Joseph,
That's an excellent analysis, and I'm whole-heartedly behind the use of
open formats. Not that I mind using a proprietary viewer, as long as I
can get one, and it's free. :-) But I suppose if Macromedia went
under, _somebody_ would get the rights to Flash and Shockwave, as
ubiquitous as these formats are. The alternative would be a general
consumer uproar. :-) (Or at least I hope that most consumers still
have the backbone to make an uproar.)
Vaughn
On Wed, 2005-04-20 at 18:05, Joseph Sinclair wrote:
> Didn't mean to start a format war, I don't claim any given format is
> technically superior, only that there are great advantages to open
> formats and open software. As such, here is my response to your
> arguments:
>
> If you want to know what's wrong with closed formats, take a look at a
> .MSP image file (if you can find a system running Windows 2.1, the
> last that had a viewer), or try to watch an Autodesk movie (you'll
> have to find an old Windows 3.0 system, and try to find a licensed
> player, since the right-to-use of the "free" player went away over 10
> years ago). The fact is that another company CANNOT take the place of
> a defunct multimedia company, the defunct company still holds
> patents/copyrights, may not have ever published the format, and
> there's no way to obtain a license from a non-existent entity.
> Furthermore, the company may not go out of business, they may just
> decide they don't like the format anymore (like the MSP format). If
> the company that owns the format decides to de-support it, you're
> completely out of luck, since nobody else can write applications using
> that format. The other problem that arises is patents on the format,
> this happened to MP3 a few years ago when the company that developed
> the algorithms (and GAVE them to the MPEG-1 committee) asserted patent
> rights to all MP3 audio, and began charging licensing fees to
> developers of software that plays MP3. Any format owner could do the
> same, or even use their patent rights to force all competing players
> to stop playing "their" format. There's nothing that could stop them,
> and that's part of why media players on Linux often don't play some
> formats, Microsoft formats, in particular, are both patented, and
> owned by a company that's shown they are more than willing to use
> those patents to eliminate all players on non-Microsoft platforms (or
> better yet, eliminate the competing platform entirely).
>
> Closed multimedia formats are not available to free/open-source
> developers. We cannot pay for a patent license, cannot purchase the
> format documentation (if it's available), and choose not to make
> ourselves subject to the whims of another entity. This means that if
> a site is built using closed formats, chances are that there are not
> any F/OSS solutions available to support the site, so the site-builder
> is beholden to whichever proprietary company owns the format they
> choose. Choosing Flash means putting considerable control over your
> site's future in the hands of Macromedia, many people find that
> unsettling.
>
> We don't have a different format from each media creator because the
> market already declined that model, the companies tried that around
> 1992-93 and again in 1996-97, and it flopped completely. Sony, in
> particular, tries to create a new Sony-owned "standard" every few
> years (MemoryStick, BetaMax, SDRM, SVBS, Blu-Ray, etc...),
> fortunately, they generally fail, and in other cases, the other market
> giants eventually force the "standard" open, so they can compete on
> even ground. There's nothing wrong with having a wide variety of
> media players, that's called competition, and it's a good thing. The
> problem is if every player uses a different format, and that's when
> things get bad. Committing to open formats helps to prevent every
> player from having their own format, since once an open format is
> widespread, all competing formats tend to die out.
>
> I don't know what businesses you deal with, but most of the businesses
> I deal with are looking for global market expansion, and hearing that
> 30% of the world cannot view their "cool new site" has an impact; it
> may not make the final decision, but it does have an impact.
>
> If you want an alternative to Flash, it DOES exist, it's called SVG,
> it's a W3C standard, and it's completely open. The tools to work with
> SVG are rapidly approaching parity with Macromedia's development tool,
> and there are a number of processing pipelines available to SVG that
> Flash could never use (ever try to apply an XSL stylesheet to Flash,
> for country-specific translations, for instance). Sure, the F/OSS
> software to create SVG still needs work, but solutions do exist, and
> there are a couple of proprietary solutions that can create SVG
> equivalent to about 90% of the flash sites on the web.
>
> IE plays SVG out of the box too, you just have to download the Adobe
> SVG plugin (you have to download the Flash plugin on new systems too,
> because the one shipping with Windows is outdated, and most sites
> require the newer plugin, since content creators are *required* to
> continually "upgrade" to the latest Macromedia version or lose
> support). The support for viewing SVG on Linux/Mac,etc... is similar
> to the support for playing Flash, so the current state of SVG support
> is equivalent to the current state of Flash support. The near-term
> prospects for SVG support on various platforms is very good, since the
> code being worked on for Firefox 1.1 will work everywhere Firefox
> works.
>
> People pick WMV because they think it's free-as-in-beer, since it
> comes with their 2003 license (although there are a bunch of recurring
> charges they don't find out about until later). In my experience,
> "savvy" owners ask a technology expert, and a lot of us are
> recommending OGG with Vorbis and Theora, since those formats cannot be
> taken away from you, de-supported, or abandoned, and the creator has
> complete control over usage, including the *option* to apply use
> restrictions, if they want, not because the format owner requires it
> of them. The majority of sites that do not use the open streaming
> media formats do so because they're run by corporate types who don't
> care about the media format, they just want everything on their
> systems to come from a single vendor (hence the increasing rate of
> adoption for Microsoft formats). Most of the Flash sites, however,
> are created by small web-design firms, and those of us in the
> technology industry have the ability to influence those firms.
>
> By the way, Flash is NOT an alternative to Quicktime, WMV, or Real.
> Flash files are vector images drawn (as by a cartoonist) using a
> Macromedia tool. When you see "real" movies in a Flash site, it's the
> Flash player calling-out to the Windows Media Player DLL's (Quicktime
> libraries on Mac) to play an embedded WMV, MPEG, or AVI file. The
> open option for streaming media is OGG, Vorbis, and Theora. The open
> option for rich-multimedia websites is SVG. Note also, OGG (which is
> a container, not a codec), Vorbis, and Theora are supported in most
> media players in Windows, Mac, and Linux, so site creators lose
> nothing by using them, and gain quite a bit in terms of the freedom to
> run their site according to their own preferences. There are other
> open codecs available for streaming media, and many sites actually do
> use these, but the only ones, AFAIK, guaranteed to be free of patent
> are Vorbis and Theora.
>
> ==Joseph++
>
> P.S. There aren't any free (beer or speech) tools for Flash work,
> Macromedia won't license that, but there are free(beer and speech)
> tools for SVG, they just need a bit more work to meet the full set of
> market requirements, and in the meantime, the proprietary tools for
> SVG work are a LOT cheaper than Macromedia's Flash tools.
>
> Don Calfa wrote:
> > What's wrong with a closed format for multimedia? If the company
> > goes out of business, someone else will take it's place. At least
> > we have a few de-facto players and not a player from each multimedia
> > house. Imagine what a mess that would be! A WB player, a Paramount
> > player, a Dreamworks player, a Sony Player, a Fox player, Lions Gate
> > player, etc...
> >
> > People want 'pretty' sites and flash accomplishes that. Deveopers
> > like flash because it's write once, and placement is exact on all
> > platforms. People with money pay for 'pretty' sites because people
> > like pretty sites and that's over 80% of the web population. There
> > is no solution available for a devopler to write a pretty multimedia
> > site in an open format because none exist. I wish it did. So for
> > now, we're stuck for wishing for proprietary players for Linux.
> >
> > As harsh as this sounds, business owners who want a multimedia site
> > really don't care about the 30% global population they're missing.
> > They see a computer purchase as an appliance so everybody must have
> > a computer just like them because Fry's has 2 aisles of the same
> > type of computer, Best Buy has 3 aisles, Circuit City has a corner
> > of the store dedicated to 'computer' purchases, Dell has a ton of
> > commercials so there must be something there. IE is just a web
> > browser (to them, not a doorway for exploits as it is to us) and it
> > plays flash out of the box so if they pay for a site to be
> > developed, it really only has to work on their system and it work
> > for everyone else. It's up to the developer to convince the owner
> > of better formats.
> >
> > Your next savvy owner who wants streaming media will be aware of
> > Quicktime, Real, and WMV. The owner with the Home Theatre system
> > will most likely go with quality and choose Quicktime over WMV.
> > Really from waht I've seen, the only reason people pick WMV is that
> > the server admin is a MS fan and think's it's cool or the owner is
> > hoodwinked by the MS propganda. What pray tell is the alternative
> > to any of those players? Flash.
> >
> > There isn't a developer tool that is free (beer or speech) that can
> > handle the demand for today's multimedia needs.
> >
> >
> > Joseph Sinclair wrote:
> >
> > > ARGHHH!
> > >
> > > Sorry, had to do that ;).
> > >
> > > Flash is a binary, proprietary, closed (mostly), non-free format
> > > with
> > > the only player that generally works being non-free software.
> > > About
> > > half the Linux world cannot (easily) install Flash (including me).
> > > There are no guarantees that Flash players will be easily
> > > available in
> > > the future. Flash is not accessible to persons with disabilities
> > > (the
> > > open alternative, SVG, is). Flash is susceptible to several very
> > > nasty
> > > exploits, and there's no effective way to filter those out without
> > > removing all Flash (SVG is readable by scanners, so exploits could
> > > be
> > > filtered without eliminating all content, and the code is
> > > viewable, so
> > > it's hard to hide what's being done). If you want "pretty" and
> > > interactive sites, you'll have to deal with Flash for now, but let
> > > the
> > > site owners know that you would much prefer SVG content, and cheer
> > > on
> > > the Mozilla developers working to bring SVG to Firefox 1.1.
> > >
> > > I agree that Quicktime, Real, and WMV formats are problems. But
> > > the
> > > better solution is to demand open formats (like OGG containers and
> > > Vorbis sound with Theora video), not ask for a different
> > > proprietary format.
> > >
> > > The flash file extension is .SWF for "ShockWave Flash", Flash was
> > > originally a faster, lighter, simpler ShockWave format that ended
> > > up
> > > replacing it's "parent" (as Don states below).
> > >
> > > There are several other options for multimedia on Linux besides
> > > MPlayer,
> > > they just don't handle proprietary formats. Again, the better
> > > solution
> > > is to let the website operators know that they are alienating just
> > > over
> > > 30% of the global population by using these formats, and they
> > > should
> > > look into open formats as a means to grow their base market.
> > > Pointing
> > > out that the open formats work better on the new Firefox browser
> > > they
> > > keep hearing about won't hurt either.
> > >
> > > Just my little rant about multimedia on the net.
> > >
> > > ==Joseph++
> > >
> > > Don Calfa wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > > Flash is authored with Macromedia Flash
> > > > Shockwave is authored with Macromedia Director.
> > > > Director and Authorware is authored with Macromedia Director and
> > > > Authorware.
> > > >
> > > > Director hasn't had a new player in about 4-5 years.
> > > > Most of what makes Shockwave different from Flash has been
> > > > incorporated into the more recent Flash releases since the flash
> > > > player is so light weight.
> > > > Flash 7 is more like Shockwave than Flash 5.
> > > >
> > > > The older shockwave files aren't backwards compatible with the
> > > > newer
> > > > flash players unless the original content provider does an
> > > > upgrade
> > > > which is highly unlikely
> > > >
> > > > I wish:
> > > >
> > > > Apple would release a 'certified' Quicktime player/plugin for
> > > > Linux
> > > > Flash become the de-facto standard for streaming media.
> > > >
> > > > Although _we_ can get mplayer to work, all it is is really a
> > > > hack and
> > > > it'll never make it mainstream because of licensing.
> > > > Flash and Real are the only alternatives for mainstream
> > > > multimedia for
> > > > Linux at the moment and Flash is pretty consistent.
> > > >
> > > > Glitch wrote:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > Well just for my two cents when I click on the file using
> > > > > Firefox 1.0
> > > > > under win2k it says that it is a shockwave flash Object and
> > > > > wants to
> > > > > use a shockwave player to access it... But I don't know if
> > > > > that makes
> > > > > it a shockwave file or not.
> > > > >
> > > > > On 4/19/05, Bryan.ONeal@asu.edu <Bryan.ONeal@asu.edu> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > > Well, at least I was not the only one who was thinking
> > > > > > shockwave
> > > > > > when I saw
> > > > > > .swf Though it makes me wounder more why the did not work
> > > > > > on my
> > > > > > FC2 box but
> > > > > > some flash sites did...
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Sigh, it is times like this I am glad to say, what do I know
> > > > > > I'm
> > > > > > just an
> > > > > > accountant ;)
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
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