[Foundation-l] We should permit Flash video playback

[Tim Starling]

Stephen Bain wrote:
> On 7/20/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>> On 7/20/07, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> I'm 100% in support of "pushing unencumbered formats", but not at the
>>>> expense of usability for the majority of users.
>>> Then I really have to ask, what are you doing on the board of one of
>>> the largest free content organisations around? Your goal should be to
>>> do everything possible to make free content usable for the majority of
>>> users.
>> That's exactly the point.
> 
> I'm presuming you have replied like this because you are still
> distinguishing content from file format.
> 
> But does one really have the freedom to use a work, to make and
> redistribute copies, to make changes and improvements, and to
> distribute derivative works, if that work is delivered in a
> proprietary file format?
> 
> No, free licences do not go as far as requiring distribution of
> content licensed under them in free formats. But the GFDL requires
> transparent copies to be available when opaque copies are distributed
> for a reason: to ensure that consumers of free content really do have
> those freedoms.
> 
> If we are looking at adding extra video functionality, in order to
> increase the usability of libre video, it ought to be by way of making
> free file formats more usable.

I don't understand this argument at all.

Nobody is suggesting delivering content exclusively in a patent-encumbered
format. The proposal is to deliver content in either Ogg Theora or FLV as
the client requires. Converting a video into a non-free format does not
make the video non-free. The transparent copy will still be available --
the Ogg Theora source file.

We support Internet Explorer for browsing our website -- we have
IE70Fixes.css, for instance. Are you saying that to be truly free, we
should delete this file and deny access for anyone using Internet Explorer?

Or to make another analogy, why didn't anyone complain about non-free
software when we made the text of Wikipedia available for download in
TomeRaider format? Was that a mistake? Now that I have drawn attention to
it, should we delete it from our servers and then burn the hard drives
that held it in a purification ritual?

We are supporting free software by fully supporting a complete free
software stack in the client, and by using free software in the server. It
would not help our mission to support free software in this third way --
by boycotting non-free client systems.

-- Tim Starling