell would they open source this? This makes as much sense as Apple open sourcing Quartz/Quartz Extreme or QuickTime.
You don't base your company around a non-open-source model and then when you are strong give away your crown jewels of technology, just to satisfy the ideology of the open-source community.
Perhaps if they redesigned flash to leave a necessary portion open-sourced and then made money off of custom tools than we might see a change of business.
I have never used Dreamweaver, but every time I've seen others use it, the code produced is horrid.
I don't see a reason to use it- if you have enough skill with (X)HTML/CSS, you should be able to create a webpage that takes up half the bandwidth and works on all browsers. Sure, it may take a little longer but I'd rather take the 2min to make an efficient page instead of building a hacked up one in 1min.
In your haste to rant about how much you hate everyone else on then Intarweb, you've missed or ignored a pretty major point: Flash is just a tool. How about this:
HTML is a lead lined cudgel with which talentless unfunny people can create their poorly designed and impossible-to-navigate websites. (or, if they're really talentless, they just ship them off to sites like geocities.com) I have personally lost count of the number of times I've had my browsing experience ruined by an annoying as hell animated gif banner ad spawning in the middle of my screen, or a homepage so slowed and crippled by dynamic HTML that I left and never returned.
I suspect most of us would agree with that to an extent, but we don't vow never to look at a webpage again.
Some Flash is very good. Deal with it, move on, use the appropriate browser/plugin to make Flash content optional.
Game dev and music blog
Friends don't let friends use Flash.
Someone hates these cans.
That's really incredible. Copy two files into a standard directory correctly and people start praising it.
My system-wide corporate deployment tool can do this, too. It's called cp and tar.
I have a hardware volume knob. It's right there on the front of my speakers. I don't know of any computer speakers, ever, that haven't included a bigass knob right on the front. Maybe I'm missing something?
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
Yeah. Actually, it doesn't really make sense that the flash player isn't available as full GPL. Isn't in their interest to get the client out to as many people as possible?
Why would you want it?
Because I happen to enjoy silly animations and games.
You say that as if there is something wrong with enjoying 'silly animations and games'. I do. So do many other people.
It may also be inaccessible, but every day people enjoy things that aren't globally accessible, from various forms of media and art to sports and recreation. How do you make animation accessible to those with vision difficulties?
One could write a story instead, but then you have something totally different. Hypertext has been around for decades, and text itself for millennia, and they serve their purpose. Animation serves another.
There will always be people who choose a poor method of presenting their content on the web. Even without Flash, it's still possible to have poorly-navigable sites with too many fonts, and garish colours, et cetera.
The way to solve it is not to discourage the use of Flash, as if it were inherently wrong, but to encourage and show examples of good design and presentation when Flash is not called for.
This may be a niche, but I for one am quite happy that such a niche exists, and is available to Linux users. I'd like to think that one day SVG will be a better alternative and we can all switch to that, but for now there's Flash.
If you don't like it, don't install it. But don't expect others to do the same.
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
Because vector graphics authoring tools that use motion SVG are, at their beta stage of development, quite poor?
Because HTML/XML can't play movie trailers, whereas Flash's Sorenson codec, native on Linux, can?
Because unlike Java, Flash UI is responsive. unlike DHTML its actually designed for forms, and unlike ActiveX, its cross platform.
Macromedia still don't care about Linux in any meaningful fashion - wake me up when Flash 8 comes out simultaneously on Windows and Linux (Mozilla can do it with a Web browser that's 1,000 times more complex, so why not a browser plug-in?), when Shockwave Player finally appears on Linux and when Macromedia's entire Windows product range is available natively on Linux. Only then can you finally say Macromedia is taking Linux seriously - Oracle switched (albeit from Solaris)...c'mon Macromedia, make the same move...
Isn't in their interest to get the client out to as many people as possible?
Apparently not- or, as a greedy company, they would've done so.
This could mean one of several things:
(1) Macromedia plans for Flash players to become a profit-center in the future, maybe by licensing players to mobile-phone companies or something
(2) Macromedia profits from selling Flash-authoring tools, but those tools would be easily replaced by Open Source versions if there was a good Open Source flash player to work from.
(3) Macromedia is afraid that an Open Source flashplayer would lead to someone distributing a modified version, effectively forking the file-format and confusing web-browsers who can no longer view all flash-based content the same way.
There are clearly 11 badgers before the two mushrooms.
So to clarify:
badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger Mushroom! MUSHROOM!
Matt Fahrenbacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
You want the Shockwave player for Linux? This is where the Slashdot Effect can actually help.
Go to the Macromedia 'wish form' and tell them you want Shockwave Player for Linux! Development over there seems to be demand-driven, so fill out the form. If they get enough requests, they might just do it.
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in my opinion, the value of Dreamweaver is not necessarily in its WYSIWYG whatever crap, but in its project management and its streamlining of the design process. You can write the same code in a number of different programs, but when you're dealing with anything over than twenty dynamic webpages (with their associated template and include files) it sure is handy to have something like Dreamweaver or GoLive to help you make sense of your mishmash of files... if you're a bit scatterbrained like me, that is.
Standing at the very edge of my imagination, I peered into the inky void and realised -- I couldn't think up a new sig.
No. Copyright gives them the ability to control reproduction, preparation of derivative works, distribution of copies, public performance and public display of their work. Period. If I have legally obtained a copy, I can view and experience it however, whenever, with whatever, and at whichever volume and quality I want. They can build technical barriers, but DMCA notwithstanding, those barriers are neither legally nor, in my opinion, morally binding.