Re: [chat] Word to yo' mother! (IBM)

[Mike MacCana <mikem@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> This one time, at band camp, invisible ink wrote:
> >Join us now!
> >
> >  http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/linux/fun/

> If they're so hip and Open and Free, then why are these 
> flash animations and not plain old mpegs?

Reasons I can think of:
1) SWF is more of an open file format than MPEG, and which (especially
in later versions) often requires royalties to the Motion Picture
Experts Group. SWF 4 (and I think 5) has publically available specs
avliable free of charge for anyone to use royalty free.

2) Part if using Linux is using the best tool for the job (that's the
*only* reason I use Linux. For vector graphics, use a vector graphic
format. Animated SVG is the only other file format which would make
sense here, but it isn't a) finished b) supported by most web browsers.

3) Another part of Linux philosophy is keeping content seperate from
presentation (okay, there's the giant `text processing' fuckup, but I
can forgive that. Keeping the film independent from screen resolutions
is good. MPEG can't do that very well.

Mike