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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."
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
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.
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!
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/).