what happened to linuxflashplugin?

Wed Feb 13 02:17:44 UTC 2008

On Wednesday 13 February 2008 00:27:53 Da Rock wrote:
> ----------------------------------------
>
> > Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:50:40 -0500
> > From: chuckr at chuckr.org
> > To: jonathan+freebsd-questions at hst.org.za
> > CC: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> > Subject: Re: what happened to linuxflashplugin?
> >
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> > Jonathan McKeown wrote:
> >> On Monday 11 February 2008 22:26, Chuck Robey wrote:
> >>> All you folks who are focussing on YouTube are (purposefully?  I don't
> >>> know) the fact that with just about half of the entire Web using flash
> >>> in one way or antoehr, not using Flash is a huge problem, as anyone who
> >>> browses without a flashplayer knows.
> >>
> >> Just to provide a counterpoint to this sweeping generalisation, I browse
> >> without a Flash player and it's never caused me any problem at all.
> >>
> >> There are a few sites which don't work without Flash. Having checked on
> >> a number of occasions, I've found (and I stress this is a personal
> >> opinion) that heavy use of Flash is a fairly reliable marker of a site I
> >> wouldn't be interested in whatever publishing techniques were used.
> >>
> >> It's rather like the old saying in the British advertising industry:
> >> only sing in an ad if you have nothing to say.
> >>
> >> How does Flash fit in with accessibility guidelines? In many countries,
> >> a commercial site which doesn't degrade gracefully when viewed with (eg)
> >> Lynx may fall foul of legislation protecting people with disabilities
> >> such as visual impairment.
> >
> > You know, there are some folks out there who are still using their old
> > M32 TTY's, and they can't understand why any folks would need mouses. 
> > Those of us who have successfully made the move to the 21st century can
> > tell them, but honestly, most of us are very tired of hearing the same
> > hoary old excuses why things aren't necessary.  The majority of folks
> > doing browsing today aren't impressed that maybe some 3rd world country
> > is unhappy with flash sites, they just want their flash sites to work,
> > and ours don't.  Why don't they?  Because everytime someone comes up with
> > a workable plan, all the real cave-men out there trot out there
> > war-stories, and bore us all to death with their memoirs, and endlessly
> > recursive arguments.  Everytime they get proven wrong on one item, they
> > just move the clock back a few months, grab the previous
> > self-justification, and start the argument all back up again.  You can't
> > out-last them.
> >
> > I personally tried to fix things, got soundly beaten to death over it
> > (and I WILL NOT try that one again, under pain of death, sorry!).  MY
> > flash works here and that's all I will worry about.  I can't predict when
> > things will finally improve, maybe when enough folks realize they don't
> > have to put up with this.
> >
> >> In short, I think ``half of the entire Web using Flash'' may be a bit of
> >> an overstatement even if you count Flash ad banners (which frankly I can
> >> do without), and the small number of Flash-only sites I encounter hasn't
> >> caused me temporary inconvenience, never mind ``a huge problem''.
> >>
> >> Jonathan
> >> _______________________________________________
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>
> That was a right pretty speech there, and I agree with the sentiments of
> moving forward with technology. However, I disagree that this is merely a
> case backward compatibility. Are you aware that the w3 consortium has web
> accessibility drafting committee?
>
> Consider also the facts that I have brought forward that Adobe has singled
> out OS's that are not allowed to run Flash Player.
>
> Consider also the fact that most designers simply use flash because they
> can't design properly and use other more accessible methods to achieve the
> same thing.
>
> I agree that a fix needs to be found, but this is not a "cave man"
> mentality, and we're not bringing up old war stories. The fact that this
> has not been all that successful given the larger number of sites now
> designed with flash player 9 which has been the number one problem here. If
> you have a fix I am sure we would all welcome the knowledge and use it- I
> certainly would. I merely point out (hopefully reaching some web designers
> and other flash fans) that flash is not the only way to go, and is
> certainly not preferable.

Let me be the one to point out the (next) controversial thing: here's a 
perfect example why using linux binaries for stuff like this is a dead end.

And don't even start about the PC-BSD folks who want to make flash9 work.... 
via WINE.

We need a native flash or a replacement for the animation side, and where 
flash is merely used as a video container, we have not option but to use 
youitube-dl, miro, and the like. But there too, some native solution is 
needed, otherwise it will continue to work like crap if at all.

Dan