Cannot use Adobe Flash for class anymore

15 réponses [Dernière contribution]
anonymous

Hello all. Long story short, my university mathematics course requires the usage of Adobe Flash to access the online homework. The problem is (obviously) Adobe Flash is proprietary and the Gnash and Lightspark plug-ins don't seem to be working. Anyone have any experience in this sort of situation?

kyamashita (non vérifié)

I just saw that onpon4 had almost the exact same problem about 3 years ago...

EDIT: not sure how things turned out... I hope onpon4 sees this!

onpon4
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 05/30/2012

I was completely unsuccessful. My professor was stubborn, and wouldn't let me do my homework on paper because it would be "hard" for him to allow me to do so, and because he knew that I had the ability to run Flash and do the homework online. In the end, I dropped out of university after that semester, though this decision was mainly because of the huge cost of taking classes and the nature of student loans; I don't think I will benefit enough from a degree to make the massive inescapable debt worthwhile, and there's nothing in particular I want to learn at a university. (Ironically, it was one of my classes at the university that made me think about the inescapable debt problem, and that was incidentally the only class I liked.)

My primary recommendation based on this experience would be to show your professor that you're committed to your refusal to use proprietary software by either not doing your homework (if you can't even see the problems; that might be the case, it was for me unless I ran proprietary JavaScript and used Gnash to trick the website into thinking I had Flash); or, if you can, doing the homework on paper and showing it to him. If he is as stubborn as mine was and just won't let you do the homework on paper, plan to re-take the course next semester, and start by talking to other professors who teach the course right now and finding one who would be willing to let you do the homework without running proprietary software. Negotiating before enrolling in the class will probably give you better success than negotiating in the middle of the course.

Another minor suggestion: say "libre" rather than "free". I find that people understand "libre" better and with far less explanation, because they don't wrongly think they know what I'm talking about in advance.

GNUser
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 07/17/2013

That's a fucked up situation... While in terms of "watching video" we already have html5 replacing flash, when it comes to websites built with flash it is a different story.
I can't really help you, but hope someone will be able to.

Wish you the best.

kyamashita (non vérifié)

Thank you. I just finished reading the Adobe Personal Computer Software License Agreement and I've already violated a number of subsections of the agreement just from using Adobe Flash as a child. So I cannot lawfully (nor do I wish to) use Adobe Flash any more.

onpon4
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 05/30/2012

At least in the U.S., you can't be legally bound by contracts when you're a minor, although you can still sign them. So if you are in the U.S. (I don't know if you are or not), any violation you might have made during that time, or even after that time until you re-signed the EULA as an adult, cannot be held against you.

kyamashita (non vérifié)

Adobe explicitly says in the license that if I don't agree to their terms, I cannot Use the Software. If I use the software while disagreeing, I'm violating their license agreement. Perhaps I could pose this as a legal inability to run the software in addition to a strong avoidance of it.

onpon4
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 05/30/2012

In the U.S., minors can agree to contracts, and the other party is still bound to the terms; it's just the minor who is not bound by the terms. So when a minor signs Flash's EULA, they effectively get the license grant without the restrictions. Of course, this can be inapplicable to you depending on where you live.

Another thing, though, is I don't think most copyright systems give Adobe the power to prevent people who don't agree to the license from using the software. At the very least, I don't think the copyright system in the U.S. grants that power to them. (Some copyright systems apparently do, but I get the impression it's a small number of them.)

lembas
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 05/13/2010

I'd say take the non-technical approach. Talk to your professor and explain your position. This will help not only you but everybody who comes after you. And in the end it might be the only way.

amenex
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 01/03/2015

The good news here is that kyamashita can at least still do the math problems without using Flash. If another proprietary program was being used to create content that is only "true" within its own universe, then the only excuse the university would have is that it is teaching within that proprietary universe. In kyamashita's university class, the proprietary S/W is being used to limit access and to exclude a class of different "believers." The U.S.A. constitution does not allow that. GNU/linux has its own universe too, but the basis for that universe is available to all without restriction. That's what this professor needs to learn.

Is Adobe Flash content convertible to Portable Document Format ? Can the math problems _only_ be posed in a moving picture format ? Are our speaking and written languages so obsolete that a new and secret language is needed for conveying ideas ? If the professor's mathematics is only describable in Adobe Flash, then perhaps that is the only environment in which it works.

The professor's course is mislabeled ... Isn't it "Intermediate Flash" and not "Intermediate Vector Graphics" ?

I took a course called "Advanced Calculus for Engineers" which consisted entirely of integrating complex differential equations, namely problems containing singularities that involved the square root of negative unity, an imaginary quantity. In spite of that, all the math problems that we did in that course had real answers that worked in a real universe. The instructor was excellent, there was no secret handshake, and the steps in all the problems were real and could be written on the chalkboard without any knowing winks or handwaving. Even though our verbal descriptions of each problem appeared to reach to plus and minus infinity (i.e., the dreaded singularity) the solution revealed that such singularities are of no consequence and exist only in our minds. The mathematics succeeded in banishing the imaginary impossible conditions.

kyamashita (non vérifié)

Actually with Gnash and proprietary Javascript the page just loads with *no* content on it. I can still do the written homework, though there is compromise there as well. The "official" e-book for the course uses Wolfram's proprietary Computable Document Format, but I've been using the HTML fallback that they offer (with proprietary Javascript).

"If the professor's mathematics is only describable in Adobe Flash, then perhaps that is the only environment in which it works."

Well, I assume the vendor only uses Adobe Flash so they can allow the answers to be "pretty-printed." It's a terrible reason to perpetuate such horrible software, especially in the face of modern technology like MathJax. Honestly, paper and pen is much easier to use for mathematics than their bad interface anyway.

Tirifto
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 02/19/2015

Well, that's certainly an unpleasant situation. Others already gave some good advice on here, so I'll just wish you good luck!

As for the technical side of things, you might want to try Shumway: https://mozilla.github.io/shumway/
Shumway is an experimental add-on for Firefox, developed by Mozilla, which should translate Flash into HTML5 on the run, or some such. In my experience, it has often been lacking, but it worked better than Gnash or Lightspark did, so certainly do give it a try!

I'm not sure if it works well with Gnash and Lightspark around. I had some issues with newer versions of Shumway and Iceweasel, that is, it only worked with direct links to the .swf files. But there's a #shumway channel on irc.mozilla.org, so you can find support there if you experience issues like that.

Run GNU, run free!

kyamashita (non vérifié)

The website does not recognize any Flash player when I have Shumway installed. I'll just write a letter to the professor and hope for the best. Thanks for the recommendation, though. I'd almost forgotten about Shumway.

kyamashita (non vérifié)

UPDATE:
So it seems like there is no way out of this situtation if I am to complete this mathematics course. Either I run Adobe Flash on the library computers or I fail the course due to zeroes on homework... On the good side, the department chair is aware of free software and uses it only when they feel that they must.

JadedCtrl
Hors ligne
A rejoint: 08/11/2014

I'm sorry, kya. ;c
Sometimes, there really isn't a way around things like this.
You're education is more important.
(Maybe using a library computer for HW is an option, though...?)

kyamashita (non vérifié)

Library computer or liveCD that lives in RAM is the path I plan to take. This problem is more than just a matter free software, though.