[GNU/FSF Press] FSF Announces GNU Gnash - Flash Movie Player

[John Sullivan]

Media Contact: Free Software Foundation <address@hidden>
               Phone: +1-617-542-5942


FSF Announces GNU Gnash - Flash Movie Player

Boston, Massachusetts, USA - Monday, January 9, 2006 - The Free Software
Foundation announced today the addition of Gnash, the GNU Flash movie
player and Firefox plugin, licensed under the GNU General Public License
(GNU GPL).

Gnash is a project to build a SWF version 7 compliant flash player
with high-quality imaging. It is the most advanced free flash player
that currently exists, and an important addition to the GNU project.
The release of Gnash represents the achievement of one of the free
software movement's high priority projects (see
http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/priority.html).

Rob Savoye, maintainer of Gnash, outlined details of the project and
made a call for developer support, "Right now Gnash is playing more
movies than any of the other free players. All ActionScript classes
exist and work, but not all the methods of each class are fully
implemented. With a few more developers, it could be reasonably complete
in a few months."

Features include:

Runs as a standalone application - Gnash can run standalone to play
flash movies. 

Firefox plugin - Gnash can run as a plugin from within Firefox and
Mozilla. 

SWF v7 compliant - Gnash can play many current flash movies. 

XML Message server - Gnash also supports an XML-based message system
as is documented in the Flash Format specification.

High Quality Output - Gnash uses OpenGL for rendering the graphics.

The home page of the project is at
<http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/>.  The Gnash development sources
are accessible via anonymous CVS from
<http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/gnash/>. The anonymous CVS services
are provided by Savannah, a web front-end for hosting and maintaining
project homepages, bug tracking, CVS, FTP, and mailing lists, running
entirely on free software, without ads, for the entire community.

Gnash development is being funded by PubSoft. PubSoft supports free
software projects by connecting developers with funding
<https://www.pubsoft.org/pubsoft.py/viewprojects>.


About the Free Software Foundation:

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting
computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute
computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as
in freedom) software - particularly the GNU operating system and its
GNU/Linux variants - and free documentation for free software. The FSF
also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of
freedom in the use of software. Their Web site, located at www.fsf.org,
is an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to
support their work can be made at http://donate.fsf.org. Their
headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.


-- 
John Sullivan
Program Administrator        | Phone: (617)542-5942 x23    
51 Franklin Street, 5th Fl.  | Fax:   (617)542-2652     
Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA    | GPG:   AE8600B6