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Linux Software

Plugin Availability For Non-x86 Browsers? 109

Posted by Cliff from the the-web-is-not-only-wintel-and-mac dept.
Foredecker writes: "Many, many Internet appliances are being built with non-x86 processors such as Mips, ARM and PowerPC. Supposedly, one of the barriers to using such processors in Internet appliances is the notion that x86 has, by far, the advantage that many popular browser plug-ins are only available for x86. If they are available for non-x86 systems, then they are either available late (x86 first) or their are inferior to their x86 brethren. Is this a problem? Is it true? If it is true, is this going to make it harder for non-x86 based Internet appliances to win acceptance in the market?" Earlier this year, we talked about how the Web is now flooded with non-HTML content. Now I don't mind enhancing one's Web experience, but it would be nice if the folks who make these plug-ins realize that the Web is not only for those folks running Wintel or Macintosh systems. When will plug-in makers realize that there is a larger market out there who may also be interested in their product?
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Plugin Availability for Non-x86 Browsers? More

Plugin Availability for Non-x86 Browsers?

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  • Eventually, cheap, pre-configured boxes that have a built-in screen or sit on top of the TV will become the established platform of choice for those who just want to surf the net. If you doubt this, take a look at all of those AOL users who went for the easy, underpowered solution. Once a good piece of cheap hardware becomes available, consumers will start buying, and plug-ins will really start to break.
  • Hiya, There's a company called Insignia Solutions plc(Nasdaq: INSGY) who do write an optimized embedded VM (and plug-in) for strange processor platforms. I believe a Linux/ARM port will be ready for release around Christmas. It will also do WinCE/MIPS, VXWorks, etc...
  • It's a nice solution, but web developers will have to wait a few years before they can really use it. How many people on slow modem connections are really going to download the latest several-megabyte version of a browser just to get SVG? Many are still using version 3 or lower of the top two browsers.

  • Nobody cares about non Windows/Apple (Score:4)

    by guran ( 98325 ) on Tuesday November 21, 2000 @04:56AM (#610195)
    Hey folks. This is not meant as a troll OK?

    Last time I checked some statistics, the various variants of Windows ran 95% of the browsers, Mac 4% and "Others" one single percent. Thats Linux, Solaris, BSD etc combined!

    This means that unless you are specifically targeting the slashdot crowd, you have no reason to care wether your pages work outside the Windows/Mac world.
    Most clueful webfolks stay away from the plugins anyway, since they add more maintenance cost to your site then they are worth. Nobody cares wether that single percent can view the site or not. If they can, its a bonus, if not: their problem.

  • Really?

    This reminds me of a Boston Globe review of the iBook where Simson Garfinkel (who is knowledgeable and not a zealot) loved its design but was extremely pessimistic about using MacOS. He noted that the stability has improved to the point that it's barely an issue for desktop users, but said he found himself locked out of all his favorite sites.

    What am I missing here? I haven't touched Windows in months. I do all my browsing on PPC, either using IE or Mozilla for MacOS, and Konqueror in LinuxPPC. I haven't even bothered to install any of the available plugins besides Flash and Shockwave. And the only site I have trouble with is mynetscape.com which blocks IE connections. Am I just reading ancient, lame sites? Or has it been so long since I've used Windows that I don't realize every site now has holographic VRML that I'm just not seeing? Could someone point me to a site that will show me what I'm missing?

  • 5% isn't a "tiny" market share. Neither is 1%.

    If your marketing department doesn't get this, replace "1%" with "one MIIIIIIIILLLION affluent Internet users with the combined purchasing power of fifty BIIIIIILLION dollars". Preferably within earshot of the CEO.
  • Businesses are not altruistic. That's not the nature of business. Businesses do things to make money. That's the goal of business. Software companies will only write code if it helps their bottom line in some way. If a plug-in vendor knows that the non-Wintel and non-Mac part of their customer base represents a prohibitively small percentage, it may not be worth the money for them to write other versions. But, if the market demands other versions (ie: a large percentage of users are using other non-Wintel or non-Mac devices), rest assured that the plug-in providers will come out with appropriate versions to support those customers.

  • At one time computer hardware was very expensive and computer software was free.

    On which planet? Hardware was expensive. Software was something that you wrote yourself (expensive if you place any value on your own time) or bought taylor made (even more expensive)
    Yes, there was *some* freeware. Not much. Not very good (by todays standards)

    Along came the IBM PC. *Not* an open standard. A proprietary standard, where the owner didn't go after the clones. We got software that was cheaper than the taylor made variety. Yes, MS made a huge amount of dollars on it. They still sold software that was *cheaper* than the alternative.
    In fact they sold it so cheap that there was no use competing with them unless you had a kickass product that could be sold to a few companies for a shitload of cash, or *gave* your stuff away.
    That was what drove all competitors out of the business. *Cheap* MS products. You may call them overpriced (and in some sense be correct) but they still sold for a price noone could match and make a profit.

    Along comes the web. MS screws up and almost misses the train. Netscape gets cocky and thinks that they can start selling their browser instead of giving it away. At the same time MS starts shipping IE with every Windows copy. IE starts out as an inferior (but free and preinstalled) alternative, but soon enough it is as good as NS. Netscape gives up and starts to give the browser away again. People *still* keep migrating to IE. People download IE, not NS.

    People may be sheep, but they graze in the MS fields because the grass is greener there.
    And MS don't want to slaugter them. They are content with their wool. Better profit in wool you see. Keeps the sheep happy.

    This is bad news for the sheep farming neighbors, but what can they do?

    If you want to fight the MS monopoly, grow greener grass.

  • I've been toying with this idea, and I might as well try it out here.

    The free software answer to this question is, distribute source (typically in C). This works pretty well for us; although it is easy to include assumptions about the target architecture into the code, a port or two usually shakes them out. The Java answer is, distribute Java bytecode. However, most acknowledge that this in not a panacea either, as dependencies on particular implementations frequently arise.

    Fundamentally, what is the difference between bytecode and C source code? Very little, except that most companies resist distributing the latter. Usually, this is jutstified as protecting company secrets.

    But bytecode can be decompiled, and source can be obfuscated, with some degrees of success. In fact, early Java compilers produced code that could be easily decompiled with great results. I imagine that compilers are better now (due to more complicated techniques), but Java bytecode still retains a lot of information. How well do decompilers work today? Is it plausible that you could get more information out of bytecode than obfuscated C?

    Imagine a GCC backend that, after parsing and machine-independent optimization, output C. Since this process is not substantially different from what a Java compiler does, I would expect both processes to result in similarly comprehensible output.

    If this were true, it would be possible to hide "secrets", while gaining the benefits of C code, eg wide availability of compilers, interoperability with most API's (like plug-in API's), and native code speed.

    Are there technical reasons this couldn't work? I know that at least one company has been accused of distributing obfuscated hardware drivers and passing them off as free software. Political issues aside, people seemed to think this effectively reduced the usefulness of the source. I believe this case was "remedied" in short time; but has any company successfully used this strategy to achieve portability without exposing "secrets"?
  • You have far too much time on your hands. :)

  • With more and more platforms having some sort of a web-browser, it is likely that a plugin is not available for the particular platform.

    An important 'feature' of a plugin is its security hazard. Running native on the client system may be nice for performance, but also means that it has full access to all resources AND to the internet. This means that we have to scrutinize the quality/honesty for every plugin installed. I'd rather have just one thing to worry about: the browser.

    And especially for embedded platforms (I'm working on an In-Flight Entertainment System) it is often not desirable or possible to run plugins. It's unlikely that third-party code will be executed, without some sort of _very_ rigorous verification.

    I don't quite understand it either. You _can_ do quite a bit with a Java applet, or even with JavaScript. I know the sound/image synchronization of Macromedia is nice, but look what it's used for: marketing.

    And I says: fsck marketing. The Web was designed to provide information on demand, not to watch advertisements (which is what most Flash content really is). It pisses me of when I have to sit through a frigging commercial before I get to see what I want.

    In my opinion it's better to extend the capabilities of the browser, if new features are desired. This way it will be a more standardized solution (read NOT proprietary) and it's possible for _everyone_ to implement it in their browser.

    Breace.

  • Most plugins are unnecessary gaudy crap glued onto the browser to create a market where none really exists. There are a handful of plugins which have "real" value. Depending on your point of view, it includes Flash, Shockwave, Real, and Acrobat. Most plugins aren't created to fill a need, they're created to make their authors money.

    When you're trying to sell gaudy crap to someone, being multiplatform, stable, or well designed is irrelevant. The important thing is that it looks shiny on the computer of your end sucker... erm... customer. Joe Clueless Webmaster doesn't really know what Linux is, if the shiny crap looks good on his Windows 98 / MacOS 9 box, it must be good. Jane Clueful Webmistress does worry about Linux, WebTV, the Dreamcast, and other alternative web browsers, but Jane also realizes that good web sites are actually harmed by gaudy plugins.

    Supporting another platform costs a great deal of money. You need developer time to support the new platform, an variety of hardware to test on and QA time to make sure it works well. It's a lot of money to try and sell product to a hostile audience.

    So quoth Cliff:

    When will plug-in makers realize that there is a larger market out there who may also be interested in their product?

    Simply put, if you're selling snake oil, don't worry about convincing the real doctors, just talk fast enough to fool the marks. There is no "larger market."

    For this same reason, open sourcing the plugin doesn't help. The open source and free software communities have no sympathy for unnecessary junk.

  • Unavailable browser plugins (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Something I've thought of doing (but I'd be quite happy if someone else beat me to it) is to produce a generic plugin, which when installed for an unsupported data format (e.g. quicktime) e-mails webmaster@site a polite complaint that you can't access this page properly because it requires a plugin which isn't available for the operating system/browser/machine architecture you use. Maybe it should send a copy to support@quicktime.com or whatever as well. If people get gently nagged every time one of us hits one of these useless pages, they'll rapidly become aware of the problem!
  • I have/had a PDF plugin installed and never used it. I went and got the latest Shockwave plugin _just_ to watch all the Camp Chaos "Napster BAAAD!" movies (baaaad! nasty! but funny!) and then promptly yanked it. Had to relaunch netscape several times just to get through all the movies, too.

    The same process that caused you to drop Lynx for Netscape caused me to drop Cyberdog for Netscape, some years ago- several sites I commonly use (most notably Spamcop but to a lesser extent Thresh's Firing Squad)) make sensible use of Javascript.

    It seems as if Javascript is of most utility on the Web, Java turns up occasionally in fancy banner ads, and Shockwave sites seem to focus so heavily on it that (like Camp Chaos) there's absolutely no point in going there unless you're setting out specifically to watch Shockwave movies and things- ideally Macromedia should accept this and continue to make heavier emphasis on standalone viewers, and sites should assume that some people will be content to download .swf and view it separately rather than assuming everyone wants to view it in a browser. Camp Chaos, I think, is a good example of what really happens in practice- loads of people have viewed Napster Bad etc. but that is not a navigation system, or webcandy- it's essentially a scripted cartoon, obviously standalone content. The standalone aspect is much more interesting than the 'interactive' aspects of the special edition, and in general the cartoons in the format are creative and entertaining (and very low bandwidth) and the games are just stupid :)

  • flash + toaster (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    you mean i won't be able to view flash animations on my toaster???? oh no!!!!!
  • Exactly. I use Netscape 6.0 for most of my browsing and the worst problems I encounter are visual quirks and problems with sniffers. These should disappear with time. Usually though it makes absolutely no difference what browser you're using.
  • I've been using personal computers for eighteen years, and believe your story of this history of computing is wrong. The IBM PC was designed to be an open system. IBM used off the shelf components, which was a very was a very non-IBM sort of thing to do. The only thing they were secretive about was the machines BIOS, a concept that had been used by Kildall's CP/M. To quote Fire in the Valley, "Because Estridge (of IBM) owned an Apple II, he had leaned toward an open architecture at the outset. With Gate's encouragement, IBM defied its tradition of secret design specifications and turned its first personal computer into an open system." IBM did in fact go after the first clone maker, Compaq, for reverse engineering the IBM PC's BIOS. They lost because Compaq had done their homework and had come up with a cleanroom copy of the BIOS. The only reason MS became the giant it is today is the fact that IBM was selling PC-DOS for $49 a copy and CP/M for $249 a copy. That and a STUPID mistake by IBM, letting MS license DOS to people other than IBM. Microsoft's software wasn't any cheaper than anyone one elses. Some of their products were cheaper, and some were more expensive. Most were inferior products. Please tell me what gave you this idea.

    I've used Netscape (pronounced Mozilla) since the initial release, and I don't EVER remember them charging people for personal use. They charged companies, but not the "downloading public". The reason people moved away from NS is the fact that IE surpassed it in technical merit.

    If you'd like to know the true history of the Personal Computer, rather than relying on information you heard from a friend, or a friend of a friend, pick up a copy of Fire in the Valley

    You state that Microsoft's grass is greener. Microsoft didn't grow greener grass; they torched all of the other sheep rancher's fields.

  • The flash spec is open. Use your open source magic, and make it happen on the platform you want. http://www.openswf.org The point of open source is being able to do stuff yourself, right?
  • When I described the IBM PC as non open I was thinking about the BIOS. I know they did go after Compaq, who had an excellent defence, but my guess is that they would have kept trying if they hadn't been struck by a cluestick called "increased profit".

    We all know Microsoft struck pure gold with DOS.
    All their successful software follows a distinct pattern. First sell it at a loss or bundle it with another product so you get a lot of users. Then sell it at a price no commercial software shop can match without the MS user base. Monopolic? You bet! The catch is that every *single* user gains from using MS software, while users as a *collective* would benefit from choise.

    As for Netscape, I must admit that I worked for a compny that provded me with payed-for Netscape at that time. I do recall that the free version lacked some features, but alas I never compared them.

    Fire in the Valley is definitely on my reading list.

    It really doesn't matter to a sheep if Microsoft has greener grass because they grow it well or because they torch their neighbors fields.
    What *does* matter to the sheep is that the other sheep are in the MS field. Sheep like company. Wolves like lonely sheep.

    Luckily we are not all sheep.

  • AmigaDE is a completely different beast. With AmigaDE Amiga does all the hard work for you, they build a bunch of libraries and a runtime interpreter for different architectures under a single API. You then write apps for DE which get compiled to a P-code sort of state, they will not run without the Amiga runtime. You can load up the runtime from any OS and then run your Amiga apps natively on Linux or Win32 or MIPS-64 or PPC or any other microprocessor.
  • OK, that is the situation now. But have you noticed the number of 'web appliances', games consoles and other non-PC type browsing platforms springing up? These buggers have all kinds of processors, all kinds of OS and all kinds of browsers on 'em.

    Now, it is true that maybe this whole market segment will flop mightily. But if these consumer devices catch on - and you want to bet that Joe 'flashing 12:00' Punter will prefer to buy and configure Windows? - then we may have seen the high water mark of Windows.

    As it happens, I work for Insignia [insignia.com] porting our JVM to these boxes. Maybe someone is doing the same for Flash. How many plugins do you think the manufacturers are going to deem it necessary to support before launching?

    So, with a bit of luck, web site designers will be dragged back to the open standards. Cross your fingers...
  • There is truth in this, but the employer has a narrow view of what a web experience is. I've been to some dreadful sites with lovely flash animations/interactions that looked very "flash" and expensive but did not add anything to the site ot make it stand out from the rest... Using standards "should" (I know browser manus have much to answer for) add value because more people can view it using different platforms/devices. To me a great site provides info I need using my workstation and a subset of that info on my mobile phone.


  • When will plug-in writers realize that eventually the rest of the industry will be going to 64 bits and the best way to shake out their crappy code so that it will run properly on a wide variety of platforms is to port it to another architecture, such as Alpha or SPARC III, and try to see where the weaknesses in their code are?

    Never.

    wow! a whole new market for their product!!

    The type of mentality that we're dealign with here, isn't interested in finding new markets. New markets are unsafe and unpredictable. Better to prey on the herd, following it and thereby becoming part of it.


    ---
  • It makes (business) sense to release plug-ins, or any software for that matter, on system platform(s) which taylor to a majority of your user base.

    As an example: Why did Id Software release a Linux version of Q3A after the Windows version had been out for quite some time? A majority of their targeted user base were Windows users.

    This behavior is common for all cross platform software which depends on a revenue stream.
    --
  • but you can rearrange the letters in "internet appliance" to spell "panic entire planet" - these things are obviously plots to create widespread civil unrest and must be stopped NOW!

  • Is there a standard API for Java browser plugins in 1.3? Is called a Pluglet?
  • When will plug-in makers realize that there is a larger market out there who may also be interested in their product?

    Just as soon as there is a larger market out there, I'll bet.

    Oh, sorry, was that supposed to be thought-provoking commentary?
    --

  • Sorry, but your analysis does not bear witness to observable fact.

    Many many companies Y have done X when it most certainly was *not* economically advantageous. Many went bankrupt, others recovered.

  • Hmm, yeah, if the latest Java VM is ported to that platform. This is not always the case. For instance, it seems that Java 1.1 will be the only version supported by EPOC [symbian.com].
  • It's not so much Linux/bsd that are the problem (OK, sometimes these are missing too), it's that other platforms. Such as all (or most) of the commercial Unices. Despite what the FUD says, there are still plenty of people using one of those on their desktop. E.g. I myself am on HP/UX when not at home.

    One wonders why companies such as Sun and HP don't go and talk to plugin providers such as Macromedia to talk them into porting their stuff. One almost gets the impression that Sun and Co. don't really believe they can hold on to their desktop share anyway. Sort of a self-fullfilling prophecy, if you ask me. How do these guys expect long time (power) users like me to convince management into not switching to NT if all that flashy stuff that PHBs like so much doesn't run on our good old Unix? (OK, OK, I actually want us to switch to Linux, but if I can't have that (yet)...)

    --

  • Not sure about the actual hardware, but the developer version (available free at the WebTV developer [webtv.com] site) just leaves stuff like Flash Movies empty or more specificaly, a gray box. Oh and a caviat, it doesn't like Pop-up windows or many of the other *features* of the web.
  • I've noticed that i can get a lot of those weird netscape plugins for IRIX on an old SGI O2 machine that i've been using as an X terminal/browser at work lately. I've got acrobat reader, shockwave, flash, and a few others. No quicktime though, but i hate quicktime anyhow. That whole phantom menace thing PISSED ME OFF! They basicly paid off (in hosting services, but that means $$$) lucasfilms to only release the phantom menace trailers in quicktime, and in the LATEST version which was an 11 meg download. THen you install it, and it's EVIL NAGWARE and on some systems wiht less common video cards, it then proceeds to eat your video drivers. Fucking nazis, i'll kick the stupid bastards in the brains if i ever get the chance. WHew... morning rant...
  • You mean that when i click on the "Non-flash version of this page" link i'm loosing out on my web experience???
  • I believe Glade made a plug-in that didn't even require a browser, and is therefore completely independent of the processor you are using. And it makes your room smell so nice and fresh.

  • I just went to mynetscape.com, and it works fine for me with ie..

  • I'm an linux/alpha person too, and allow me to point out to all those lintel people out there that Netscape has only been available on our platform for less than a year. My alpha's about three years old, so to browse I would have to make do with lynx, or send netscape to my X display from a lintel box. Even up to a few months ago the netscape (which Compaq ported for us) we had was extremely unstable and randomly crashed every 20 minutes or so (with java* disabled).

  • No, you're not missing out on much. If you're into web surfing for written information, you're never going to miss x86. Now, if you're looking for entertainment (however much entertainment can be shoved down even a DSL line is up to debate in another thread), you'll feel left out not using Windows.
  • I think Apple have really made a miscalculation with their refusal to port QuickTime to *nix. I do have a bias - Im a QTVR developer, but they must surely see the opportunity open to them here. It would be a major boost to their battle with WMP etc.
    I think that just looking at the market share of each platform is too simplistic . It must be considered that the people making the initial decisions on what format a particular project will use - the developers - are far more likely to be using *nix than the population as a whole, and will therefore prefer to choose a format that supports their platform.
    So, Jobs, fight the good fight and port to Linux and BSD (or even darwin :) and help give M$WMP's market share a kicking.
  • I just don't have the time or patience to test "oddball" platforms like WebTV, Lynx, Konquerer, etc.
    Why don't you just do it right the first time and use valid HTML?

    validator.w3.org [w3.org]

  • "No store owner would be satisfied if 5% of all customers were turned away at the door; likewise I'm sure no e-commerce website owner would be satisfied that 5% of visitors were being turned away."
    They'd be plenty satisfied if it cost more to allow those 5% then would be spent by those 5%. Otherwise, they're losing money. Why spend $10 to make $5?
  • Linux has had full ASF support for a few months now... x86 at least, possibly others.

    Go look up "Xtheater" or "libavifile" on freshmeat.

    -----

  • There's audio content that I listen to religiously that's only accessible using Windows Media Player.

    Slashdot carried a story a while back which said that Real Networks had licensed the Microsoft codec.

    I'd just like to have Windows Audio on Linux for Intel!

  • I've quickly learned the web basicly sucks if you're not using the latest version of IE on the latest version of Windows.

    Thankfully, you're doing your part in making the web a better place at your page [robsayers.com] by using valid transitional HTML 4 and CSS. Of course, it would be better if you used strict HTML and more contrasting colors (gray on black is pretty hard to read), but overall, okay on the accessibility.

  • In exchange for your left foot (payment up front) I will write you Quicktime and ASF for Linux.

  • Re:Nobody cares about non Windows/Apple (Score:3)

    by Explo ( 132216 ) on Tuesday November 21, 2000 @09:31AM (#610237)

    Last time I checked some statistics, the various variants of Windows ran 95% of the browsers, Mac 4% and "Others" one single percent. Thats Linux, Solaris, BSD etc combined!

    More current data, using TheCounter.com [thecounter.com] statistics give roughly the following percentages:

    • Win 98: 66.9%
    • Win 95: 15.0%
    • Win NT: 7.2%
    • Win 2000: 3.9%
    • Unknown: 3.7%
    • Mac: 2.1%
    • WebTV: 0.6%
    • Linux: 0.3%
    • Unix: 0.2%
    • Win3.11: 0.2%
    • OS/2: less than 0.1%
    • Amiga: less than 0.1%
    So your comments are still quite valid; Windows-based machines have about 93% of Web and the about 7% goes to others. Of course statistics like this can't be 100% accurate(Where's Windows ME for example?), but I guess this is resonably close anyway.

    Just for a test, I calculated the same stuff from last years data:

    • Windows 98: 55.5%
    • Windows 95: 30.7%
    • Windows NT: 8.5%
    • Macintosh: 2.1%
    • Unknown: 1.3%
    • WebTV: 0.7%
    • Windows 3.x: 0.6%
    • Misc. Unix: 0.5%
    • OS/2: less than 0.1%
    • Amiga: less than 0.1%
    Here the total for Windows comes to about 95%, so it seems that other operating systems have gained a bit during the last year.

    (I'm trying to avoid facing the less than interesting studying project that I should start, that's why I bothered to calculate all those fancy numbers ;)

  • Amen! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I think a auotnag default plugin is an exemplary idea!

    &gt to: DufusMcWebmaster@stupidplugin.com
    &gt from: joeboblinux@2600.org
    &gt Dear Dufus,
    &gt Your website requires that I download a plugin for my browser.
    &gt I run Netscape under Linux/*BSD/BeOs/QNX on a x86/PPC/ARM platform.
    &gt Could you please port your "flashy plugin" to that environment?
    &gt
    &gt TIA,
    &gt janeyBSD@flyingbuttmonkeys.com

  • I've seen far to many websites where java script or graphics were critical (forcing me to abandon lynx for netscape)

    The latest development version of lynx does support javascript. I'm compiling it now to see how well it works (I hope it doesn't support pop-up windows ;) It also supports images by opening them in an external program (xv is default IIRC), and I have used this for quite some time (not only the development version). There's more there than meets the eyes.

  • Why don't you just do it right the first time and use valid HTML?

    Nobody gets paid the big bucks for writing valid HTML. At least not unless it also happens to look exactly the way the employer wants it to look, on "both" browsers.

    A lot of the folks reading /. probably understand that the web is simply not designed for exact control (by the designer) over fonts, colors, images, etc. But the business world that pays (most of) or salaries does not understand this, and probably never will.

  • Probably... (Score:3)

    by GameGuy ( 203355 ) on Tuesday November 21, 2000 @04:14AM (#610241)
    because it's not a 'larger' market. The target market is the home consumer, which think Linux plays a piano.
  • Indeed. Here at home I have an x86 platform with Windows 95 running. I also have a linux machine on an x86 platform. Now plugins are available for both of these machines most of the time. However, when you have browsers running on these i-openers and what not, that run who knows what... the question really is.... what do you do when you want to view content? I don't personally own a WebTV, but perhaps someone here who has one could comment. What happens when you want to view content with WebTV that requires a plugin? Are you just left out? Or can you do it. This could seriously hurt web appliances, especially with the fast growth of the web, and plugin use.

  • ...for enhanced web content that would really be a success. What's more, we need an open implementation.
  • Hell. Non-x86 must be a giant problem. I have problems finding the darn plugins in need for Non Windows / mac platforms. Even if they are x86 based. I would give my left foot for Quicktime or ASF working nicely under Linux. What needs to be done is a standard plugin format which does not depend on Machine Code. *cough* bytecode *cough* cough* Java. Im just bitter

  • A quantitative determination of the answer for any question of the pattern ``when will x be done by y company'' is now possible after many centuries of theoretical thought regarding the flow of resources in human society. The answer is: exactly when doing X is economically advantageous to company Y. No sooner, but maybe later if the company is run by idiots...

    :-)

    On the topic of plugins, well, the appliance writers should either partner with plugin companies in order to port the plugins needed or write ones of their own if the file format is an open standard. This solves the ``now'' problem but it probably precludes any $29.95 devices any time soon...


    --

  • Java (Score:3)

    by selectspec ( 74651 ) on Tuesday November 21, 2000 @04:16AM (#610246)
    Java is the solution for internet appliances. Projects like Mozilla [mozilla.org] will bridge the platform gap, and special plugins and browser extensions could be written in java. Java's UI has come a long way with JDK 1.3.
  • "the web is now flooded with non-HTML content"

    This is a web designers choice, i.e. he/she may or may not use plugins. Most non x86 devices don't support newer web standards anyway, so it is still a must for some designers to create different versions of a web site no matter how undesriable. The fact that plugins are not supported is irrelevant as there are still bigger issues to be addressed....
  • Heh, having a blown motherboard and having to use my Dreamcast as my only means of net access for the past week, I've quickly learned the web basicly sucks if you're not using the latest version of IE on the latest version of Windows.
  • You should tell this to the people who develop web pages. It is their fault if they only program for _one_ "platform" "plugin" "browser" or whatever. There always should be an alternative view. I can see it often for flash pages...where you can choose the "non-flash" version. This should be the case for every non-html content. It is the fault of the developers.
  • Last time I checked, over 95% of people were using Windows or Mac to access the web.

    I'm not sure that the corps care about the tiny market share increase enough to have a site that doesn't look as nice.

    Sure, it's nice to have a 'flash/non-flash' option on the first screen, but that means doing two websites. How many corps want to pay for that?
    _____
  • This is exactly the kind of problem that Java was created to solve. Unfortunately, Java as we know it tends to be buggy as all hell, and runs with the speed and stability of a 3-legged cow.

    Lots of embedded devices run on things like ARM processors or other chips that aren't found on the desktop market at all, so we're not just talking about resource optimization. Since many embedded devices also use alternative operating systems, the APIs are different, so we're talking about more than just a recompile there.

    The only way to get around inconsistent APIs and processor calls that I can see having long-term portability is to standardize to the Java Virtual Machine. Just-in-time compilers and other sorts of wonderfulness are still in their infancy, and I've been told that Apple's Java VM runs bytecodes as fast as native compiled C code.

    I know the whole system is kinda bloated at the moment, but the write-once-run-anywhere method does fall into line with the "worse is better" mantra of Unix programming, which has been incredibly successful over the years. Unfortunately, we are still it the point where worse is still worse, and have yet to see the really good benefits that portability and standardization promise.

    I think Sun should be applauded for their vision. Let's face it, they've done wonders for the web, and Java is going to take it a lot further. Sure the tech is buggy at the moment, and they have been a little more reluctant to opening the standards than most here would like, but I think we should give credit where credit is due, and then kindly ask them if they'd turn their toy into a tool.
  • I do 90% of my web browsing using Netscape 4.76 on a Sun SPARC Solaris machine. Luckily, Flash has been available for this platform for some time, but I find enough problems out there with just pages coded for "Win32, MSIE5" or even just Netscape on Win32.

    The plugin argument has a lot of merit, but I think the problem that needs to be solved before anything else is simply that the browsers are not consistent (try Netscape or IE across different platforms) let alone the plugin availability.

    --

  • Okay, you can pay the developers to code for the 30-50 major os / browser / platform combinations.
  • Easier said than done.. just the differences between the same version of IE on the Mac and Windows are incredible. As a web developer I usually test the pages on Netscape on Windows and Mac and IE on Windows and Mac. IE is especially difficult because every version displays things differently.

    I just don't have the time or patience to test "oddball" platforms like WebTV, Lynx, Konquerer, etc.

  • True, but, most people using the older browsers aren't interested in the latest gee-whiz web enhancements anyway. The far greater problem is getting the browser developers to comply with standards. At least one browser developer(Do I really need to mention who) has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, i.e., Windows only solutions.

  • Leaving aside Java for the moment, I see plugins and applications for Sparc and Intel Linux that handle:

    1. All the ms file formats
    2. Adobe Portable Document Format
    3. Postscript
    4. Frame maker
    5. ULAW Audio
    6. MIDI Audio
    7. AIFF Audio
    8. RealAudio
    9. MPEG Video
    10. Soundtracker audio
    11. Microsoft wave files
    12. Commodore 64 audio
    13. PNG image
    14. Sun raster image
    15. TIFF image
    16. IFF animation
    17. DL animation
    18. FLI animation
    19. MPEG Animation
    20. AVI animation
    21. Quicktime animation
    22. SGI animation
    I haven't looked for flash, so I suspect it's the popular missing link this week(;-))

    I collected that list this summer, as part of the research to see if writing a book (with this as one chapter) was worthwhile. Then I got hit by lightening...

    Ok, folks, should I write a book on this? (I was the second author on O'Reilly's "Using Samba"). If so, send me mail!

    --dave

  • When will plug-in makers realize that there is a larger market out there who may also be interested in their product?

    The problem with this 'larger' market, is that it doesn't really exist. The number of people surfing the net and using linux/bsd on the desktop is miniscule, even compared to the Macintosh, let alone wintell.

    Java applets show some promise, but write-once, debug everywhere is still a problem.


    --

  • How to handle plug-ins and other non-html content (Score:3)

    by firewort ( 180062 ) on Tuesday November 21, 2000 @06:56AM (#610258)
    From a business standpoint, it's wonderful to have flashy content (and I don't mean only Macromedia's stuff)

    But it's also a bad thing to leave a large portion of users behind.

    Internet Appliances along with mobile phones and other devices now getting on the internet are lumped under the heading of *PERVASIVE DEVICES*, or pervasive computing.

    There are currently two options available to address these devices.

    Option one is to follow the model of Phone.Com. Sell the browser to the device companies and collect a license fee for each device sold. Then sell the access point for those devices a proxy software that converts html to code for their browser.

    Option two is to use IBM technology. WebSphere Transcoding Publisher (ok, I'm biased, I know people on this team) runs on an LDAP, proxy, or reverse-proxy model, and checks to see what device-type is accessing a page. If it has a device type profile for the device making the http request, it translates the code (transcodes) the html into code suitable for the device, along with altering the images to meet the device's needs.
    If a transcoder device type profile were written for the various internet appliances and other non-Wintel/Mac browsers then non-html content requiring plug-ins would no longer be an issue.

    Of course, this is kind of a dodge- No phone that I know of attempts to be a desktop computer browser (yet), and while we might expect that an internet appliance that hopes to be the desktop browser should play flash and shockwave content, it's not a desktop computer, and we shouldn't expect it to be one.

    Yes, I like my alternative opsys' browsers to be supported, but no one writes flash plugins for NetPositive, and my Netscape Communicator on OS/2 relies on flash plug-ins for win3.1.

    I don't think the fault for this situation lies with the makers of plug-ins, it lies with the page designers for not providing a stripped down version that doesn't require plug-ins, and with the internet appliance marketeers for inspiring false expectations.



    A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
  • That is the problem. Ask any x86 Linux user who couldn't view a particular page because of required plugins available only for Windows.
  • At one time computer hardware was very expensive and computer software was free. Along came the IBM PC, an open standard for personal computer hardware, and lo and behold, we have inexpensive computer hardware. Then we let one company have control of the software standards and now we have expensive software running on our inexpensive hardware. The same company is the only one making money selling software for this inexpensive hardware, everyone else having to be satisfied with the crumbs.
    Now, along comes the internet, based on open standards, running on free software. Lo and behold, innovation once again runs rampart, companies other then the "One" company are making money again. It is a wondrous thing to behold.
    The question is, are we going to let the "One" company once again have control of the standards? Should we care about being able to access the internet with something other than Windows?
    The answer is that of course we should care. Unfortunately, sheep only care about grazing, and are perfectly willing to graze where ever the grazing appears to be the best, not caring that they are only being fattened up for slaughter.
  • I, too, have noticed very few sites that don't work with either Linux or Mac OS. Most of the sites I can think of that don't or won't or might not work are those put out by television networks, who apparently assume that everything on the web should be as much like an interactive commercial as possible. Frankly, most of it is crap that does more to obscure any actual content than it makes the site enjoyable. A few well-placed jpeg's would have the same impact, and when properly coded won't impair me from using a text- browser when I want to ensure a low bandwidth experience.
  • That one is being put on my wall right next to the "Information Superhighway = A rough whimper of insanity" sign.
  • I think the poster is talking about home computers. I didn't pay for the OS on my ZX Spectrum, Amiga 500 or Amiga 1200. And the Amiga was doing 32-bit pre-emptive multitasking when Windows 2.0 was choking on more than one process.
    The Microsoft story is one of luck and good marketing, not superior software.

  • OTOH (Score:4)

    by Spud Zeppelin ( 13403 ) on Tuesday November 21, 2000 @07:12AM (#610264)

    As someone who used to be involved with producing a plugin for a particular alternate image file format, I can honestly say there are several issues associated with trying to produce and maintain plugins for multiple platforms -- not the least of which is maintainability and keeping them all current. Add to that the hardware costs of releasing a binary for linux-libc6-strongARM and every other os/hardware combination you can come up with, and you wind up with exactly the same cost-benefit analysis situation you do when producing any other proprietary software. We were among the best in terms of cross-platform support at our peak (fall '96), with:

    • Win 3.1
    • Win 95/NT
    • Mac 68k
    • Mac PPC
    • Sparc Solaris 2.4
    • Digital Unix 3.2
    all as supported platforms, but invariably there'd either be somebody grumbling about the fact that the "latest" version wasn't out for Solaris yet (hey, at least we had one), or "can you make one for Irix?" or whatever; the fact remains, most plugins are made by small companies who are doing the best they can with the resources they have to support the most people.

    Don't chime in about open-sourcing the codec either: compression codecs are exactly one of the r&d-intensive products for which retaining closed-source is the only viable revenue model that ESR talks about in "The Magic Cauldron." If the only thing you have of value is your algorithm, you really can't distribute source that everyone can implement.

    The point is, there is no good solution: if you are building a site that contains essential content, don't use non-standard technologies (I'd argue this includes Java applets). Conversely, if you're not using the same technology as 80% of the people out there, and I too am in that outer 20%, prepare to fall victim to the 80-20 rule when vendors of everything, including browser plugins, do cost-benefit analysis.

    MOO;IANAL.

  • As an example: Why did Id Software release a Linux version of Q3A after the Windows version had been out for quite some time? A majority of their targeted user base were Windows users.

    IIRC, the early test versions were actually released for Linux first.

    The full release for both OSs was actually released at the same time (Mac might've been out at the same time too, I don't recall). However, there were problems actually getting the Linux version because it comes in a fancy tin box and the availability of that box was not so good.

    Also, there were problems in that many of the retail outlets simply didn't stock the Linux version. As you said, "A majority of their targeted user base were Windows users". Id software, however, seems to be very interested in Linux.

  • WebTV uses SpyGlass, Device Mosaic. It doesn't support plugins, unless WebTV has modified DM heavily. I know this because I'm porting DM to an In-Flight entertainment system. We will not support plugins either.
  • I've yet to encounter one that was at all useful
    or that enhanced the browsing experience much at all
  • Here are Macromedia's [macromedia.com] stats on supported platforms. Which include Linux, Solaris, BeOS, IRIX, and Palm.

    Also Here is someone who is making it work on CE [conduits.com]

  • Problem: specialized plug-ins (Score:3)

    by edremy ( 36408 ) on Tuesday November 21, 2000 @07:18AM (#610269) Journal

    Pity those of us who want to create innovative content using a "specialized plug-in" such as Chime. (Chime allows 3d molecular display in a web page. Yes, there are Java applets that do this. When one of them can do 1/10th of what Chime can at better than 1/10th the speed I might look into it again.)

    Chime lets me write pages like these: Atomic orbitals [vt.edu] and Crystal unit cells [vt.edu] Very useful in my line of work (Chemical education) But as soon as I do this I lock out all "alternative OSs"

    Chime's actually more cross platform than most: Windows, Mac and an older IRIX version. It even is anti-MS: it runs like crap in MSIE on both Mac and Windows. (The Mozilla team fixed the compatibility problems when I sent the bug in.) But I can't do this stuff and make it truly cross-platform.

    This is a problem for me: in fact, it's one of the main reasons I don't use Linux on the desktop.

  • I don't know about 1. Number 8, Real has a Sparc and Intel Linux Realplayer available. Number 21, xanim plays quicktime files fine (as long as they are not Sorenson codec quicktimes). Plugger can be used to enable external programs to be used as plugins. I think there are other similar programs out there. Search on freshmeat.
  • Yes they have their uses. However, I think most people will agree, when you type in some web address you want to get a webpage, not some stupidass flash animation intro.
  • Just looking at the latest server logs from the site I manage explains the lack of plugins for alternate OS's. Out of 1.7 million requests, only around 3500 came from the various Unix variants. Even Slashdot has said that Windows browsers make up a majority of their traffic, and this is a Unix stronghold. It doesn't take a braindead marketroid to figure out the numbers here...
  • Why not focus on building the ability to transparently run X86 binaries or shared libraries on X86 platforms in the kernel? Sort of like how MacOS can transparently run most 68K stuff on the PPC.

    Sure, bochs, Plex86, etc. are solutions, but they aren't transparent, as you're basically running a X86 machine in a sandboxed environment.

    It's not the more ideal solution from a purist's standpoint, but this would greatly increase the value of Linux (or BSD, etc.) on X85 platforms as a whole.

  • on the website so people can download the player to see your 3D models
  • The new Scalable vector Graphics will help as it provides a way to develop interactive web pages, ala Flash, in a standard way. The real answer is for the W3C to define more such standards covering all the current extensions that now require plugins.

  • When will plug-in makers realize that there is a larger market out there who may also be interested in their product?

    Never.


    ---
  • You mean an open standard like Macromedia's Shockwave Flash [openswf.org] format, complete with an open implementation [geocities.com]. It's not a W3C standard, and hence sites shouldn't use it exclusively (there should always be a non-flash option), but the specs and a reference implementation are freely available. Ideally, the W3C would adopt it as an official standard, but it would need work on accessibility issues first (e.g., for those using text-only, or braille or voice browsers).

  • All the ones who don't want to piss off their customers who use Palms, WinCE devices, and the like. All the ones whose customers browse from work. All the ones who actually give a damn about selling products and services for money instead of creating a Flshoriffic wank fest.

  • *SMACKS HEAD* OUCH OUCH OUCH - How freaking stupid of me - THANK you for the correction! God I feel stupid - I meant, of course, Linux carries a blanket.
  • Sure, it's nice to have a 'flash/non-flash' option on the first screen, but that means doing two websites. How many corps want to pay for that?

    What a great idea. Perhaps someone could tell them that people visiting want nicely presented information, not text flying about the place and fading in and out.

    Make one website, with NO FLASH. Unless you're a Flash animator showing off your work, you don't need Flash, or Shockwave at all.
  • Netscape 4.71 on IRIX (so that includes all 64-bit MIPS processors and the 32-bit ones who think they're 64... anything from R4K on up) runs exactly like it does on a PC with Win or Linux. I can run flash, realaudio, and most other major plugin content.

    Yes, that also means that Netscape is bloated and crashes arbitrarily every 30 minutes or so, but you gotta take the lumps with the bad. :)

    If only MSIE were ported to every platform... sigh.

    -Chris
    ...More Powerful than Otto Preminger...
  • I have used Alpha-Linux for many years now and have constantly had problems getting software. It has gotten far worse lately as more and more binary only software is coming out for Linux. Not only are vendors who claim to support Linux only supporting Linux/i386 but an awfull lot of code out there is sloppily i386 or at least 32 bit specific.

    It is not a big deal to provide binaries for simple things like plug-ins for multiple platforms under Linux so I don't understand why the vendors don't. At the very least, if they don't intend to provide anything but Lintel software than they should not say they have Linux support but Linux/i386 support.

    I think unless a push is made to force vendors to support the major alternative Linux platforms (Alpha,Sparc,Mips,Arm,PowerPC) then there soon will be little to no support for them. Remember what happened with Mips and Alpha Windows NT!
  • This is one of Crusoe [crusoe.com]'s big selling points. The fact that it's X86-compatible (yet low power etc. for internet appliances) means that standard browser plugins work with it.

    Gerv

  • KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid (Score:3)

    by Midnight Thunder ( 17205 ) on Tuesday November 21, 2000 @06:06AM (#610288) Homepage Journal
    If I can't visit a site without having to load a plug-in or activating Javascript then I will tend to steer clear. I know of one site that requires you to install shockwave to view their site and you can't see the html because there isn't any, even worse the company's market is Unix based, predominently AIX and there isn't even a plug-in for that platform - this is a serious problem. Before adding plugins to a website the following question should be asked:
    - Can your audience run the plug-in?
    - Do they have the authority to install it?
    - Is their connection fast enough to download the plug-in?
    - Why should the user go through the hassle just to see your site?
    - Does your audience have the knowledge to install a plug-in?
    - Why can't you make do with standard HTML?
    - Is your connection really that fast? - go and try seeing your website from elsewhere

    Yep, I am anti-plug-in and with good reason, though I will allow for a movie player that plays either MPEG, AVI or Quicktime - partly because movies are a missing element in the standard web file formats.
  • Ok, so there are a few RISC OS machines on the market. A few. Tell me, how many of them are used for web browsing, particularly around the more leisure-oriented sites where non-html content is common? I would imagine it's a very small percentage of an already miniscule market.

  • Numbers (Score:2)

    by slim ( 1652 )
    I think when it comes to plugins (and, come to think of it, Quicktime) the designers are in love with what's possible, and the suits are unaware of the compatibility issues. Face it: a designer shows a net-illiterate suit two designs, one with Flash animation, and one without, and he'll choose the best looking one, even if it only really works on the designer's G3 (the suit doesn't know otherwise).

    Let's assume 5% of browsers can't handle (some) plugins...

    No store owner would be satisfied if 5% of all customers were turned away at the door; likewise I'm sure no e-commerce website owner would be satisfied that 5% of visitors were being turned away. I'm sure banner-advertisers would be disappointed to discover how many potential impressions they may be losing because a site is unviewable to a (growing, with the advent of set top boxes etc) proportion of the target audience.

    Make the guys with the purse-strings aware of this problem, and it'll go away. 5% more turnover is the kind of figure these people like to hear about.
    --
  • Make the plug-ins portable between platforms. Use Java for the Plug-Ins. That way they can be ported between platforms. Make the code in the browser to load the Plug-In as native code or Java code.

    So is this a good idea or not? Let me know.
  • Try "applet".

    Sun also makes a plugin that works with Netscape (under Linux & Windows) and IE (of course, only on windows). This provides a consistant VM across all platforms (except Mac--it's supposed to be coming w/ MacOS X)
  • Sure, it's nice to have a 'flash/non-flash' option on the first screen, but that means doing two websites. How many corps want to pay for that?

    It all depends on how you look at it. Until last year (by Macromedia's own statistics) 1 in 6 people were unable to view flash content in their default configuration. That's a lot of customers to be turning away, and it makes good business sense to cater for them as well. Nowadays, Flash is much more pervasive, and Macromedia claim that figure is now 1 in 27. Still a resonable number, but no longer quite as compelling a business case.

  • yeah, I can see it pretty easily really. The Java2D classes in JDK 1.2.x and 1.3 are nice. Think the GIMP and PostScript having a love child, with a dab of Illustrator. Since the .swf file format is an open one, you could write a Java-based parser class (ByteInputStream anyone?) and use it's output to feed a Java2D-based ``rendering engine''...

    That would actually be pretty sweet. If I were more of a Java God I might do it... :-)

    WRT doing it on an ARM or other embedded processor, why not? StrongARMs are, what, 200-odd MHz? That's faster than the machine I'm using to type this (p166), and this guy handles Flash and JDK 1.3 applets pretty well. Now what if that internet app is using a Crusoe, eh?

    This is not to say that your company's product doesn't sound nifty, it does...

    WRT to VRML, I think that standard is bloated enough already irregardless of the plugin playing it... ;-).


    --

  • What plug-ins? (Score:3)

    by bluGill ( 862 ) on Tuesday November 21, 2000 @04:47AM (#610300)

    I don't have any plug-ins installed on my system, and I've never had a problem - the only one I'd consider is one for PDF, as that is accually used. I've only seen a couple web sites that even have any other plug-in requested (shockwave or flash - or are thsoe the same?) and every one allows easy bypass. I might miss some fancy animation once in a while, but I've never found a web site where that was critical. I've seen far to many websites where java script or graphics were critical (forcing me to abandon lynx for netscape), something I mind when I'm after information that shouldn't require either, but don't mind when it is accually useful. Case in point: My bank requires javascript, but I once figgured out how to bypass that check and I couldn't find a thing that didn't work.

    When netscape asks if I want to download a plug-in I hit no. I don't trust random binaries on my system, I'm uncomfortable enough with pre-compiled netscape (someday I'll compile mozilla and solve this), and I compile everything else.

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