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Macromedia Flash for Unix out soon

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the fun-with-multimedia dept.

shomon2 writes "Macromedia's web site has the news that "..versions of its Flash Player will be available free on 1 September for Linux, Sun Microsystems, Inc.'s Solaris, and Silicon Graphics Inc.'s Irix platforms." " Still worthing checking out SVG however.

6 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. Macromedia is no friend of open standards by jetson123 · · Score: 2
    As I interpret Macromedia's past moves, they always try to remain as proprietary as possible. It seems to me that the only reason they released specifications for Flash is because they feared competition from the W3C's open vector formats.

    Macromedia is, of course, free to do whatever they want with their software. But as consumers, we are also free to decide what we use and what we don't use.

    If you care about free software or open standards, I'd recommend staying away from Macromedia products and formats as much as possible. There are several open alternatives available for creating multimedia content for the web. And if they don't do what you need yet, get involved in their open standardization processes.

    1. Re:Macromedia is no friend of open standards by jetson123 · · Score: 2
      Java and VRML are two existing open standards that have the power to render a lot of neat graphics and multimedia content. Java 1.2 and the media-related packages will be incorporated into the next browser releases and offer a lot more neat features when it comes to audio, video, and animation.

      As for the "I need solutions NOW", I doubt it. Eventually, web designers may figure out how to incorporate multimedia content for the benefit of their site visitors (e.g., for maps and diagrams), but right now, Flash and Director are mostly used as gimmicks and probably end up driving more users away.

  2. Re:flash for SGI IRIX ..why? by daviddennis · · Score: 2

    Because Irix people like glossy stuff :-).

    Seriously, Irix is going to be around for a long time to come, since SGI is not planning on moving their MIPS hardware to Linux - just their new Intel stuff.

    D

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  3. ...a little more info on SVG... by shomon2 · · Score: 2

    ...for those who are listening...

    This link will give a bit more info on this possible counterpart or even competitor to flash.

    I think it would be a great alternative, being all into css/dom and w3 standards in general. SVG is coming together quite nicely, and already supports animation, scripting, filters, rotated text, as can be seen from the many (mostly java based) viewers around. The cool thing about it is that unlike flash, you don't need to use a proprietary point and click development tool to do stuff in SVG. Instead you just muck about in emacs like you're s'posed to.

    Flash is really nice, don't want to put it down, but it's just not fiddly enough for me.

  4. In related news... by webslacker · · Score: 2

    Be and Real just announced they're bringing RealPlayer to BeOS

  5. Why is everyone calling this bad? by Ripp · · Score: 2

    I see a lot of stuff like:

    "Who cares?"
    "Name the product we *least* want ported to Linux."
    "Flash sux coz it's not free...errr.."

    Um, excuse me guys, isn't this exactly the kind of thing we *do* want? We need more apps, even the little ones like this from the BIG names to be ported over to Linux if it's ever going to take hold.

    Nobody says that every god$^@$ package that runs on Linux has to be free, open and GPL'd

    Until then, I'll await with baited breath to see if it'll supports Flash 4 and maybe even sound this time?

    Macromedia! Port everything you've got over to the penguin!

    --
    Blech. Signatures.