The Return of GPLFlash

ValourX writes "Remember GPLFlash, the free software project that was supposed to replace the proprietary Macromedia Flash plugin? Well it's back in active development according to this NewsForge article. GPLFlash is half of the proprietary duo that the Free Software Foundation is rallying to replace with free equivalents. The alpha release isn't far away, but the development team could use some programming help, if you're available."

Comments

Elaborate

[Quasar1999]

What kind of help? And more importantly, how are they making something compatable? Reverse engineering? I wouldn't want to be in the USA helping this effort... the DMCA could very well be used by macromedia to contain any third party renderers that may appear. They have a ton of money on the line...

Re:Elaborate

[BeBoxer]

Actually if you read the agreements through which that documentation is avaliable, you'll notice that they are provided with the intent of allowing you to create SWF, not play it.

That point is in the article as well. But I have to admit, it makes no sense at all to me. As I understand it, Macromedia sells the Flash creation software. And they are perfectly OK with you using their specs to develop free competition for that product. And they give away the player, but if you develop a free competitor to that, they'll get pissed. WTF? That makes no sense at all to me. Can anybody think of a reason why they would structure the agreement that way?

Re:Elaborate

[Cwaig]

That's rubbish. Flash isn't an "open to interpretation" type of standard like HTML. It's all laid out on a fixed coordinate system. If you get an instruction that says "draw a 100x100 square at location 50 using the RGB colour FF:00:00" there's not that many ways to misinterpret it. It's all mathematical, and it you follow the ruleset (which is a hell of a lot simpler than the ones for HTML), you get the same result as Macromedia when rendering it.

Problem.

[Sheepdot]

The alpha release isn't far away, but the development team could use some programming help, if you're available.

I would think that they are having problems getting programming support mainly because there are not enough people that see the flash engine as such a travesty to be closed source when it is given out for free, anyway. Same goes for Java.

The only problem with replacing free beer with free speech is that if you have the beer, you're more likely to slur the speech or forget about it altogether.

There is not enough incentive for this project to flourish.

Re:Problem.

[MenTaLguY]

The SVG specification does include animation actually, and at least Opera and the Adobe SVG plugin do implement it.

Just isn't much out there in the way of authoring tools that support SVG animation yet.

prefer SVG

[cahiha]

I still think Flash is a bad idea. FOSS developers should concentrate on making SVG happen.

In fact, the big thing about Flash isn't the format, it's the authoring tools. A Macromedia-like authoring tool for SVG would be a much better investment of time than creating a Flash player.

Cairo

[labratuk]

I wonder if they'll make use of cairo this time.

Re:So Flash is good now?

[823723423]

Why flash? especially when SVG and Firefox are starting to happen. Browser can do rich graphics without losing rich content. See Picture of browser rotated 30 degress And then there is ben goodgers demo of thumbnail history . See Thumbnail history Plus there's was that article a while back about Oconner commenting on the absent developers. For flash, like advertisement, if we do not notice it, maybe it will go away.

Re:Link to its homepage!

[emurphy42]

Unlike the other folks who are too busy gagging on their own small intestines atm, I have some specific recommendations to offer:

• More contrast between text color and background color
• Put "GPL" in a different font and/or color than "Flash", and/or tilt it 30 degrees to the left
• Offer a few more sizes

NOT free

[Luke-Jr]

The thing is, it's NOT free. Merely free of charge, which is irrelevant. It doesn't matter how much something costs if it denying your natural rights to modify and share it.

Also, tell me how you expect anyone on non-x86 platforms to view Flash right now? You can't (with the one exception of Mac OS). Hardly cross-platform.

Besides, isn't there an animated SVG format that does what Flash does better? After all, Flash is merely an animation format. Abuse of Flash (such as interactive websites) are just that-- abuse. Any website requiring Flash should be ignored and its contents considered useless.