gnash was: Linus Torvalds interview on CNN

[Tom Watts]

Jamon Camisso wrote:
> Giles Orr wrote:
>> On 5/19/06, Jamon Camisso <jamon.camisso-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>>> Got to hand it to Linus for being rather humble throughout, 
>>> especially at
>>> the end.  [SNIP]  So many people in various development (distros,
>>> projects, etc.) could take a few lessons from Linus, perhaps step back
>>> and make their projects less about ego and more about their project.
>>
>> Linus has always been amazing that way - he has opinions, including
>> some very strongly held ones (he has publicly stated that certain
>> products are crap and he doesn't want to work with them), but it never
>> seems to be about _him_.  I've always had a huge respect for him
>> because of this.
> 
> Agreed. He somehow manages to keep out of the major flame wars and such, 
> as he says, facilitating communication more than anything else. Seems 
> like his approach is to work quietly and tirelessly so as to be able to 
> maintain his ability to do precisely that.
> 
>> Stallman on the other hand ...  It's not about him, but it's sure as
>> hell about HIS project.  I think using the phrase "GNU/Linux" is
>> counterproductive: no one is going to say it in daily use (too long
>> when you can just say one or the other) so it becomes nothing but a
>> political statement, a burden.  I also think it's true that GNU, as
>> good as their products are, really wouldn't be widely known without
>> Linux.  Everybody on this mailing list knows that gcc, ls, find, tar,
>> and a hundred other utilities we use daily are courtesy of GNU.
>> Saying "GNU/Linux" is an uphill battle to explain to newbies that
>> someone other than Torvalds built a major part of the infrastructure.
>> THEY DON'T CARE!  When they learn enough about Linux, they'll figure
>> it out.  They don't need (or want) to know until then.
> 
> I guess that's my question really: is it necessary to have an ideologue 
> now versus 1985? Of course maintaining and developing GNU is of the 
> utmost importance, but is it necessary to have Stallman constantly 
> badgering about his FSF? As you point out, we take GNU for granted. So 
> is it a matter of needing him to remind those who grow complacent or 
> unaware, or is such a role entirely redundant now that there are 
> hundreds of self-sustaining FLOSS communities? (I dislike that term as 
> well).
> 
>>> What are people's thoughts on open source vs. free software? Can such a
>>> distinction exist?
>>
>> I wanted to download Xen today.  The distinction is important to me
>> because Xen is "free," but apparently no longer entirely "open."  They
>> want an email address before they'll let me have it and that pisses me
>> off.  And yes, I want the right to modify it myself, even though I'll
>> hardly ever use it.  I also want the guarantee that later versions
>> will remain free (okay, the GPL doesn't totally guarantee that - but
>> if someone goes closed-source, someone else can fork from the previous
>> free codebase).  There are frequently hidden costs to
>> free-but-not-open software, the least of which is advertising spam in
>> your inbox.  You often have to click on a EULA for that free software
>> that states that the software company and/or the BSA has the right to
>> inventory your computer any time they want.  Don't snort and say
>> "they'd never do that!"  They pay lawyers thousands of dollars to
>> write those things, and they don't put any of that stuff in casually.
>>
>> Am I sounding paranoid?  Think about what I said anyway - some of it
>> might be true.
> 
> I agree wholeheartedly.
> 
> On an almost entirely unrelated and more technical note, has anyone 
> tried using gnash on amd64 with Firefox? Looking forward to having an 
> open source flash player, I won't use Flash otherwise.
> 
> Jamon

This is the first I've heard of gnash and I really hate flash on Linux; 
it's outdated and it won't play sound if anything else is making noise. 
  So, I downloaded, compiled and install gnash.  It had the same 
problems (no sound at all) and sometimes didn't play movies in webpages 
at all.  Is this just the current state of the software or is anyone 
using this as a replacement for flash?

Tom Watts
wattst-dxuVLtCph9gsA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml