The Return of GPLFlash

ValourX writes "Remember GPLFlash, the free software project that was supposed to replace the proprietary Macromedia Flash plugin? Well it's back in active development according to this NewsForge article. GPLFlash is half of the proprietary duo that the Free Software Foundation is rallying to replace with free equivalents. The alpha release isn't far away, but the development team could use some programming help, if you're available."

Re:Elaborate

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, like, RTFA and stuff?

"So when can we expect a usable release of GPLFlash2? "To make an alpha release," Choquet said, "we need to improve the following things:

* Improve external resources support, so the player may redirect to a location or use external data
* Implement keyboard inputs
* Fix button problems
* Have an ActionScript engine that works. ActionScript libraries may not be completed, but the engine should work.
* Make the plugin more robust, especially concerning fonts and memory allocation
* Fix the configure file and the makefile so everything will get installed properly on different GNU/Linux distros"

A usable Flash player should be available soon. "Given the amount of work, I don't expect any kind of preliminary release before the end of June or July. If we don't do that before we make an alpha release, people will be disappointed as they will not see any benefits compared to GPLFlash."

Groth added that more development help will produce a complete, free Flash player and plugin in a shorter amount of time. Interested developers can contact Groth and Choquet through the GPLFlash mailing list."

Cool

[ortcutt]

Linux on PPC users don't expect a flash player from Macromedia anytime soon, so continued GPLflash development is good for us.

Re:Elaborate

[Wm_K]

http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/open/lice nsing/fileformat/license2.html [macromedia.com] You are indeed right...the license states

Pursuant to the terms and conditions of this License, you are granted a nonexclusive license to use the Specification for the sole purposes of developing Products that output SWF

Developing a SWF player would probably mean breaking the license agreement. I don't think it means breaking the DMCA.

Re:GPL Flash...

[darkgumby]

http://openlaszlo.org/ [openlaszlo.org]

Elaborate-MonoForm

[Anonymous Coward]

"So if your uname says AMD64, PPC, SPARC, Alpha, or MIPS, the smug reply from Macromedia is "sorry 'bout your bad luck! Use Windows, buy an x86 machine!""

Sun Solaris (Sparc) [macromedia.com]

SGI IRIX [macromedia.com]

HP-UX [hp.com]

Pocket PC (color devices supported only) [macromedia.com]

Re:Elaborate

[True Grit]

You have to have all or nothing. I.e. you cannot have 32 bit code with 64 bit code. That is an Intel problem not a 64 bit problem.

Actually this isn't true. The X86 64bit CPU's have no problem running 32bit software while in 64bit mode, and the Linux kernel doesn't have a problem with this either, if you compile the kernel for 32bit support. You can easily run any 32bit software in 64bit mode right now, if the software is statically linked and thus has no need for run-time linkage. That is true because the problem is with the rest of the system, particularly the system linker that doesn't support the idea of multiple libraries (same version and name, just different bitness). So this problem is really with the system software (Linux/GNU), not the hardware. In time (not soon alas) this will be fixed with a new standard for Linux's file-system layout and system linker behavior (Debian has a proposal which would implement this called "bi-arch" - since it really is kind of like using 2 architectures at the same time).