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Flash EULA Doesn't Fit the Times
cphoenix writes "The latest Flash player license seems to forbid downloading their player onto a laptop. From the License: "you may not use the Software on any non-PC product or any embedded or device versions of the above operating systems, including, but not limited to, mobile devices, internet appliances, set top boxes (STB), handhelds, PDAs, phones, web pads, tablets, game consoles, TVs, DVDs, gaming machines, home automation systems, kiosks or any other consumer electronics devices or mobile/cable/satellite/television or closed system based service." This comes at a time when laptops are outselling desktops. And to add insult to injury, "You agree that Macromedia may audit your use of the Software ... In the event that such audit reveals any use of the Software by you other than in full compliance with the terms of this Agreement, you shall reimburse Macromedia for all reasonable expenses related to such audit."
Good advice. I have always found flash to be especially irritating. Now, with FlashBlock, I get the best of both worlds. I have it installed, in case I need it for whatever reason, but it is blocked from my sight by default, which is the way I like it.
:)
I still had to agree to the license agreement, but wtf. I don't have a laptop anymore, so I think I'm safe
bash: rtfm: command not found
In order to run it on your watch or your toaster, you would either need to upgrade your watch or toaster to an x86 and have either Windows95-XP (not including WinCE or NTe) or Linux installed on it.
Otherwise you'd need to figure out a way to make the Shockwave binary run on the foreign hardware/OS. This is what they are trying to prevent. They don't want you to decompile the system. They want to license the source code to embedded systems integrators who will perform the porting for Original Equipment Manufacturers who will then provide you, the end user, with an embedded version of Flash (or whatever).
Even if you could port it to other hardware, you couldn't sell that port or perform the port for anyone because of the copyright restriction.
I doubt it matters a whit to you. If you were seriously considering doing something like that, you'd already know the reasoning behind the licensing.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Since you worded your question so politely I thought that I would take a moment to make my first registered post in many years of reading Slashdot. There are a couple of things that I would like to address regarding this and many other questions like it.
:)
First, the wording of an individual news post and the slant/position that the post takes does not necessarily reflect my views and opinions (nor that of anyone else associated with the administration of Slashdot). The submission is from a reader just like you who decided to take the time to share something that they felt was newsworthy and put their own particular spin on in. I may have editorial control but I am a pretty firm believer in anti-censorship so I try to keep the submissions general 'look and feel' the same. This means that the wording or particular approach to a headline is that of the authors and usually the author (because they took the time to read/submit it) knows more about the subject material than I would anyway.
Second, the topics that I try to post are usually ones that I feel would interest or impact the open source/linux/IT/geek/etc population as a whole. Some are more relavent for your interests than others as I try to keep the topics spread out over time. That being said, the article by itself may not have the strength to stand on its own but I usually hope that the underlying topic/issue is one that will generate a meaningful discussion. This is one of the many things (imho) that makes Slashdot what it is. Being able to pontificate on any/all subjects and get a meaningful response from other (generally) smart people as opposed to most of our daily lives can be a welcome release, even for those trolls who no doubt will flame this reponse into oblivion.
Getting back to the article, what I had hoped would be addressed (while I agree with you there is very little chance that Macromedia would ever go after the laptop market, that would be suicidal) is the fact that they expressly outlaw many devices that could "benfit/use" flash. While many feel that flash is not a helpful tool there are usefull applications. In addition to this the line between a "PC/Laptop" and that of a PDA or Handheld of some sort is becoming very blurry (ala PSP, Ipaq, etc) so where are they "allowed" to draw the line?
Well, enough of my soapbox, just wanted to get a few things that have been nagging at me over the last couple weeks out in the open. Flame away!
Best Regards,
SM
You don't surf the net much do you. More and more sites are going for the whole flash-wankery look (shows off the artists skills more than sells the content IMO - bad idea) rather than useful design.
Perhaps I'm missing some sort of in-joke, but why would you want to run Flash under Wine when there is a native Linux version?
Do not forget to mention that the latest flash plug-in is not legal for use within a corporation. You must pay to use the client, and their price is not what you call competitive. The same thing everyone is talking about here applies to corporate use as well, meaning it can only be installed on one corporate machine. Flash is the devil, if you work in IT make sure any apps you use do not use flash. I would also recommend that no one flash at all on any website. Macromedia is worse than Microsoft in the licensing department. I'm not going to mention what company I work for, but there are rumors that macromedia is demanding to be paid an undisclosed amount for every machine that has flash player on it here.
Actually, the PC client is free. All others (DoCoMo Flash Lite, Symbian, etc.) are not free. (in some cases they seem to be free to the user, but are actually paid for by the device manufacturer, especially in cases where porting work is done)
Second, Flash does not suck resources unless there's heavy animation involved. It certainly doesn't use huge amounts of RAM.
That's the theory. In practice, Macromedia's Flash player has bugs that mean you end up with an unusable web browser and dozens of flash processes running in the background on some platforms.
Finally, whether you like it or not, Flash is the best way to create modern web applications,
Flash breaks just about everything about the web that made the web successful in the first place: open standards, text-based representations, user control over rendering, cut-and-paste, and screen scraping.
Fortunately, even though idiotic attitudes like yours still exist in some backwards corners of the web, there isn't much point in getting worked up about it: Flash is a niche application and won't ever be anything more than that.
Also, have you seen Adobe's SVG plugin for example? It makes Acrobat look small and snappy in comparison.
Have you seen Adobe Acrobat Reader? It sucks: it's slow and memory hungry, while Linux and OS X have fast and compact PDF viewers. Just because one of Adobe's viewers sucks doesn't mean that nobody can do a good job implementing a viewer for that document type.
As to SVG standard, read and weep: SVG Rendering Comparison.
That's FUD on your part. What's there to "weep"? We have a handful of open source SVG implementations that implement a substantial portion of the standard and largely differ mostly in obscure areas. Those open source implementations are being created in addition to multiple commercial implementations.
It will probably be a while until IE has native SVG support built in, but Firefox and Mozilla are going to have it soon. Hopefully, someone will port a decent SVG plug-in to IE.
I use flashblock
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/
and have found that 99 times out of 100 I don't need to click to enable the plugin. Flash is used almost exclusively for ads now-a-days. They're so obnoxious too...
Fourth, it's proprietary, because MM wants to stay in control, but the specs are readily available, as is the source code of the player.
There is nothing to stop you from making your own Flash content generator or player. Have a look at OSFlash.org for a list of Flash-related Open Source projects.
You cannot legally use the flash specs to create your own player.
It's certainly not valid in the UK, since it would force you to sign away certain rights which the Law of the Land says you cannot sign away. These include the right not to be physically attacked {if you ask someone to punch you in the face, and they do so, they can still be prosecuted for assault}, the right to say no to sexual intercourse {If you do not want to have sex with your husband, but he tries it on anyway, he has committed rape}, and certain consumer protections.
All this, however, is certainly good ammo for this project.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
The SWF file format specification is openly available. There's plenty of open source apps that can read and write it.
There are at least two free software implementations of flash, one LGPL (http://www.schleef.org/swfdec/) and one GPL (http://swift-tools.net/Flash/).
No; the parent over-generalised. You can consent under certain circumstances, such as to allow surgery or as part of a properly conducted sporting activity. See here for example. Note, however, that attacking someone in a way that is not covered by the accepted rules of your activity, and therefore does not have the implied consent of the other party, can get you in a lot of trouble. Also, there are further legal requirements on boxing events specifically in the UK, including the presence of medical cover.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
It did specifically mention tablets as excluded. The tablet I've seen was basically a laptop with a screen that would turn around and lie flat. It also specifically blocks kiosks, which around here tend to be PCs (in a plywood case) which are allowed.
The EULA certainly is confusing. The following says to me the only valid way to get a copy is to show up at Macromedia HQ with a floppy...
"1. You may not make or distribute copies of the Software, or electronically transfer the Software from one computer to another or over a network."
Wine doesn't just run on Linux....
Sig out of date
> Perhaps I'm missing some sort of in-joke, but why would you want to run Flash under Wine when there is a native Linux version?
Why were you modded informative ? Not only do win32 apps running under Wine need to access the win32 flash, but Wine runs on many systems that aren't Linux.
Sig out of date
CommandoB (and many others who share your sentiments),
I appreciate you taking the time to elaborate on your frustrations, but let me assure you that no one feels your frustration more directly than the editors of Slashdot. Granted, there have been _many_ things that the editors have missed/screwed up. I made one yesterday (perhaps I can chalk it up to being new to the editing biz, but probably not) but what can I say, we are still human.
However, the main point that I would like to make is that Slashdot is only as good as the users submitting stories make it. I, for one, would love to see more submissions by users who have taken the time to investigate all of the angles and make a good writeup about a newsworthy story (I know, my job, but the easier you make it the more time I have for really selecting the best stories). Unfortunately this is not the case. Most of the time the editors (especially in slow news times, which I'm sure you can recognize from mainstream media running inane stories also) are presented with the choice of yet another Google speculation story, a shameless plug to some homepage hosted on a cable modem, or a speculative piece that isn't really well founded but has interesting implications for those who choose to look past the surface. Now, **none** of these options are very appealing so generally we try to at least make the crap that gets posted varied in nature but we would so very much love to actually have great news to post.
As an editor, I have found that many times even crap can result in a very animated and worthwhile discussion if the correct spin is placed on the story to distract the major trolls. This spin is what I am learning through feedback like yours (and others) and hopefully my posts will continue to evolve in quality. It has been a hard switch to go from one of the readers who complained about so many things to the other side of the coin, but also a very informative journey.
There are many things going on behind the scenes here that could very well increase the overall quality of the site, so stay tuned and hopefully your prayers will be answered. I'm sorry that you have decided to take a leave of the site but come back every now and then so that at the very least I can help to make my posts more of 'what the people want'.
As an afterthought, also keep in mind that inflamatory posts will generally be ignored, but the thoughtful and measured responses do not generally fall upon deaf ears. (even though it may seem that way to you sometimes)