The Lightspark Flash Player Reaches Beta

[droidhacker]

The OpenGL part really caught my interest. I'm going to give this a try.


@ DroidHacker:
While I agree that we should move on from flash to better (and open) technologies, it's wrong to say that flash replacement projects are worthless. There already is a huge amount of flash content out there, much of which will never be recreated in non-flash form. Basically, a modern flash replacement is needed for legacy purposes.
I have the same kind of mentality towards the Wine project. Sure I always use native Linux software if possible, but there is so much pre-existing windows software out there that people need to use.
Whether or not these type of projects are prolonging the life of "dying" software is something that can be debated.

The current state of flash on smartphones (or should I say LACK of flash on smartphones) has already convinced most web developers to abandon their flash trash. There are hardly ANY web sites out there that actually require flash plugin anymore. There really is NO NEED to support legacy flash components since flash never actually did anything useful! It can all be safely abandoned without any significant impact.

[droidhacker]

Did you know...
... that the iPhone has a YouTube player?
... that http://m.youtube.com doesn't use flash but a lightweight mpeg-like codec? (right click watch video to download it!)
... that with a YouTube plugin you can search/browse YouTube vids with Totem and also get the related vids listed?
... that flash sucked?
... that most website have a cheap workaround in case flash is not detected?

I didn't install flash after I installed Fedora and after a month I realised that I didn't miss anything. It is just a habit to have Flash but once you kicked of cold turkey, you realise that there's nothing you'll miss after you found workarounds or other websites that provide you with exactly the same...

Steve Jobs isn't a prophet, but he sure as hell is the kickstart that was needed to start getting rid of closed web tech that was not needed in the first place!

This I'll fully agree with. The ***ONE THING*** we can applaud apple for -- no flash.

[droidhacker]

Everyone is taking about flash for video.
I'm really the one that plays flash games? Dozens of games are created everyday. We need an opensource flash player for preserving these pieces of art, in the same way programs like ScummVM preserve old DOS adventure games.

So you play penguin throw or bloody penguin throw. Wow. You'll really be missing a lot there.

[myxal]

@droid: careful, you're starting to foam an the mouth. Funny how I see everybody complaining about lack of native linux ports of mainstream games as a major roadblock for LotD, yet you're arguing that Flash games are irrelevant? Really? You may not care about them but others certainly do. (I'm sure there was a study showing, in terms of people playing, Flash games dwarf native games by a large margin.) I don't give a hoot about games one needs to install, but I'm not running my mouth in the "steam for linux" thread shouting "What's this Steam thing and why should I care?"

Anyway, regarding (useful) non-video flash use-cases, web-based "photoshop", anyone? Google Street-view? The recent showcase of security features of the 500-dollar bill?

You think everybody can jump to HTML5 - guess what, they can't until IE supports it. And I'd much rather have a site done in Flash than IE-specific sites from the olden days.

[V!NCENT]

@droid: careful, you're starting to foam an the mouth. Funny how I see everybody complaining about lack of native linux ports of mainstream games as a major roadblock for LotD, yet you're arguing that Flash games are irrelevant? Really? You may not care about them but others certainly do.

Dude... you can still download that security hole and in 64bit notwithstanding. What is your point?

Anyway, regarding (useful) non-video flash use-cases, web-based "photoshop", anyone? Google Street-view? The recent showcase of security features of the 500-dollar bill?

Yeah because we are all aware that Flash is required for showcasing the features of a $500
bill. Also I can install GIMP, so I could not care less about a Flash based Photoshop clone... Google Street-view can me ported and is not vital.

You think everybody can jump to HTML5 - guess what, they can't until IE supports it. And I'd much rather have a site done in Flash than IE-specific sites from the olden days.

Yes everybody can. Large website already did it. IE's marketshare is declining very rapidly. Because all other non-IE browsers combined have more marketshare than IE, why can't IE users get blocked in favor of all the other compliant browsers, instead of the other way around?

IE and Windows is a dead horse. Nobody (except for a few realy lost souls) picked up MS Office > MS Office 2003...

Let's fsck IE. You are stuck in the past... Snap out of it...

[myxal]

Dude... you can still download that security hole and in 64bit notwithstanding. What is your point?

My point is everybody's getting their pants wet over Steam/source coming to Linux, but somehow making a better-performing Flash player is somehow a bad thing - I fail to see how.

Yeah because we are all aware that Flash is required for showcasing the features of a $500 bill.

The parent asked for useful, not required but please keep putting words in my mouth.

Also I can install GIMP, so I could not care less about a Flash based Photoshop clone...

Dinosaur-think. Or, "not on someone else's computer/INternet cafe/smartphone/low-spec netbook/smartbook etc. you can't, nevermind the multi-window interface which, having experienced it in Dia, is the greatest atrocity inflicted on a user.

Google Street-view can me ported and is not vital.

And yet it isn't (ported yet) and see dollar-bill response.

Yes everybody can. Large website already did it. IE's marketshare is declining very rapidly. Because all other non-IE browsers combined have more marketshare than IE, why can't IE users get blocked in favor of all the other compliant browsers, instead of the other way around?

Because

• last time I checked, IE held the largest share, even in Europe,
• inertia
• "nobody got fired for going with Micrsoft"-thinking

IE and Windows is a dead horse. Nobody (except for a few realy lost souls) picked up MS Office > MS Office 2003...

Let's fsck IE. You are stuck in the past... Snap out of it...

You lost me here. I hate MS as much as the next guy (on /.) but what does that have to do with anything in the story? I'm not stuck in the past, I'm stuck in the present where a website in HTML5 still has problems rendering the same way in all browsers that claim HTML5 support, and web-devs who actually want to get the work done go with Flash, or yield on the advanced features. Apple's ?=$ policy greatly reduces their RDF, so nobody here's bending over backwards for the Iphone.

[myxal]

Huh.. Only 1-minute limit to edit one's post? Come on, Phoronix!
Just wanted to add to the list:
IE users, typically being the most ignorant, whine the loudest when something doesn't work.

[monraaf]

Sick the guy is getting bashed on his own blog for releasing the code under GPL3.

[Ex-Cyber]

So you play penguin throw or bloody penguin throw. Wow. You'll really be missing a lot there.

It turns out that there are decent games for Flash, too. Sturgeon's Law and all that. Furthermore, its popularity is actually increasing in the independent games scene (particularly since the release of the Flixel framework). I doubt that reliable statistics would be available, but I wouldn't be surprised if Flash is actually the most popular game platform today.

[etnlWings]

So we hear about how Gnash doesn't work well, as the Flash specs are incomplete but Lightspark is only attempting to build their flash runtime environment to-spec? Could I get some clarification on this? Is that merely the immediate goal and WINE-esque workaound work is set to commence as soon as Lightspark's ActionScript3 support is complete?