vnc2swf-users

[Vnc2swf-users] Support of SVG or other free formats ?

[MF <mag...@gm...>]

Hi,

I've been playing with vnc2swf for the past few days and would like to
ask if there are plans to support creating SVG files instead of SWF. I'd
like to use this in other projects where the target audience would not
have a flash player and I am concerned about the legal aspects of
reading and creating SWF files, as many may have seen in this recent
article:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/29/2339216

Regardless of what the real legal implications of the past, current and
future EULAs or other provisions may be, the mere fact that someone
using vnc2swf has to check and may be liable for potential violations of
them makes it difficult to justify producing any content in SWF format,
particularly when they're tied to corporate interests and the content
itself may not be accessible freely in the longterm. I initially
researched ways to convert to SVG but even reading SWF has legal
implications I can't accept, personally.

Perhaps this is not the place to start a huge "Flash vs. SVG" or
"Gratis, under-NDA vs. Free, Open" endless debate, but I'd like some
indication of the direction vnc2swf would have. I have  aproject in mind
where I could justify some funding to have an SVG version, is this
something others would also chip in ?

Thanks for any *constructive* discussion ;)

Cheers,

Fabian

Re: [Vnc2swf-users] Support of SVG or other free formats ?

[Yusuke S. <yu...@cs...>]

MF <mag...@gm...> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've been playing with vnc2swf for the past few days and would like to
> ask if there are plans to support creating SVG files instead of SWF. I'd
> like to use this in other projects where the target audience would not
> have a flash player and I am concerned about the legal aspects of
> reading and creating SWF files, as many may have seen in this recent
> article:
> http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/29/2339216

Yes, I've read that article, too. I agree with you in that we
could have a better open format instead of SWF. For screen
recording, however, perhaps MNG format is more appropriate,
because SVG lacks a bitmap fill support.  But MNG also lacks audio
streaming.  Currently SWF is the only format which supports both
animation and audio, but I am not a zealous advocate of this
format.  Especially I want to use OGG format instead of MP3, which
is currently impossible with SWF.

Here's an interesting comparison between SVG and SWF:

http://www.carto.net/papers/svg/comparison_flash_svg/

> Perhaps this is not the place to start a huge "Flash vs. SVG" or
> "Gratis, under-NDA vs. Free, Open" endless debate, but I'd like some
> indication of the direction vnc2swf would have. I have  aproject in mind
> where I could justify some funding to have an SVG version, is this
> something others would also chip in ?

Well, believe or not, I'm definitely pro-open or free format. And
I think adding supports for other formats to pyvnc2swf now is
relatively easy because of its nice redesign ;)
Maybe I can look into those specs this weekend, and figure out
how we could support any of them.

Yusuke