https://swfdec.freedesktop.org - free flash player - not done yet.

Why write a flash player?

• I want flash to go away.
• Liberate content.

Content

• things we work on
• all the things we ever did

Content gets lost

• Discussions we forget?
• Put it on the internet? Store it locally?

Hard to access

• Content restrictions: DRM, etc
• Difficult protocols: Flash, etc
• Obsolete media: VHS tapes, etc
• Obsolete/changing file formats: game demos, firefox history, etc

Awareness. Who

• does backups?
• saves blog posts locally? (when posting to remote server)
• knows browser.history_expire_days?
• bash expiration history

Freedom vs freeness

• take the best tool of the job
• flash not free; in 5 years time you may not be able to play your old files anymore.

Awareness: We only care when we encounter problems. What is my password?

Content vs. Culture

• MPAA vs “amateurs”.
• Flash vs HTML
• .NET/Java vs JS/PHP/Python/etc
• Bytecode vs open code
• Byte code “nobody can steal my code”; open code: other people can study code.
• GPL - free user; BSD - free developer

If in doubt, fix the future.

HTML5 support for video formats.