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HTML5 Flash Player (Shumway) lands in Mozilla

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Re: HTML5 Flash Player (Shumway) lands in Mozilla

#101

Post by davexunit »

pjmlp wrote: post #89
davexunit wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is Apache v2 licensed, which means that Shumway is free software. So, if Shumway functions adequately then I imagine that the FSF will consider the task complete. Believe it or not, the FSF and the GNU project don't demand that everything be GPL licensed.

Which is great for the companies that take open source into their products and never return anything back.

I understand, which is why I personally prefer to use copyleft licenses. However, non-copyleft licenses like Apache v2 are still compatible with free software.

Re: HTML5 Flash Player (Shumway) lands in Mozilla

#102

Post by icebraining »

pjmlp wrote: post #89
davexunit wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is Apache v2 licensed, which means that Shumway is free software. So, if Shumway functions adequately then I imagine that the FSF will consider the task complete. Believe it or not, the FSF and the GNU project don't demand that everything be GPL licensed.

Which is great for the companies that take open source into their products and never return anything back.

GPL isn't about (nor does it require) licensees to contribute anything back.

Re: HTML5 Flash Player (Shumway) lands in Mozilla

#104

Post by Terretta »

willvarfar wrote: post #54

This is excellent for security. In the same way that Mozilla's PDF.js does PDF rendering in-browser and in-sandbox, doing SWF rendering in-browser and in-sandbox makes the security nightmare that is Flash go away. ADDED: Mozilla blogging about security benefits of PDF.js, which apply here too to http://andreasgal.com/2011/06/15/pdf-js/

> doing SWF rendering in-browser and in-sandbox makes the security nightmare that is Flash go away

I think it's crucial to make sure end users concerned with security understand the difference between built-in or bundled Adobe Flash Player (Google Chrome style), and what Firefox is offering.

As soon as Chrome added a built-in Flash Player, it became the preferred target for hack contests, and still falls over repeatedly: http://www.securelist.com/en/advisories/52983

> Multiple vulnerabilities have been reported in Google Chrome, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user's system. The vulnerabilities are caused due to a bundled vulnerable version of Adobe Flash Player.

That's not what Firefox is doing, and I hope the tech community helps regular users understand the difference.

Re: HTML5 Flash Player (Shumway) lands in Mozilla

#105

Post by jdangu »

robin_reala wrote: post #11
nl wrote: post #10

Is there a reason this has to be an extension? What is stopping it from being hosted on a webpage, which then loads flash files from URLs? (Background: I need a way to let thousands of flash-based educational resources be usable on an iPad)

It doesn’t have to be an extension, their demo page just loads the player as a JS file: http://mozilla.github.io/shumway/iframe/viewer.html?swf=../m...

It also works in Chrome!

Re: HTML5 Flash Player (Shumway) lands in Mozilla

#106

Post by TheEskimo »

runn1ng wrote: post #90
zeckalpha wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't GPL, so I'm assuming work will go on.

You can make "GPL version" with 1 fork though.

That is not true. The people who contributed the original Shunway code own the copyright to it. They are choosing to license it under Apache. You cannot change that since you do not own the copyright.

They may choose to "relicense" it under GPL if all the contributed agree.

What you suggest cannot legally be done. However, Apache is GPL compatible, so it can still be used in a GPL project, though its license will not change.

IANAL

Re: HTML5 Flash Player (Shumway) lands in Mozilla

#107

Post by robmcm »

Anonmattymous wrote: post #99
Tloewald wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring flash does an even better job.

Agreed, I feel like by building things like this it just hampers all the work that is being built to replace flash. The best way to change things is to make it so that learning HTML5 and JavaScript becomes worth it, and that is easily done by just not supporting flash.

I think this is aimed at legacy support, I don't think anyone would target this as a supported runtime.

Ironically most of the useful flash applications/games etc wouldn't run on these runtimes as they are using features not supported in HTML5. This sort of thing works best for crappy adverts and banners, which no one really wants anyway. This is highlighted by the fact the big competitor (Gordon?) is developed by the Google ad sense team ;)

Re: HTML5 Flash Player (Shumway) lands in Mozilla

#108

Post by Bill_Dimm »

broodbucket wrote: post #70
chrismonsanto wrote: post #55

Does this mean the FSF can cross off 'free flash player' from their high priority list? What will happen to Gnash?

I'm guessing something like HURD, some people will still work on it but it won't be the focus of anything. I haven't had any success with Gnash, it can (choppily) play YouTube (which now has HTML5) and nothing else worked.

YouTube (which now has HTML5)

Sadly, YouTube videos that have embedded ads seem to be Flash-only.

Re: HTML5 Flash Player (Shumway) lands in Mozilla

#109

Post by potatolicious »

nfoz wrote: post #96
willvarfar wrote: post #54

This is excellent for security. In the same way that Mozilla's PDF.js does PDF rendering in-browser and in-sandbox, doing SWF rendering in-browser and in-sandbox makes the security nightmare that is Flash go away. ADDED: Mozilla blogging about security benefits of PDF.js, which apply here too to http://andreasgal.com/2011/06/15/pdf-js/

Flash is awful, but Firefox and the other browsers don't exactly have a great track record on security either. The less code and business built-in to the browser, the better its security.

Flash's security track record is still far, far behind Mozilla's. There aren't that many runtimes in the world that find themselves in a position to be constantly scrambling to patch egregious 0-day exploits, but somehow Flash managers.

Firefox is to Flash like a solid wooden door is to a screen door.

Even if it isn't bulletproof, it's still a huge improvement over the status quo.

And keep in mind this solution precisely fits your desires: "less code and business built-in to the browser". This Flash player runs directly on top of the existing sandbox and does not create yet-another-special-case-for-native-code. It introduces little to no additional attack surface area.

Re: HTML5 Flash Player (Shumway) lands in Mozilla

#110

Post by _delirium »

TheEskimo wrote: post #106
runn1ng wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can make "GPL version" with 1 fork though.

That is not true. The people who contributed the original Shunway code own the copyright to it. They are choosing to license it under Apache. You cannot change that since you do not own the copyright. They may choose to "relicense" it under GPL if all the contributed agree. What you suggest cannot legally be done. However, Apache is GPL compatible, so it can still be used in a GPL project, though its license will not…

It's shorthand for an end result that is in practice similar. If I fork the project, add new features, and license my new code under the GPL, a user of the forked version needs to abide by the copyleft provisions. They could, of course, continue to use the original Apache v2 code without my GPL'd additions, on a non-copyleft basis, since I cannot relicense the existing code.
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