Not sure why my original comment came out as AC, but.....
So you admit they are becoming viable.
Whilst I've never been a Flash evangelist, as a web designer, I have been interested in getting the best results to the widest audience. I now use things like jQuery for most of the things that I would once have used Flash for, but it has taken a long time for there to be a viable alternative. Not so very long ago we were limited to animated GIFs or Flash.
Or they'd just have waited a long time.
I still really like the vector drawing tools in Flash, and will do some things in it over Illustrator, often for designs that will never go on the web and end up being printed. I gather this is down to its SmartSketch heritage, although I didn't use it that long ago! I don't think sites like the ones I mentioned would have existed without those tools, even if SVG, HTML5, JavaScript, ActiveX or whatever had been around to deliver low-bandwidth vector animation to a wide audience. There would not doubt have been some sort of alternative, but Flash created it's own style.
Unless someone writes an automatic conversion tool. In any case, I'm not sure how relevant it is. If I only have to use Flash for stuff from the 90s, that's fine with me. It's still a marked improvement.
If Apple took Gnash and did what they did with Webkit to make Safari (I realise this will probably never happen!), and made something that didn't crash, and supported Flash up to, say, version 8, I wouldn't have any problem with their battle against Adobe for future control.
But there is still a huge amount of internet history in Flash files from a time when Flash was the only way to deliver certain things.
This information is not stored on some inaccessible obsolete disks that can't be read any more, its out there on the internet, and only becoming inaccessible because of companies being dicks.
Are we supposed to just forget about all that information and pretend it never happened?
I really don't see what the problem with launching the iPlayer using M$ software is, the BBC have a way of distributing their content to the vast majority of licence paying computer users right now, and the BBC Trust have said "the broadcaster must open up the iPlayer as soon as possible and plans to review progress every six months" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6922024.stm).
Sure, it may have been better to use Flash Video (but certainly not RealPlayer or Quicktime), but in reality the percentage of licence payers who don't have access to a Windows P.C. is small enough that can get the iPlayer up and running to the vast majority now, and fill in the gaps later. They have made attempts to make their own open format (http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/projects/dirac/), but obviously it's nowhere near ready for large scale use, so why not use something that is ready now?
The idea that the BBC is going to start releasing their content in a DRM free format is totally absurd, given that they make a sizeable portion of their income selling it to other broadcasters and releasing DVD box sets. If you can watch DRM "infected" media, then you can probably crack it, but the BBC a hardly likely to give away their content in a format that can go straight onto a P2P network. And why should U.K. licence payers fund the Worlds entertainment anyway?
I also think the ISP think will blow over, as the BBC are working with Virgin Media (the U.K.'s cable T.V. provider and largest home ISP) to bring the iPlayer to cable TV. I'm sure the other ISPs will think again when their biggest competitor starts making a big deal about their unrestricted access to iPlayer content.
I think they should launch it not, and not let a few whiners ruin it for everyone else
But then if you spent you time and effort or money building a house that you rent out for instance, then you don't loose any right to charge rent after 50 years. Similarly a 50 year old railway or factory doesn't become public domain.
I also don't think you can really compare an old performance of an athlete to an old performance of a musician. Unless the athlete invented a running (or whatever), they're just doing what loads of people have done before, but a bit quicker. Whilst that may be true or some musicians, I think there's a lot more residual value in a 50 year old recording of an original song by the original artist than of a 50 year old recording of an athlete.
Don't get me wrong, I think the big music companies are complete bastards, and I especially don't think anyone should be able to charge 100% royalties for sampling or covering a song, but I don't think you can really legitimately imply a great musician should just get paid an hourly rate for the time it takes them to write a song.
Super Street Fighter II Turbo
Street Fighter Alpha
Capcom vs. Marvel
Street Fighter III...and,...erm, one of the GTAs; the one I havn't played to death yet.
Personally I would strongly recommend never reading the comments on Slashdot on non-computer topics you feel strongly about. You'll only get pissed off with the ill-informed arseholes "making light" of the situation. I stopped after seeing initial comments about the 2004 Asian Tsunami (which killed a quarter of a million people lets not forget) turn into a discussion about Arthur C. Clarke.
My biggest, and infact only wish would be for it to not screw up relative getURL links from Macromedia Flash and Director based PC CD-ROMs, being as that's the only thing that the only thing that makes me reminiscent of the "good old days" when you could be pretty sure everyone was using IE.
Slashdot Mirror
I sure hope you're not actively encouraging the rape culture, the last thing you want is the Dickwolves after you!
So you admit they are becoming viable.
Whilst I've never been a Flash evangelist, as a web designer, I have been interested in getting the best results to the widest audience. I now use things like jQuery for most of the things that I would once have used Flash for, but it has taken a long time for there to be a viable alternative. Not so very long ago we were limited to animated GIFs or Flash.
Or they'd just have waited a long time.
I still really like the vector drawing tools in Flash, and will do some things in it over Illustrator, often for designs that will never go on the web and end up being printed. I gather this is down to its SmartSketch heritage, although I didn't use it that long ago! I don't think sites like the ones I mentioned would have existed without those tools, even if SVG, HTML5, JavaScript, ActiveX or whatever had been around to deliver low-bandwidth vector animation to a wide audience. There would not doubt have been some sort of alternative, but Flash created it's own style.
Unless someone writes an automatic conversion tool. In any case, I'm not sure how relevant it is. If I only have to use Flash for stuff from the 90s, that's fine with me. It's still a marked improvement.
If Apple took Gnash and did what they did with Webkit to make Safari (I realise this will probably never happen!), and made something that didn't crash, and supported Flash up to, say, version 8, I wouldn't have any problem with their battle against Adobe for future control.
But there is still a huge amount of internet history in Flash files from a time when Flash was the only way to deliver certain things.
This information is not stored on some inaccessible obsolete disks that can't be read any more, its out there on the internet, and only becoming inaccessible because of companies being dicks.
Are we supposed to just forget about all that information and pretend it never happened?
What, so you'd rather see angry mobs burning effigies of Sack Boy on the news? At least they'd actually look like who they're supposed to be for once.
I think B3TA have long had the best example of this:
http://www.b3ta.com/any_page_that_doesn't_existAnd if anyone posts the same idea later, it will be declared DUPE by a few thousand slashdorks.
I really don't see what the problem with launching the iPlayer using M$ software is, the BBC have a way of distributing their content to the vast majority of licence paying computer users right now, and the BBC Trust have said "the broadcaster must open up the iPlayer as soon as possible and plans to review progress every six months" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6922024.stm ).
Sure, it may have been better to use Flash Video (but certainly not RealPlayer or Quicktime), but in reality the percentage of licence payers who don't have access to a Windows P.C. is small enough that can get the iPlayer up and running to the vast majority now, and fill in the gaps later. They have made attempts to make their own open format (http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/projects/dirac/), but obviously it's nowhere near ready for large scale use, so why not use something that is ready now?
The idea that the BBC is going to start releasing their content in a DRM free format is totally absurd, given that they make a sizeable portion of their income selling it to other broadcasters and releasing DVD box sets. If you can watch DRM "infected" media, then you can probably crack it, but the BBC a hardly likely to give away their content in a format that can go straight onto a P2P network. And why should U.K. licence payers fund the Worlds entertainment anyway?
I also think the ISP think will blow over, as the BBC are working with Virgin Media (the U.K.'s cable T.V. provider and largest home ISP) to bring the iPlayer to cable TV. I'm sure the other ISPs will think again when their biggest competitor starts making a big deal about their unrestricted access to iPlayer content.
I think they should launch it not, and not let a few whiners ruin it for everyone else
But then if you spent you time and effort or money building a house that you rent out for instance, then you don't loose any right to charge rent after 50 years. Similarly a 50 year old railway or factory doesn't become public domain.
I also don't think you can really compare an old performance of an athlete to an old performance of a musician. Unless the athlete invented a running (or whatever), they're just doing what loads of people have done before, but a bit quicker. Whilst that may be true or some musicians, I think there's a lot more residual value in a 50 year old recording of an original song by the original artist than of a 50 year old recording of an athlete.
Don't get me wrong, I think the big music companies are complete bastards, and I especially don't think anyone should be able to charge 100% royalties for sampling or covering a song, but I don't think you can really legitimately imply a great musician should just get paid an hourly rate for the time it takes them to write a song.
Nintendo Master Plan?!?
"If we can hit that bullseye, the rest of those dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate"
Super Street Fighter II Turbo Street Fighter Alpha Capcom vs. Marvel Street Fighter III ...and, ...erm, one of the GTAs; the one I havn't played to death yet.
It seems the Telegraph may have got it' wires crossed.
Personally I would strongly recommend never reading the comments on Slashdot on non-computer topics you feel strongly about. You'll only get pissed off with the ill-informed arseholes "making light" of the situation. I stopped after seeing initial comments about the 2004 Asian Tsunami (which killed a quarter of a million people lets not forget) turn into a discussion about Arthur C. Clarke.
If anyone had made a working quantum computer, I'd seriously doubt they'd be in a rush to tell anyone.
Think of all the "secure" data they could harvest, and governments they could undermine.
My biggest, and infact only wish would be for it to not screw up relative getURL links from Macromedia Flash and Director based PC CD-ROMs, being as that's the only thing that the only thing that makes me reminiscent of the "good old days" when you could be pretty sure everyone was using IE.