Re: [Gnash] Fwd: Question about Gnash

[Rob Savoye]

On 01/22/10 01:34, Aaron Whitehouse wrote:

> have donated to Gnash several times. (On that note, I would prefer it if
> OpenMediaNow allowed me to donate only to Gnash.)

  If it makes any difference, any donations to OpenMediaNow go to Gnash
development, we have no "office overhead" or staff. Right now nobody is
getting any paid anything anyway, as donations have basically dried up
months ago. Me, I've been hacking on Gnash for free instead... :-(

> Each release of Ubuntu/Mythbuntu (maybe since as far back as 2004), I
> upgrade my machines, install Gnash instead of Adobe and try it out.  I'm
> not sure if it is just the sites I use (nearly entirely video sites,
> such as tvnz.co.nz), but I have a terrible success rate with Gnash.

  Most video sites use the latest flash version, which for Gnash, is
still a work in progress.

> 1) Gnash as a Firefox extension. I remember this being talked about a
> lot for a while and then heard of no more. If a problem is that Gnash
> needs to evolve faster than a six-monthly release cycle, perhaps this is
> a way forward.

  Extensions are written in javascript, Gnash is written in C++. Gnash
is stuck as a plugin, although I did add XPI packaging support so Gnash
can install as a plugin, but like extensions do.

  As the person that actually does the Gnash releases, more than every 6
months would be nice, but when we tried that, the distributions pretty
much ignored them, and only grabbed the releases that came out right
before their code freeze. Especially now that development has slowed
down due to lack of funding or people's motivations, every 6 months is
about right.

> 2) Add a LinuxFund project for YouTube support. I was on there the other
> day looking to donate to Gnash and the two options were the OSM support

  RTMP is needed for the BBC, Hulu, etc... The Linux Fund is only
interested in small projects with a narrow focus and low budget, and
their fund raising is painfully slow, so this isn't a good option for
"youtube", as that requires much AVM2 work, probably several months of
it. Just as a note, I spent most of the last few days surfing YouTube
for release testing, and other than the very newest videos, everything I
was viewing worked just fine. And finishing the avm2 support required to
get Gnash working with the latest tools is a big enough project that it
won't happen without funding.

> 3) Come up with a way to reload a page with the Adobe player. While I'm
> dreading the response I'll get to this, I would be much more likely to

  I was talking to a company just yesterday that claims they are going
to do this. I'm not really sure if it's such a great idea... Me, if a
site doesn't work with Gnash, I don't go there.... :-)

        - rob -