OpenBSD Journal

Petition: native Macromedia Flash support on BSD

Contributed by grey on from the tired of linux emulation dept.

Nicram writes in with:

Hello. As everybody knows there is no native support for the Macromedia Flash standard in BSD's. One frustrated user has started an on-line petition, where anyone can sign in. Maybe this will help, & Macromedia will make binaries some day. The link to the petition is here : http://arameus.net/petition/index.php

For those skeptical of petition signing successes, Jolan Luff also gave a very eloquent explanation of Flash support in OpenBSD, what might be required to get a native port, and whom at Macromedia would be worth contacting in this post to misc@ from last year.

(Comments are closed)

Comments

  1. By Anonymous Coward (142.173.136.211) on

    Just a small warning about this page: I signed the petition using my real email address, which, as it turns out, is shown to anyone reading the page. In other words: this site is spam trouble. Obfuscate your email address or don't post it with your comments.

    Comments

    1. By Anonymous Coward (142.173.136.211) on

      Hmmm... It appears that the email addresses are no longer listed. This is no longer an issue.

  2. By Anonymous (68.148.237.224) on

    Is this some kind of joke? I am trying to avoid these flashyabominations as they tend to be ads anyway. What's worst isthe abuse which makes my CPU jumps to 100% on some sites...Do we really need this?

    Comments

    1. By Gerardo Santana Gómez Garrido (201.133.77.213) santana at openbsd org mx on http://www.openbsd.org.mx/~santana/

      It's useful for doing nice & cool user interfaces. Think of an embedded device running OpenBSD with a Flash UI.

    2. By Johan M:son Lindman (213.114.133.74) on

      http://www.joecartoon.com ...ya, we need flash!

    3. By Han (217.120.147.78) on

      install privoxy :-)

  3. By Anonymous Coward (217.157.132.75) on

    Personally I don't like Flash and couldn't care less if it ever ported. But let's say that Macromedia do port their Flash player, Im sure it will be for FreeBSD and only on i386. It would be better to ask Macromedia to open the source code, for the player, and then let the different communities port it to what ever platform the fancy. Asking companies to port closed source applications to your platform is a never ending battle, they will never support EVERY platform.

    Comments

    1. By Ozwald (68.145.126.101) on

      True, Flash is the bastard child of the Internet. I still signed the petition. Not because I want flash, because the BSDs (especially the Open one) need to be taken more seriously by the public. How many times have you downloaded the source for something and it doesn't compile? Sure it may compile for Windows or Redhat but how about your system? Geez it happens to me all the time. Or how often is a commercial package supported on Redhat and runs poorly through emulation?

      In the end, what we really need is to get Java (or shudder, atleast .NET) supported well on OpenBSD so we don't have to worry about this crap any more. Ya, they both sorta work, but as long as the BSD's are considered the ugly cousin we will just be neglected as usual.

      Ozwald

  4. By Anonymous Coward (212.113.164.98) on

    I will never sign this! IMHO, nobody needs flash. Keep Flash away from your computer!

  5. By Gabriel B. (200.221.124.40) on

    this will never get the desired intention in this kinda of site. The fact is that flash will never be near any good. now only if sgv could hurry up... Flash code is the same as of version 1. Macromedia even kept the crap UI of the program when they bought if from that one guy for 3 damn versions. thats no wonder that the cpu get on its knee to process some code that has been inflated for some years without any rewrite. besides, who here use openBSD for desktop? bsd/linux is for headless machines! for the desktop/workstation you get some irix,windows,beOS and move along... The fact is that even in this 3 oses integration sucks, but on linux/bsd integration sucks big time! :-/

    Comments

    1. By Gabriel B. (200.221.124.40) on

      And screw html posts... i want my good old plain text... with LINE BREAKS! :)

      really, it sucks to keep writting those damn <br>s

      Comments

    2. By Anonymous Coward (69.197.92.190) on

      There is nothing wrong with using linux or a bsd as a desktop. You are a complete moron for saying they aren't for desktops, but irix is.

    3. By kris (66.236.9.30) on

      whats wrong with BSD as a desktop? I have no Windows based systems in my home, I have 1 OpenBSD desktop, and the rest are OpenBSD servers. You are a complete idiot for saying that.

      Comments

      1. By Gabriel (200.221.124.40) on

        http://www.computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/0/06E5B5DD62AED56CCC256E1C00744BF4?OpenDocument

        i think the world is full of idiots then...

    4. By Gerardo Santana Gómez Garrido (148.223.128.3) santana at openbsd org mx on http://www.openbsd.org.mx/~santana/

      I think you mean SVG. Well, it is not supposed to be a Flash killer but is certainly nice. It's being actively developed and even a new specification is in its way. I don't think SVG needs to hurry up, but the development of plugins for open source browsers do (IE already has a plugin for SVG from Adobe).

      Konqueror, wich runs on OpenBSD, has already got some SVG support through KSVG and Mozilla is working on it

      SVG is already here, but if you want it on your platform you should consider contributing some code.

      Comments

      1. By Gabriel (200.221.124.40) on

        I'm a poor code monkey. I don't have the time to code for free yet, althought that i'd love to. but i already submited some usability guidelines and stuff. oh, and i find lots of bugs :)

        and to the people that got sentimental about my post about linux/bsd not being good for desktop. well, grow up.

        Just because you use some cumbersome interface, you don't have to offend me if i rather something more consistent.

        Irix was the most consistent UNIX of all to the end user (GUI user, that is. the administration was kinda of clumsy, i admit)

        Linux is so bloated into so many directions that when i could use a linux desktop i didn't even used X. Mutt for email and emacs for work. now i have to work with images, so i *can't* use linux as the main desktop now. You can say all that you want, but i wouldn't be as productive as i am not using linux. and as i said, i don't have time to spare, unfortunately.

        On mac, you have an address book, and that address book is used all trough the system. like, if i'm writting an email to joe doe, and joe doe is inline at AIM, the email client shows me that. and both programs use the same contact info. on linux, you're luck if the consistency go as far as having the positions of "ok" and "cancel" buttons similar in the SAME program.

        But it's thanks to stubborn that it mighty one day get to the point of being usable :)

    5. By Chip Jones (70.244.50.152) on

      I use OpenBSD and a desktop, and it works just fine.

  6. By Dylan (62.253.32.4) on dylanharris.org

    Flash is a poison, used by immature advertisers to help you hate their products. It takes an ordinary acceptable advert and makes it unbearable irritating. I am grateful to MacroMedia for producing a free flash uninstaller, so everytime my computer is infected by some obnoxious utility, I can use their cure. I believe one of the great strengths of OpenBSD is its lack of flash, and cannot believe someone wants to destroy its clean purity. Shame on whoever organised this petition. Seriously, I drive a car. I have to be aware of unexpected movement around me. I find it very irritating and uncomfortable to have such movement on my computer. If you're not disturbed by such things, and you're a driver, get out of the car before you create an accident by ignoring movement where you don't expect it. I'm glad I'm not an advertisers' insurer.

    Comments

    1. By Anonymous Coward (69.197.92.190) on

      And GIFs are evil too right dumbass? Its not a tools fault people use it for things you don't like, and it doesn't make the tool any less useful. Flash is really the only option for humourous web cartoons, games, etc. You can use a plugin for firefox to not show flash by default, but allow you to click to view flash you want to see. Maybe its not so terrible after all huh? Holding back the BSDs desktop usefulness because you are a narrowminded jackass doesn't seem all that productive.

      Comments

      1. By Dylan Harris (62.253.32.4) on dylanharris.org

        For everyone else, sorry about the rant, but I really do detest the use made on the net of flash. If it requires any effort from the developers, I strongly urge them not to bother.

      2. By Anonymous (68.148.237.224) on

        Let's put OpenBSD's security into perspective. Flash is a security
        hazard, and advocating for it in a security-minded site on the basis
        of "desktop usefulness" is obviously the wrong place.

        Seeing your degenerating post, I laf. ^o^

    2. By Chip Jones (70.244.50.152) on

      Do you have ADD? You may need to get checked up for attention defecit disorder :P.

  7. By Peter Hessler (208.201.244.164) spambox@theapt.org on

    the only use for flash support is for Strong Bad Emails. otherwise, keep that shit off of my computer. (Not like this petition will help me, since I run OpenBSD on macppc.)

    although, I've heard rumours that there is a plugin for firefox that will default-deny flash, but allow you to whitelist sites.

    Comments

    1. By Gabriel (200.221.124.40) on

      I don't think it has whitelist yet. By the way, it's not in the new extensions page for firebird... weird since it was on the old page.

  8. By RC (4.16.255.87) on

    If you need Flash, install the "swift-tools" GPL'd flash player & browser plugin. Somebody needs to port it to OpenBSD (currently it's stand-alone only, and no sound) but it's better than saying "gimme gimme" to a company that's shown they aren't interested in what their users want, and don't bother to release fixes, even when multiple vulnerabilities for it are well known.

    Yes, the GPL'd flash plugin only has support to Flash version 3, but that covers most flash animations. Also, the specs are open, so if you need it, you could always do a little work and code it.

    Comments

    1. By Anonymous Coward (69.197.92.190) on

      You are on drugs. Broken, soundless, flash 3 support is completely useless. You need flash 5 bare minimum to see anything, and you want 7 so you can see everything. Lying about it isn't going to help.

  9. By Han (217.120.147.78) on

    On my OpenBSD firewall I have privoxy installed, so I rarely see annoying adds. Only the nice ones remain. And on my linux desktop I do have flash and on sites like the BBC-online, The New York Times or the Volkskrant they have very nice media on flash. I think that's a real addition.

  10. By Bob (68.148.128.240) beck@obtuise.com on

    Mushroom Mushroom...

    Are there any other flash pages worth seeing?

    A snake! A Snake.....

    Comments

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