Anybody tried Gnash lately?

Tried it with Debian, but it did not work for me.

Last time I tried it (whenever that was) it wasn't so good. Give it another year or two. Maybe.

I like that it's not. The risk of doing a separate ISO is that people feel like they're getting "Slackware Libre" not Slackware, so aren't encouraged to buy the upstream iso. Maybe they'd even un-oblige themselves with a mental trick that there's some kind of wrongdoing in the distribution of non-free software. I find myself easily vearing into this kind of "moral highground" when it provides an antidote for the urge of parting with cash. Better that people are encouraged to buy from the person doing the bulk of the work. That's what I was trying to get at above in saying I like that it's not a full on derivation.

Yeah, if someone wants Slackware Libre, they should be prepared do it themselves.

God forbit it. In two years I want to see Flash finally dead.

AVM2 support could be a problem for a long time: http://wiki.gnashdev.org/List_of_Tas..._Compatibility

I don't care as long as everything has source code. I assume the source code for the non-free blobs among the kernel firmware is not available, so removing those is a good idea to avoid backdoors.

I don't consider the FSF or RMS authoritative on anything. RMS does not decide what's free and what's not -- it's just his opinion; shared by many perhaps, but many disagree. The GPL is a non-free license in my opinion since you can't use it with proprietary code. The difference between the GPL and "all rights reserved; personal & non-commercial use only" is very small for the end user.

I like xv and I miss it in Debian.

That's what they said about GNU Hurd too. Back in 1992. :D

Freshplayer is based on pepper and works, though I don't know how "libre-friendly" it is, but yes gnash is discontinued in development.

The main "raison d'être" for the GPL is so big companies like Microsoft or Apple can't cannibalize the code, alter it, keep the result secret and then lawyer up and sue you to death for wanting to use your own code. So much freedom comes at a small cost, and this is it. RMS may be a bit of a diva, but I would say he got the GPL right.

Ah well, looks like I'll remain a non-Libre Slacker. And I can't get free beer in Oldham. Got thrown out of plenty of pubs for demanding it, though.

I think if the GPL was less restrictive on incompatible licenses and offered some level of usage but requiring cross-licensing amendments, it would open more doors.

I suppose you're joking, but these days when I glance at Gnash or Hurd mailing lists I see the main developers making quite humble and realistic statements about the state of each and their future prospects. The expectations are more coming from outside.

For those interested in the Hurd, Samuel Thibault has some quite nice talks on its current state in the Gnu hackers conference videos (2013 has one, and I think the year before too). I like these GNU developers, their outlook on things (users must have maximal control, extensibility, etc.). I must confess part of the reason I moved to Slackware and not FreeBSD when I found OpenBSD struggling with this damn nvidia card on the machine that most recently fell into my lap was a fondness for this GNU outlook along with the thought of eventually running the Hurd (so might as well get more familiar with GNU userland). Okay, so it doesn't yet have sound or USB, and perhaps it's not as fast or stable as Linux or BSD, but it does still sound quite interesting. And it runs a lot more of what I'd want to run than certain other interesting fringe OSes, e.g. plan 9.

At this point I think Hurd development is pointless