[thelist] pixel perfect requirements and web standards

[Shawn K. Quinn]

On Mon, 2005-06-06 at 23:26 +1000, Robert Gormley wrote:
> Shawn K. Quinn wrote:
> 
> >Either way, you're working against the strengths of the World Wide Web
> >as a medium. Images will invariably be too small for some, too large for
> >others. Flash has this problem, in addition to the problem of the
> >plug-in: it's non-free software and only available for the operating
> >systems Macromedia (Adobe?) chooses to compile it for.

> I'm not entirely sure what relevance the availability of the authoring
> package has to anything. After all, GIF isn't free either. It doesn't
> change the core issue.

True, but you don't have to use GIF in order to put images on the Web in
modern times. The void left by Unisys asserting its LZW patent was
problematic for a time, but that's why we have PNG now (and IMO of
course, PNG is a much better standard than GIF could ever have been).

> Flash is available for Windows MacOS, Linux/BSD (x86),
> Pocket PC, OS/2, Solaris, HP-UX, and SGI IRIX. In these days of
> homogenity, that's a decent effort.

Which BSDs specifically? I only know of a native GNU/Linux plug-in and
no end of problems running it under FreeBSD. Is there in fact a *native*
FreeBSD plug-in? (note: *not* running the GNU/Linux plug-in under
FreeBSD's Linux emulation)

Also, I don't think the latest Flash plug-in is available for some of
those, and some sites insist upon the latest plug-in.

> I know of many free software packages that have less support - try compiling 
> Gnome/GTK for HP/UX and see how much of a struggle it is.

With free software, you *can* make the changes to the source code
required to get it running under HP/UX if needed. With binary-only
software, you are pretty much limited to e-mailing the source and asking
them for help getting it working.

-- 
Shawn K. Quinn <skquinn at speakeasy.net>