[OLPC-Philippines] getting mp3 sound working w/ Gnash easily

[James Shields]

I applaud Rob for his, and the rest of the team's, efforts.  My intent is
not to disparage what people are doing to benefit the community.

I just don't want to see us get involved in political messes over the wisdom
of software patents.  We could go round and round for years on that.  I hate
them, too.  I've hated them since the AT&T save the screen behind the newly
popped up window patent.

I'm just not willing to let children wait while we adults debate things.

James Shields


-----Original Message-----
From: olpc-philippines-bounces at lists.laptop.org
[mailto:olpc-philippines-bounces at lists.laptop.org]On Behalf Of Carlos
Nazareno
Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2008 8:01 PM
To: OLPC Philippines/Pilipinas grassroots
Subject: Re: [OLPC-Philippines] getting mp3 sound working w/ Gnash easily


On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 7:43 PM, James Shields <james at marasbaras.com> wrote:
> (I've snipped the huge To: list to restrict my reply to OLPC-PH)
>
> Isn't Adobe Flash free?  Is there something legal restricting us from
using
> and recommending it?

I don't think there's really anything preventing us from using and
recommending Flash (especially in the Philippines where we're less
encumbered by software patents -- I think in current Philippine law,
there's no legal restriction on algorithms, there's only software
copyrights, and copyrights are different from patents.), it's just
that the XO ships with Gnash pre-installed and that there's a strong
leaning towards Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) with the OLPC.

There's a clause in the Adobe EULA where you can't redistribute the
Flash installer without permission, but otherwise anyone's free to
download it.

Thing is, whatever we develop with the Flash gaming/edugaming group,
is hopefully applicable too with the rest of the world and in other
regions where there may be such restrictions.

By the way, Rob Savoye is one of the lead people at the Gnash project
(which aims to provide a free and open source alternative to Adobe
Flash).

Regards,

-Naz

>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: olpc-philippines-bounces at lists.laptop.org
> [mailto:olpc-philippines-bounces at lists.laptop.org]On Behalf Of Rob Savoye
> Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2008 5:44 PM
> To: Carlos Nazareno
> Cc: gnash-dev at gnu.org; seth at laptop.org; Rob Savoye; Benjamin Wolsey;
> devel at lists.laptop.org; Bastiaan Jacques; Sandro Santilli; OLPC
> Philippines/Pilipinas grassroots
> Subject: Re: [OLPC-Philippines] getting mp3 sound working w/ Gnash easily
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 04:13:22PM +0800, Carlos Nazareno wrote:
>
>> We were having a discussion at the Gnash developer mailing list about
>> the absurdity of the situation where it was so difficult to get sound
>> working with Gnash on build 767 that the easy workaround to get sound
>
>  I have Gnash with working sound and full YouTube video support on 767,
and
> it wasn't even hard.
>
>> What I mean is that if it's going to take so much difficult jumping
>> through hoops to get sound working with Gnash on the OLPC, why not
>> just recommend that users install the Adobe Flash player which can be
>> done with a single wget-rpm combo and cause less of a support
>> nightmare?
>
>  Persovnally, the only way to fix this problem is to get political, and
> start
> lobbying for the end of software patents. It's the *legal* issues here
> around codecs and software patents that is the problem, not any technical
> issue.
>
>  btw, this attitude is why I've personally given up on the OLPC project.
> It's
> been very upsetting to me to see such a great project slowly slide into
> the proprietary software world. Oh that's right, Nicholas says I'm a free
> software fundamentalist, holding back the OLPC project... Ship whatever
you
> want... I give up again.
>
>> And if we ship with 0.8.3, once Gnash 0.8.4 comes out (pretty close
>> enough from what I read from Gnash dev), G1G1 users are going to be
>> stuck with an older outdated version of Gnash for a long time.
>
>  Which won't work, then everyone will say Linux/Gnash sucks, and give me
XP
> and Adobe. Sigh...
>
>        - rob -
>
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--
Carlos Nazareno
http://www.object404.com

interactive media specialist
zen graffiti studios
naz at zengraffiti.com
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