[Foundation-l] We should permit Flash video playback

[Daniel Arnold]

Hi,

At first thanks for your work, but please don't forget, that we produce free 
content embedded in (patent) free standards using free software.

> The Internet Archive currently does not transcode to Ogg Theora, but
> has a transcoding pipeline in place for other codecs. They have
> recently started embedding the Flash-based open source "Flow Player"
> for playing back FLV files directly in the browser, and have added FLV
> to their transcoding pipeline.

And these other codecs are what? They are proprietary. Even if Gnash and 
friends are covering 100% of Flash you can't use 100% Flash cause of the 
proprietary file formats. I simply do not want us to degrade 
Ogg-Vorbis/Theora, just because other people aren't willing use Free 
Software.

It really goes on my nerves that I have to install for example mpeglib, 
libdvdcss and friends additionally by hand just because of stupid software 
patents and DCMA, while Ogg works out of the box.

Ogg is the only media format that allows for perfect usability out of the box.

> The Archive is happy to support us with video hosting in any way. If
> we can find a useful hosting arrangement with them, they would also be
> willing to add Ogg Theora to their transcoding pipeline.

These are nice news but I simply don't want us to open the can of worms with 
mp3, mpgeg, wmf and whatnot.

This will exactly happen if you do that (Fair Use was already a big failure 
and the fact that you don't regard allowing Fair Use in en.wikipedia and 
en.wikinews as a big failure in principle, is probably the reason for 
thinking that flash video is acceptable).

So yes I think this would be very very much welcome if they provide content in 
Ogg-Vorbis/Theora. Either they are our proud free content and free technology 
provider or not.

Cheers, Arnomane
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