|
May 10, 2010
Your home is your castle, and your computer is in your home. Right?
Last night I stumbled onto a problem which provided a perfect illustration of how computers are challenging traditional notions of property -- of what is and what is not yours. What happened was that I tried to pay a simple YouTube video in Slackware, and the Firefox web browser would not play it unless I installed the Adobe Flash Player plugin. Yes, there is one available for Linux, but installing it is hellish (it gave me some trouble in Ubuntu, too), and many users complain that it either does not work well, or does not work at all. This complaint is typical: At some of the Linux user forums, the comments are even more irate. They deeply, deeply hate Adobe. I have to say that I have never been much of an Adobe fan, even in Windows, as I can't count the number of times the Adobe reader has crashed my system simply because I tried to open a blasted PDF file. (Ever wonder why so many bloggers thoughtfully warn readers that a link is a PDF file?) Constant updating, and the updates often involve aggressive marketing ploys with pitfalls for the unwary. Anyway, getting into the Adobe Flash Player stuff annoyed me, because Linux is based on Open Source. Adobe is not only open source, in many ways it is at war with Open Source, and at war with Linux. Mike Slinn, an independent software contractor, puts it kindly: The Linux cadre of developers is large, and encompasses many experienced Java developers. They tend to be senior, and are quite influential in the developer community. The lack of solid Linux support from Adobe has been a key reason that most of those key technologists have not adopted the technology. Flex and Flash simply don't work effectively in their primary development environment.Reading between the lines, I see tension between the for-profit Adobe, and the Open Source environment of Linux. I especially enjoyed the accompanying photo: If this earlier piece in the Electronic Freedom Foundation is any indication, Linux users are right to be fearful of the Adobe Flash Player. What worries me is that our computers are being systematically taken over by entities over which we have absolutely no control. Like the entertainment industry, and the hated RIAA. Philosophically, I don't consent to them getting their mitts into my stuff. Yet the irony is that I probably have given them all sorts of power over my computer, simply by clicking "Agree" in order to make things work. I don't like it, nor do a lot of other people and it's one of the reasons I think it is very important to be up and running on Linux. It's one of those WTSHTF ("when the shit hits the fan") things that's worth having. Like having a gun. For now, I solved the irritating Adobe Flash Player issue in Slackware by installing the Greasemonkey add-on, and then simply running a wonderful script I found here. It plays beautifully. For now, at least. (Until the corporate copyright cops decide to force YouTube to submit totally to Big Hollywood dumb-down dhimmitude, or whatever it's supposed to be called.) All I wanted to do was play this: It wasn't my fault that it turned into such a big deal, but sometimes even little annoyances touch on matters of principle. posted by Eric on 05.10.10 at 12:30 PM
Comments
The problem is that for most people, it appears that you have to use Flashplayer. When you first start Firefox and try to play videoo content, it actually says you need to install Flashplayer. Not everyone knows that there are workarounds. As to playing DVDs in Linux, they have made it illegal. I don't like people telling me what to do, much less putting me in jail! Eric Scheie · May 11, 2010 12:32 AM I use the appendage (.pdf) since I know how much I hate having my machine crawl until its next re-boot. OregonGuy · May 11, 2010 11:39 AM For all the hyperventilating, the solution is quite simple. Support HTML5. Jeez. Jobs made a special point of prohibiting Flash from the iPad, and I suspect that will encourage developers to migrate to HTML5 instead. It's pretty funny hearing a propeller-head bash Windoze, then complain how Flash won't work on Linux. Works fine over here on my decrepit XP system. The only Adobe or Flash-related issue I've ever had was one time the Adobe Reader upgrade client froze up on me. Before anyone gets all hostile, I think Slackware is great; I just don't feel like investing all that time & effort when both Windows and OS X are pretty much click'n'run. Casey · May 11, 2010 11:12 PM HTML 5 support? That's cool and all. What about video codecs? H.264 is patent encumbered. Old enough to remember GIF? They said the same thing. Then Unisis bought them. BAM! Lawsuits. H.264 is just gif for the video age. Yes, HTML 5 seems wonderful and all. BUT... anonymous · May 14, 2010 01:16 AM Yes, I do. I also remember being upset since my '286 decoded .jpegs noticeably more slowly than .gifs. There are very few genuinely free codecs and formats out there. Notice how well .ogg is doing? Apple is doing quite well with .mov & .mp4, nor is .mp3 a free format. MicroSoft's .wmv format is doing fairly well (at least in the Wintel community) even though it is proprietary to MS. There are very few perfect solutions out there. If nothing else HTML5 offers the possibility that I can drop yet one more "necessary" plug-in from my browser. ...While perusing the Wiki article on h.264, I found this tidbit: "On February 2, 2010 MPEG LA announced that H.264-encoded Internet Video that is free to end users would continue to be exempt from royalty fees until at least December 31, 2015." Perhaps they remember what happened to .gif as well? ;-) Casey · May 20, 2010 12:17 AM Post a comment
You may use basic HTML for formatting.
|
|
May 2010
WORLD-WIDE CALENDAR
Search the Site
E-mail
Classics To Go
Archives
May 2010
April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 May 2002 AB 1634 MBAPBSAAGOP Skepticism See more archives here Old (Blogspot) archives
Recent Entries
What About My Profits?
Everybody Draw Muhammed Day Voluntary compliance is for your own good! Some accidental shootings are just the breaks! Running better, on next to nothing! The Conservative Position We still have the Constitution, right? Seven years! (And they said it wouldn't last!) Is It His Katrina? Nyet! I bought more than I bargained for. Or did I?
Links
Site Credits
|
|
The RIAA etc. can't take over your computer, though.
The *most* any of them have ever even tried to do is make sure that you can't play video of their intellectual property without paying for it.
Don't like how much Flash sucks, and that it can do DRM with Flash streaming? Don't use it. Nobody's forcing anyone to (thank God, since Flash is the devil).
Nobody can or, that I've seen, wants to stop people with their own content using other formats that have no DRM or whatever DRM the producer wants.
Adobe doesn't support linux very well because there's no money in it and it would cost a fair amount to do it well. Nobody's going to buy Acrobat Pro for linux, and the marketshare is so tiny as to be irrelevant for the "we need to support linux so our format will be universally used" tactic.
Frankly, I'm tempted to say that the inability to run Flash is a blessing, not a curse. It's horrible software. I hate Flash-based websites.
And you don't need Flash for YouTube! YouTube videos are (almost) all available in h264 - the exception being ad-based videos - and while they default to using Flash as an h264 player it's not required. (Which is why iPhones and iPads can play them without having Flash.)