flash videos.

[Bernhard Reiter]

On Monday 28 August 2006 17:12, Uncle Koh wrote:
> > And I don't know whether it is only .swf that is closed non standard and
> > .flv is some standard video format, or both are propietary and flv
> > support by free software is reverse engineering or otherwise hard work
> > without much guarantee to be maintainable because of the aribtrarieness
> > of the format...
>
> I once asked RMS about this and he mentioned there is no danger to
> using the Flash format, the same thing goes for PDF. The specification
> of it is open. 

I think with modern PDF versions there is a danger that you cannot 
implementing them without hitting software patents in some parts of the 
world. Because this is a danger to all software (free and non-free)
it should remind us to fight software patents.

> What he laments is the lack of a good flash player and 
> he discourages use of the Flash format till the day we have one.

This is the same problem with some subsets of PDF, e.g. forms
are not nicely supported yet. Many public administrations use it
and implicitely and sometimes explicitely promote proprietary software
with buttons like: Get X player!
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