Re: [Fsfe-uk] BBC digital curriculum service in England

[MJ Ray]

On 2004-10-13 10:52:31 +0100 Alex Hudson <address@hidden> wrote:

> Depends whether you're looking at home users, business users, 
> European,
> etc. Macromedia's NPD survey says 98.3% across European users.

I think the NPD survey is the one at 
http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/flashplayer/ but 
where are the quoted European results and methodology?

> Commercial experience bears that out; I don't think you'll find anyone
> seriously disputing Flash's installed base.

That's certainly far higher than I would expect from experiences 
around here. Even so, I expect Flash player is less common than 
average among those I know commercially for three reasons: 
higher-than-average GNU/Linux use - flash still brittle and not 
required for most tasks; more education and conservative commercial 
users than average - extensions disabled for security; older systems 
than average - extensions disabled for performance.

> > I'm aware SMIL is a few years behind in terms of installations and 
> > applications, but they're not show-stoppers for a long-term 
> > direction. How 
> > isn't it as capable?
> SMIL isn't even close to the same feature set.
> [...] It's a completely different kettle of fish to Flash (if it was
> competitive, Flash player certainly wouldn't support it). [...]

I'm puzzled by this bracketed comment. Does Flash player support SMIL? 
If so, isn't its installed base at least as big as that of Flash 
player?

> SMIL doesn't specify content encoding either, as far as I know. [...]

No, but it looks like alternatives can be given, although I know that 
means multiple encoding until the best codec set wins.

> The major problem, though, isn't really the technology per se; it's 
> the
> authoring tools. Web animators are used to using Flash director in the
> same way they're used to using Photoshop.

Three approaches, I guess:
1. file format conversion - are there any already?
2. develop new authoring tools - the GIMP problem of user inertia for 
existing users
3. persuade "Flash director" to support standard formats - seems 
unlikely

As far as I can tell, we're best to encourage some combination of 1 
and 2.

--
MJR/slef    My Opinion Only and not of any group I know
 Creative copyleft computing - http://www.ttllp.co.uk/
Speaking at ESF on Sat 16 Oct - http://www.affs.org.uk/