Open Media Now!

Rob interviewed with Paul Hudson from Linux Format while we were attending FOSDEM in Nuremberg, Germany.

View full pdf here: http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/pdfs/download.php?PDF=LXF107.iview.pdf

48 Linux Format July 2008
LXF Interview Rob Savoye

Quick as a Gnash

Adobe spent ten years making Flash, but it took Rob Savoye 1/10th that time. Paul Hudson
speaks to a coding maestro… Interview LXF107.iview Sec2:48 12/5/08 17:42:42
July 2008 Linux Format 49 Rob Savoye LXF Interview

The second beta release of Gnash has just been made at version
0.8.3. Gnash is a GPL'd SWF movie player and browser plugin for
Firefox, Mozilla, and Konqueror. Gnash supports many SWF v7 features
and ActionScript 2 classes. with growing support for SWF v8 and
v9. Gnash also runs on many GNU/Linux distributions, embedded
GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, non x86 processors, and 64 bit
architectures. Ports to Darwin and Windows are in progress for a
future release. The plugin works best with Firefox 1.0.4 or newer, and
should work in any Mozilla based browser using NPAPI. There is also a
standalone player for GNOME or KDE based desktops.

David "Lefty" Schlesinger is a member of OMNow's Board of Directors and we're proud to have someone as vocal as he on our board.

Rob and I met with Andy Rubin of Android fame and "Google Phone" rumor. We discussed Gnash as a UI on CE devices. Andy was excited as he exited the meeting, but soon afterwards sent an email saying that we could never work together because we were GPLv3. The GPL was an issue, it seems, for Apache licensing. Is Google open? Nah. But they're pretty wide...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/06/lefty_and_google/

This is a great blog by h3g3m0n outlining patent and codec issues for Open Media.

http://h3g3m0n.wordpress.com/2008/05/08/open-video-codecs-and-flash/

Bruce Byfield of Linux.com called us up yesterday to discuss our thoughts on the Adobe Open Screen Project.

http://www.linux.com/feature/134378

By Bruce Byfield on May 06, 2008 (7:00:00 PM)

What do we think about this?

From Rob and wiki.gnashdev.org : "Yes, we know about the Adobe Open Screen Project. Yes, it's nice of them to acknowledge that there are no secrets left in their specifications. No, it doesn't help us all that much, since we came by our knowledge of SWF independent of their specification. But we appreciate the goodwill, and thank them for not threatening to sue us."

On the other hand, where is the support for non-Intel processors? 64-bit support? Where is the openness? With Gnash, you can add or remove what you like to suit your device needs. I don't know if I can say the same for Adobe. Gnash figured out the Adobe specs long ago, and in many ways the "freeing" (as in beer!) of Flash Lite can be seen as Adobe's response to Silverlight, and not an act of FOSS altruism. OpenMediaNow is trying to create an entirely free media platform--from Gnash to Cygnal to Ming with other projects on the horizon (care to tackle the free codec issue anyone?).

Up next: When is Adobe going to free-up RTMP?

Mike from Adobe sent this to me the night of the press release and I must say, this is a step in the right direction for Adobe. I met Mike while in Austin, TX for the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit.

http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2008/04/licensefree_spec.html

A special thanks to Henry Kingman for all of his support. --MaryBeth

http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS9454721484.html

Open-source Flash rival "Gnashes" out
Apr. 17, 2008

A non-profit open source project with high-profile backers has released beta code for an open source Flash media player, with a media server in the wings. Open Media Now's Gnash player runs standalone or as a plugin, and may run better than Flash on constrained devices.

Open Media Now launched to boost digital freedom
By Bruce Byfield on April 03, 2008 (9:00:00 PM)

http://www.linux.com/feature/130842

The first beta release of Gnash has just been made at version
0.8.2. Gnash is a GPL'd SWF movie player and browser plugin for
Firefox, Mozilla, and Konqueror. Gnash supports many SWF v7
features and ActionScript 2 classes. with growing support for SWF v8
and v9. Gnash also runs on many GNU/Linux distributions, embedded
GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, non x86 processors, and 64 bit
architectures. Ports to Darwin and Windows are in progress for a
future release. The plugin works best with Firefox 1.0.4 or newer, and
should work in any Mozilla based browser. There is also a standalone
player for GNOME or KDE based desktops.