The Gnashing of teeth

“With the rise of the HTML 5 video and formats like Google’s
WebM, Flash may be on the way out. But for now, it remains the
dominant format for viewing videos on the web. Consequently, from a
desktop user’s perspective, few free software projects are as
important as a free-license Flash player. And that, in turn, is why
the announcement that GNASH .8.8 was released last week, and is
supposed to be compatible with all Youtube videos is important news
— and disappointing when it proves not to be completely true.

“Not, you understand, that I would be unduly disappointed if I
could never read the latest stupid video posted on Facebook. In
fact, in some moods, I believe that the productivity of the entire
wired world would increase several hundred percent if videos had
never come to the web.

“But videos are commonplace on the Internet, and many people
want them. And, personally, I am tired of having to choose between
the guilts of pretending to friends that I have seen their latest
link or of using the non-free Adobe Flashplayer so that I have at
least a chance of understanding what my friends who use other
operating systems are talking about.”

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