Interview with Richard Stallman: Four Essential Freedoms

URL:
http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2007-12-20-015-26-IN-CY-DV
Datamation: "The following Q & A explores the goals of free software,
progress that has been made, and ways to maintain or instill freedom in
software that we use..."

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Um trecho que destaco (ele podia além disso, ter dito que a
dependência da Adobe é tão grande que só ela decide quando um usuário
de 64 bits poderá ter um plugin 64 bits...):

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Q: What about Adobe Flash and its equivalent viewers, such as Gnash,
which is Free software?

RMS: Flash illustrates the problems that arise when web sites use
nonstandard proprietary formats. I am glad that Gnash, our free Flash
player, is making progress, but we had to wait years for this.

People who don't value their freedom are likely to lose it. This is
just as true in computing as in other areas of life, and Flash is an
example. Flash is inherently a problem because it requires a non-free
plug-in. But how did the problem grow to a significant size? This
happened because many web users installed the Flash plug-in without
first checking whether it was free software. Their foolish disregard
for their own freedom made them vulnerable.

The development of Gnash means we may be able to put an end to this
particular outbreak of non-freedom. But if people don't learn to stop
installing non-free plug-ins, the web will be vulnerable to other
outbreaks in the future. It is a lot less work to avoid these problems
than to fix them. We need to teach people to refuse to install non-free
plug-ins; we need to teach people to care more about their long-term
interest of freedom than their immediate desire to view a particular
site.

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Lembro quando o Flash era usado por poucos sites e para um uso
simples como um menu ou algo bobo. Daí começaram a fazer banners e
depois vídeos e aí chegamos onde chegamos... Hoje é impossível acessar
diversos sites sem Flash.