Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2003 11:24:07 -0800 From: Johnson David <DavidJohnson@Siemens.com> To: Charlie Clark <charlie@begeistert.org> Cc: FreeBSD-Newbies <freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Web Browsers. Message-ID: <200304021124.07465.DavidJohnson@Siemens.com> In-Reply-To: <20030402205304.11296.2@wonderland.1049306324.fake> References: <20030402154658.11242.qmail@web20302.mail.yahoo.com> <200304021037.13970.DavidJohnson@Siemens.com> <20030402205304.11296.2@wonderland.1049306324.fake>
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On Wednesday 02 April 2003 10:53 am, Charlie Clark wrote: > so the Linux plug-in will run on BSD if Linux compatability is > enabled? How dependent is this on XFree86 and any window manager on > top of this: I guess the runtime is quite easy to encapsulate and the > rest should be calls to XFree86 / KDE, aren't they? You need Linux compatibility enabled. But because of the way plugins work, you need both the linux plugin AND a linux browser. But you don't need linux X or a linux window manager. > Hold your horses: Flash was developed at a time when there was no > alternative for that kind of content (AWT / Swing was and still is > IMHO a joke and also just as proprietary) and Flash has its uses just > like PDF from Adobe does. The difference between Flash and PDF is that PDF is a standard. I do not need any permission from Adobe to create PDF files. I can use Ghostscript instead. I can use Ghostview, KGhostview, xpdf, or a million other applications to view PDF files. But with Flash I am dependent upon Macromedia for both creation and access. I can create a PDF document with the complete knowledge that ALL current and future operating systems will be able to access it. I am not requesting that Macromedia make a FreeBSD plugin of flash. Instead I am requesting that they either make flash a standard by publishing complete specs, or stop pretending that it is a standard. > While it would be nice for Macromedia to > maintain a BSD-Flash player I can understand why they don't. On BeOS > a third party, the General Coffee Company developed and released > their own player so this should be possible on BSD. There is ongoing work to create an open source flash player. But without complete specs on the format, it is very difficult. I strongly suspect that General Coffee Company had to pay Macromedia some money in order to write their BeOS player. David
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