[pkg-mt-om-devel] [openmelody] Re: Unable to run on Ubuntu 10.04

[Timothy Appnel]

On Sun, Oct 10, 2010 at 7:50 AM, Adam Guthrie <asguthrie at gmail.com> wrote:
> Would OpenMelody be interested in a fixing this flash licensing issue so a
> patched version isn't required for Debian?

Yes, we would. Supporting repository distributions like Debian is
paramount to us.

Here is a ticket I created and started researching to resolve this
issue for OpenMelody:

https://openmelody.lighthouseapp.com/projects/26604/tickets/359-dashboard-flash-widget-must-be-replaced-or-removed-to-comply-with-gpl-distribution-requirements

> As I understand it a summary is:
> - OpenMelody currently ships with compiled flash files without source.
> - The source of one of these isn't under a license deemed `free` by Debian.
> - The source can't be compiled using `free` tools so this isn't conducive to
> open source changes.

Correct.

> Are these flash files still going to be required after the UI re-design
> anyway?

Let me make a call and say "no way." If we do anything like that
widget we'd look at using open standards -- SVG, JavaScript, CSS
whatever. No Flash. (Sorry Adobe.)

Here is where I am at on this on this.

That dashboard widget creates XML files in the /mt-static/support
directory. I'm not fond of that whole process, but it could be
workable for now. While flot and jQuery are the most likely candidates
to replace the flash widget, its going to take a a fair bit of work
and testing to implement. I question how much value there really is to
that widget as it is and if it doesn't need a rethink. Probably the
whole Dashboard does really.

So for the purpose of 1.0, I'm thinking remove the Flash widget and
that display entirely on a temporary basis and leaving everything else
as is. Well... except for the MT welcome message that Byrne has opened
a ticket to change. That one is sort of a no-brainer.

Eventually we'd return to that sooner rather than later to clear up.

<tim/>

-- 
Timothy Appnel
Principal, The Appnel Group, http://appnel.com/
Director, Open Melody Software Group, http://openmelody.org

See me on CNN Money: http://is.gd/d90vp