So, I was looking for an open source flash player. I found Gnash and Swfdec, but no slackbuild script nor packages (www.slackbuilds.org, www.linuxpackages.net, alien, workman, et al. ). Plenty are available for Adobe. My question, is everyone using Adobe over FLOSS? If yes, why?

I use Adobe flash, because last time I tried swfdec, it crashes for pretty much every flash out there. And besides, no FLOSS flash player yet supports flash 9. Until it does, I will use Adobe flash 9.

Yes, I know I know, I'm supporting the global takeover by Adobe. But, think of it like: Later I will support its downfall by using the FLOSS flash 9 player (whenever that is made and released and stable).

I am using Adobe's. I never tried Swfdec, but Gnash compatibility is just awful. It runs most sites, like youtube (basically the only site I need flash for actually) but the controls are all broken (like play, stop, etc). It also crashes a lot.

However, I would much prefer to use a free, open-sourced alternative for flash myself. For example, I had a lot of trouble getting flash to run in Konqueror in Kubuntu x86_64, since Adobe does not offer a x64 alternative for linux. Same goes to Opera, which still has not released their browser for Linux x64 (beta is available though. Next version is supposed to work for Linux x64 as well). Had Opera been open-source, this should not be an issue.

So, to sum up, free alternatives to flash (at least Gnash) are not there yet. You will most likely get annoyed of it and end up using the Adobe's one. But it definitely is a project that I will keep checking from time to time to see how it goes.

I'm using Adobe's as well and I guess I don't have a good reason as I haven't tried the alternatives. However, I'm not too bothered about it being open source or not.

Me neither. As long as it works I am fine with it. But I do have a problem with Adobe and the lack of official x64 support for Linux though.

I use Adobe's flash as well in Linux x86 and the linux version of adobe flash in FreeBSD for Opera.

As do most people I expect! I don't really mind for now, since I'm using Slack and there's no (official) 64-bit version yet. Also, they don't have 64-bit support for any OS yet (ok, I guess that's kinda irrelevant here, but it's not just Linux support that's missing ).

I've made some slackbuilds for swfdec. It works more or less. An interesting project to follow but not yet ready for daily use.

You can find the slackbuilds on http://www.slackbuilds.net/AutoIndex/index.php . You should use the svn repository as the ftp isn't updated yet. Beware that swfdec has some dependencies, they're all listed in the headers of each slackbuild. swfdec is in the testing/ directory.

PS: the site may be in french, but all the slackbuilds are in english. If you have some problems, just drop in the forum, we all speak english.

Gnash has nasty big dependencies like Boost, so isn't trivial to build.

As for x86-64 - Slamd64, at least, ships nspluginwrapper so you can get the same terrible Adobe Linux plugin experience on x86-64 (I believe nspluginwrapper can also be used for some non-x86 architectures, like PPC, but then you need qemu).

Last time I tried Gnash there was no sound and it kept crashing. I'll keep Adobe until something solid comes along.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I'm surprised that so many just accept Adobe, with a shrug, as the only choice.

There is much concern over using open file formats for educational and government documents. Isn't video just as important? Flash is quickly becoming, or perhaps already is, the de facto standard for embedded video. I'm sure that is why Microsoft is pushing Silverlight.

When the shift to Flash video first started it wasn't a problem as .flv files were just containers that FLOSS players could handle. It appears to me that the current Flash video pointers are binary configuration files for embedded Adobe players obfuscating the stream URL. Essentially, a form of DRM.

For many reasons, political, function, security, privacy, et al., I do not wish to install Adobe's flash plugin . So, I had just accepted that I would not view any online flash video. Until that is, the new election cycle started in the U.S. MSM is shutting out candidates and the only objective video coverage is online.

It seems to me when something impacts the possible future of a country it becomes a very important issue.

I am thankful to the Gnash team and other projects making the effort. I just don't understand the lack of attention, resources, or even apparent concern over an open standard for embedding video and for FLOSS applications that can handle embedded Flash players?

My apologies to the LQ forum. I know this is not a political forum and you have already answered my question regarding whether open flash apps are unpopular. I suppose I should be submitting this question to /. or somewhere similar? I am interested in your thoughts on the subject however.

Please keep in mind that most of the posters here are normal users on x86 who are already glad that Adobe has made it possible for them to view Flash content. Most are probably not even aware of software freedom issues so your posts could actually help them become more aware of these things.

Gnash is making big strides and is reasonably stable, I haven't had a crash due to it lately. The only major thing not working for me at the moment is Flash video, but I hope that one will be resolved soon.

No need to apologise but I also don't think this is the most appropriate forum to discuss this kind of matter. Open Flash is getting there and when it's ready all of us can dump Adobe and their closed x86-dependent software for something much better and free. I hope the same thing will happen with the GNU PDF project.

..........................

Ahh, how insightful.

Anyway, now that I look back at this old thread, I'd like to add that gnash is really not that bad. The only major issues is the video quality.

hmmmm resurrecting old topics...
Either way... the world won't end until somebody combines wikipedia with google and jabberwacky. That's the recipe for skynet!

As for Adobe... I'm sorry but Gimp and Inkscape are good... but they arn't THAT good. Flash it self should have never been invented... we need to take two steps backward and invest in svg, w3, and a solid scripting interface for them (no java script... what a horrible invention).

Adobe doesn't seem too horrible 'yet'

At least they have an open source alternative to making flash files called Flex.