[Foundation-l] We should permit Flash video playback

[Peter Halasz]

On 7/21/07, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> 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
>

I'm reply to this message to agree with everything in it. Tim makes
many of the exact points I was about to start penning, but more
eloquently (including the IE example).

Allowing Proprietary Flash clients to display our Free OGG content is
a Good Thing, even if we have to transcode to flv to get it there.
Playback is not a zero sum game -- we can support different clients.
Let's not get pretend this is the same as supporting FLV as a native
file format -- it's not. It's only about playback.

Also, I'm shaky on details, but I believe gnash player supports having
video streams as ogg theora? It would make a lot of sense to support
Ogg "embedded" in Flash. However, the only reference I can find to ogg
theora on the gnash website is within source code. Hmm..

Peter Halasz
[[User:Pengo]]