On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 12:34 AM, James Salsman jsalsman@gmail.com wrote:
There is nothing in that, or in http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File_format_policy which suggests that we can't use Flash for microphone audio upload, is there?
Sure it does. "Full participation in projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation should not require the use of any proprietary software on the user's system." If microphone upload only works via proprietary software, it contradicts the draft proposal (although that was never actually adopted).
Are people aware of http://haxe.org/doc/intro and http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/ ? The bulk of Flash is no longer proprietary.
If the specific implementation can be demonstrated to work reliably with an open-source Flash implementation, that would be another story.
I know there are patent issues around some flash video formats, but at this point I have little confidence that any of the major browser authors will provide HTML microphone upload in the next five years. Is there any reason to believe otherwise?
Yes. Ian Hickson added a <device> element to the HTML5 draft within the last year, and one of its goals is to enable input from microphones/webcams/etc.:
http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/commands.html#de...
Almost all if not all major browser vendors have expressed interest in implementing it. In fact, after video and animation, microphone/webcam input is the most commonly cited use of Flash, and a leading goal of HTML5 is to replace Flash. I think it's extremely likely that at least one browser will implement some form of microphone input within the next five years. I think it's fairly likely to happen within the next two years.
Recall that <video> was first implemented in November 2007 by Opera. It's now supported by the newest version of every major browser, less than three years later. Browser implementers will implement things very quickly when they get around to it -- they just have bigger use-cases to handle right now than microphone input, like polishing up <video> so it's actually better than Flash. When that's done, audio/video input will likely come up on everyone's agendas and be solved within a couple of years.
(I don't think there would be consensus for dropping Wikimedia support for closed-source browsers, as a related matter.)
It's fine to support closed-source software, as long as open-source software is supported to the same degree. It is not fine to have some features of Wikipedia work properly only if you install proprietary software, unless there's really no other option. If we want direct microphone input, and the only way to do this right now is Flash, and it's impossible to get it working in Gnash, and it's not practical for Wikimedia to fund whatever work is needed to get Gnash to support the features properly -- then there'd maybe be a case for supporting only Flash here, until a free alternative is available. I doubt that all this is the case, though.