[thelist] IE6 & Apple's QuickTime ActiveX for video on x-platform CD-Roms

[John Dowdell]

At 7:55 AM 10/11/1, George Dillon wrote:
> Is it possible/ethical/legal to distribute someone else's ActiveX
> control - specifically can I put the QuickTime activeX installer on
> a CD?

If you'll be making a CD which uses QuickTime, then you'd likely need the
whole QuickTime installer on there too... the browser shim isn't the only
part of the problem! Here's the main link:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/legal/

I believe that the current installer set includes installation of the
ActiveX shim into IE/Win, so you'd be set.

The people who would not be automatically accommodated by this would be
those who: (a) use IE5.5sp2/Win or IE6/Win; (b) have already installed a
recent version of QuickTime on their system; and (c) who never visit
websites which have QuickTime content. For these folks a line in the ReadMe
can help... could be as simple as "if you don't see the videos, then run
the QT installer", this would handle those cases.

By the way, if you'll be going with browser-based QuickTime then the new
OBJECT can actually help... where the EMBED tag specifies a MIME type to
find any installed player which can handle this content, the OBJECT tag
actually specifies a player rather than a media type, so you won't have
problems like Windows Media Player hijacking QuickTime files.

(For the question in the quote, no, it's not good to distribute someone
else's software without their consent, but there should be a ready way to
achieve the same end goal regardless.)

jd






John Dowdell, Macromedia Tech Support, San Francisco CA US
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