FreeFlash

Revision 8 as of 2007-05-13 23:11:17

Clear message

Please check the status of this specification in Launchpad before editing it. If it is Approved, contact the Assignee or another knowledgeable person before making changes.

Summary

The Free software world needs free Flash tools so we don't become second class netizens.

Rationale

There are multiple Free Flash projects currently. This includes the http://swfdec.freedesktop.org Swfdec and http://www.gnashdev.org Gnash Flash players and web browser plugins. For generating Flash movies, http://ming.sourceforge.net Ming and http://www.openlazlo.org OpenLazlo. Ubuntu should communicate their needs to these projects and find out about their needs.

Use Cases

  • Scott wants to watch a [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2728972720932273543 video about Ubuntu]. He cannot see the video in his browser.

  • Stefan wants to use Edubuntu on his school's computer. Unfortunately a lot of the learning tools they use are done in Flash.
  • Sarah wants to watch flash-advertisements.

Scope

* main, iso content

  • ffmpeg for video codecs
  • gnash or swfdec
  • possibly with gstreamer backend

* gnash, swfdec, nonfree-flashplayer packages need to provide alternative for global flash plugin.

Implementation

Step 1

  • include gnash to the main archive
  • ship ffmpeg in main
  • setup alternative for global libflashplugin.so
    • use standard priority for gnash libflashplugin.so
    • use higher priority for non-default nonfree-flashplayer to ensure that user gets what he wants when installing nonfree-flashplayer without removing free alternative from computer

Step 2

  • call for forum testing of swfdec
  • come up with comparision: swfdec vs. gnash
  • decide whether to try swfdec as default based on:
    • overall features: which plugin breaks more important sites
    • responsiveness of upstream on support requests
    • result of code-review

Outstanding Issues

  • ensure automatic codec install works for most important flash video codecs
  • can ffmpeg source be split up to ship support for important flash codecs in a more minimalistic fashion?

CategorySpec