[Foundation-l] The problem with Flash

[Ben McIlwain]

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Brion Vibber wrote:

> In many cases that'll cover the same ground as non-free formats; the
> main exceptions are for patent-encumbered standards (eg, the MPEG family
> - MP3, AAC, H.264, etc) and widely-deployed proprietary formats that
> have been reverse-engineered by FOSS developers (eg, Flash).

On the subject of Flash, I think it might help to relate my experiences
so that everyone on this list knows how deficient it is on free software
platforms.  (This isn't directed to you Brion, as that'd just be
preaching to the choir :-P )

I run GNU/Linux on my laptop.  Pretty much everything works and I'm able
to do everything I do in Windows, except Flash.  First of all, the free
software Flash alternatives simply aren't there yet.  They aren't good
enough for everyday use.  And even if they were, they still wouldn't be
free, because they're infringing on various patents that Adobe no doubt
holds.  And the free software stuff isn't good enough to create Flash
either, so you still need to pay the tax in the form of the creator
program (which as far as I know doesn't run on GNU/Linux).  You can see
why this is unacceptable.

Even the official Adobe Flash player plugin for Mozilla Firefox on
GNU/Linux is deficient.  It's treated like a third-rate product by
Adobe, sometimes seeing major version updates many months after the
Windows plugin is released.  In the mean time, new Flash content that
depends on the new features simply won't work.  And the plugin itself is
just bad.  It frequently crashes Firefox, some of its functionality
plain old doesn't work, etc.  And nevermind that it's not free in any
sense of the word except gratis; it's all binary, the source isn't
available, so it's all entirely anti-libre.

- From where I stand, Flash isn't even an option to be considered in
fulfilling the Foundation's mission statement of "developing educational
content under a free license or in the public domain".  It won't even
run on a completely free system, and it will only run poorly on a
partially free system (giving in and installing their binary-only
plugin).  It is, simply, not what we are looking for.
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