[LINK] Australian Web history

[Stilgherrian]

On 11/08/2009, at 10:55 AM, Roger Clarke wrote:
> But my point here is that a history of the Web should logically use
> the protocols and standards that *are* the Web, and not depend on
> proprietary add-ons and thereby block access to a significant
> proportion of users.

Indeed... but I reckon Flash is sufficiently widely-deployed in  
browsers, free to use, and widely known by designers that it's a  
reasonable tool to choose for this purpose. I'm even tempted to say  
that it's a de facto standard now -- though Silverlight-toting  
colleagues over at Microsoft may beg to differ.

At the risk of encouraging various people to repeat their woft- 
repeated series of heels-dug-in ideological position statements...  
while Flash is indeed proprietary, that doesn't make it necessarily  
evil.

I suspect that the proportion of people choosing not to use Flash  
would be rather small these days.

Whether Flash is used well etc is another whole issue, of course.

I would never call you a curmudgeon, Roger. ;)

Stil


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