Cc-uk mailing list

[Ian Drysdale <idrysdale AT gmail.com>]

perhaps a mute point, but it's going to be an interesting few months with
the announcement of adobe buying out macromedia.  I always saw SVG
(as advocated by adobe) in direct competition with macromedia's Flash.
adobe are now in a very different position.  perhaps we'll see a migration
(or at least an increase) to SVG?  I don't think it'll be long before the next
version of flash viewer has an integrated svg viewer in it.

Best,
Ian

On 6/21/05, J. Grant <jg AT jguk.org> wrote:
> Hi Rob,
> 
> [...]
> > The animations are incredibly effective for communicating the basic
> > ideas to audiences, though (I saw this effect at Liquid Culture, it  was
> > striking). I agree that Free Culture must not be thwarted by non- Free
> > formats, but there are no practical alternatives to Flash at  this time,
> > and the FSF are working on a Free Flash. Hopefully this is  a historical
> > moment rather than a historical error...
> 
> Just a small point:
> 
> These problems are repercussions from the core. When you have founding
> members of CC advocating proprietary software (be it Apple Mac, Adobe
> Illustrator or other packages) in articles and on websites it causes
> other people to repeat the mistakes of those at the core of a project.
> 
> In my view there are several practical alternatives to Flash at this
> time, Flash functionality is a sub-set of open equivalents supported by
> many software vendors:
> 
> 1) SVG, JavaScript, XHTML, combined they surpass Flash.
> 
> 2) Theora + Vorbis surpass Flash Video embedding
> 
> The former has been around for years, the latter is more recent.
> 
> There are plenty of SVG demos, below I list a few I found in about 3
> mins of searching on Google, I discussed these with Mike L as well:
> 
> Space demo with audio
> http://www.adobe.com/svg/demos/audio.html
> 
> Analogue clock animation:
> http://www.adobe.com/svg/demos/clock.html
> 
> Interactive map:
> http://www.adobe.com/svg/demos/moscowmap/main.html
> 
> Zoomable map:
> http://www.dbxgeomatics.com/svgmapmaker/samples/hurricane_simulation.htm
> 
> Do you think CC might migrate to SVG/JavaScript/XHTML ? I do wonder why
> they are so keen to support Macromedia Flash as default. (There is
> always going to be a need for secondary versions of productions which
> can be in proprietary formats to attract new people. I do not argue
> against secondary choices, only what should be presented as default.)
> 
> If some one finds something that Macromedia's Flash has, that there is
> no open equivalent for, I suggest that person donate what they would have
> thrown away towards an open equivalent (take for example the price of
> £448.99 for Macromedia Flash MX). Although, when CC staff are supporting
> the problem is it any wonder the problem does not depart?
> 
> IMHO GPLFlash is a bad idea, as Macromedia/Adobe control the proprietary
> format, so any shifts there will leave GPLFlash chasing the revised
> standards in the same way that Samba gets stuck repeating MS design
> faults in their compatible network protocol implementation.
> 
> FSF should spend their efforts supporting the work of W3C and on making
> showcases to demonstrate the applicability of functionality for which
> Flash contains a sub-set of. The only case when a proprietary format
> should be supported is when it is part of a wider application  (e.g.
> OpenOffice.org) which offers a complete migration strategy to something
> better.
> 
> Anyway, enough of my views, I'd be interested to here what others think,
> and if we could assist CC migrate forward from Flash to something better
> in each case of its use.
> 
> Kind regards
> JG
> --
> Homepage: http://jguk.org/
> Blog: http://jguk.org/blog.rss
> Radio: http://jguk.org/#radio
> _______________________________________________
> Cc-uk mailing list
> Cc-uk AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-uk
>