what happened to linuxflashplugin?

[Chuck Robey]

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Jonathan McKeown wrote:
> On Tuesday 12 February 2008 21:50, Chuck Robey wrote:
>> Jonathan McKeown wrote:
> [snip]
>>> 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 don't think there's any need for gratuitous rudeness. I did stress that this 
> is a personal opinion. Just to reiterate: I **personally** have not found any 
> site that I /need/ to visit which /requires/ Flash to operate, and I suspect 
> that may well be because, under legislation such as the Americans with 
> Disabilities Act and similar laws in other countries, this would amount to 
> discrimination and is officially frowned upon.
> 
> I still maintain that your claim that ``half the entire Web'' requires Flash 
> is hugely overstated.

Well, anyone being on the Web 5 whole minutes in a browser that can't see
flash sites is perfectly well aware if I'm telling the truth or not, I'm
quite willing to let folks judge the truth of that one by themselves, they
don't need me or you to give them their reality.

> 
> Your comment about third world countries is one of the most narrow-minded, 
> ignorant and arrogant statements I've heard in many years of listening to 
> petty bigots - quite apart from the fact that you're extending what I stated 
> was a personal opinion to an entire country and continent based on your 
> personal prejudice. (Not that it's important, by the way, but I wasn't born 
> here: I chose to move to Africa from Europe, and I didn't like Flash much 
> before I got here. I still don't, and I have better - though more expensive - 
> bandwidth available to me here than I would in many rural parts of the US).
> 
> And finally: ``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''.
> 
> Stop press: since 90% of the world is using Microsoft operating systems and 
> just want their .exes to work, the FreeBSD project is closing down - it's all 
> been a huge mistake and we're just cavemen standing in the way of progress.

FreeBSD has nearly every feature that any M$ abortion has, and in nearly
every base, our implementations are better than theirs are, most especially
in terms of reliability, but in almost every other case.  I was saying that
a Huge proportion of the web sites out there make use of flash, it's the
next thing to ubiquitous, and the users here, by a large fraction, want to
be able to view the sites, not listen to reasons why we should wait until
the rest of the web improves to your standards.  Yes, things aren't
perfect, but users don'[t care, they want to see it anyhow.

Anybody who believes your shot at me, making it seem like I like M$, I
guess that's the "big lie" sort of thing, I won't defend it, it's too
ridiculous.  I don't run any M$ sw here, and never will, but I do like to
view the web, not sit and complain.  We are all very well aware that M$ has
been trying to hijack the HTML protocol ever since it was first put out
there, and trying to ignore things isn't the way to win, it's to be better
than they are, and that's something which FreeBSD has always been
spectacular at.  The right way has always been to make your tool work even
better than the folks who are trying to hijack, and NOT to fight their
incredibly powerful marketing department.

Maybe in 6-12 months, the Gnash project will make all this blow over, but
until then, it's still quite true.  Complaining that folks don't write
their web sites correctly is a fairly useless way to react, and writing the
web sites, go ahead and try it, it's a fine way to get yourself on even
more spam lists, but the people that actually write them are going to
ignore you, they have better fish to fry.  The right way to go here is to
adapt to reality, not to try to huff back into a hurricane.

I think I will leave your invective in.

> Clown.
> 
> Jonathan
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