A couple of years ago there were several reports of Gnash being ported to Haiku. Since it's been silent about Gnash for 1,5 years now, I'd like to know how the port is going, and if a bounty would help getting it done.

http://joomla.iscomputeron.com/index.php? option=com_content&task=view&id=809&Itemid=5

http://joomla.iscomputeron.com/index.php? option=com_content&task=view&id=924&Itemid=2

http://joomla.iscomputeron.com/index.php? option=com_content&task=view&id=935&Itemid=5

Post edited by: anders, at: 2008/04/29 13:49

Post edited by: anders, at: 2008/04/29 13:50

Post edited by: anders, at: 2008/04/29 13:52

Good question, I have no idea what's going on with that. I think Michael and most of the devs at Haiku have prioritized work on Haiku and left their other projects stagnant for the time being. I wonder if he'd be open to/or has committed his sources back to the gnash project so someone else could take it up. From what I've read though, gnash compatibility with flash is pretty limited. Well, someone should ask Michael what's up!

karl wrote:
"From what I've read though, gnash compatibility with flash is pretty limited."

Gnash supports flv pretty well (the flash video format), which is probably the most important, since it would make sites like youtube work.

"Well, someone should ask Michael what's up!"
Where can I reach him?

Post edited by: anders, at: 2008/04/29 15:16

here you go:

http://contact.mlotz.ch/

let us know what he says!

Got this reply from Michael:

Hi there!

> I'd like to ask how the Haiku Gnash port is proceeding? I'ts been discussed
> here: http://www.haikuware.com/forum/bounty-discussion/ 284-gnash-port

Well. In fact I have completely given up on Gnash for some reasons. First of
all their source is a mess. It combines numerous different libraries/sources
that were slapped together so they more or less work. This makes it hard to
get into Gnash. Then the sources are in flux pretty much all the time, which
makes it hard to keep any porting effort reasonably up to date.

Then the people involved in Gnash did apparently (can't really understand why)
set their roadmap to subsequently use the boost templates and libraries
(http://www.boost.org/) to replace as much as possible of the stuff that was
previously done internally or using more portable means. While this might be
for the better in some cases, it brings a _huge_ dependency. A dependency that
BeOS cannot and probably will never be able to meet. This is simply due to
being GCC2 only and missing numerous POSIX APIs. The boost libraries are
pretty complex and it would be a hopeless effort to try to get an up to date
BeOS port done with GCC2. Haiku will be able to "host" boost at some point in
the future, but it will certainly be GCC4 only and it will require quite a lot
of work probably. I have in fact reimplemented quite a bit of the boost
functionality just to keep the port working, but it is a loosing battle and
not very satisfactory. Then at some point I just gave up on it after another
major source change in favor of boost.

> I'd consider starting a bounty if that would help and speed things up.

So you see, there are enough problems (starting from coding style / design
philosophy up to dependency problems) which are big enough to completely stall
the port. A bounty would therefore not really help. In fact I'd suggest not
betting on Gnash, but on another project instead. One that does not come with
such a hurried together design. Maybe looking at swfdec would be the better
option, but I have not looked into it more than checking out its dependencies
(there are a few of course, so it might be just as difficult).

If someone would really want to get going with Gnash, he/she should first set
up the dependencies. If this works out, I will gladly provide my native BeOS
audio/video/graphics backend (which has an interface that is now probably
completely outdated and therefore unusable as is anyway). But before getting
to that point, I don't really see the point in digging out the sources.

I'm sorry to say it that way, but this is pretty much how I feel about it.
Hope you (and others) can understand that. Feel free to share this info as
necessary.

Regards
Michael

ahh that sucks but I can see his reasoning

Maybe someday it will get picked up again.