Lightspark is an LGPLv3 licensed Flash player and browser plugin written in C++/C that runs on Linux. It aims to support Adobe’s newer Flash formats and AVM2 virtual machine.

Lightspark has been released few days ago with the 0.5.7 version; this is the changelog:

Version 0.5.7:

* Fixed a few memory leaks
* Improved support for BitmapData::draw
* Support for BitmapData::copyPixels
* Support for soft masking
* Support for memory usage profiling (massif compatible)

Currently exist some bugs that prevent a correct “flash experience” in some website; they are listed below

YouTube – Partially supported
Vimeo – No supported  (817462)
Grooveshark – Almost fully supported (823340)
TED – No supported (823243)
Google maps Streetview – Partially supported (673385)
Dailymotion – No supported (653579)
BBC News – No supported (602805)
SVT Play – No supported (653579)
Slideshare – No supported (730555) moved on to html5

RPMs for Fedora

I have just compiled Lightspark-0.5.7 rpms for Fedora 17, Fedora 16 and Fedora 15. You can find them here.

- The individual development comunity has been doubled in the last three years
- The numbers show a steady increase in the number of developers contributing to each kernel release over a period of several years
- The top 30 developers have been contributed just over 20% of the total, whereof the top 10 have been contributed 9%
- An increasing number of companies are working toward the improvement of the kernel (many of them never partecipate in the development) employing kernel developers.
- The top 10 companies contributors including the group “unknown” and “none” (the corporate affiliation was obtained throught the company email addresses, sponsorship information, simply asking the developers; all others are grouped under “unknown” or “none”) make up over 60% of the total contributions to the kernel
- There is a “long tail” of over 700 companies that have made significant changes.

While in disfavour:

- Only 1/3 approximately of the developers involved contribute exactly one patch
- There is an unexpected entry that contributes with 1% of total and 688 number of changes: Microsoft. Maybe Microsoft is contributing to the kernel development to defend own affairs; really is Goliath helping David ?

Personal comment

Over again a news about Linux world like a White Paper by the Linux Foundation has been degraded by a pro-Canonical discussion. Over again Mark Shuttleworth confirm (more o less unconsciously) the ambiguity of Ubuntu Project as if the “user experience” and the “comunity concept” are conflicting, as if “leading Linux kernel efforts among the vendors that ship devices with Ubuntu” means “contribute to the improvement of Linux kernel”.

The performance’s improvements with Gnome software rendering is relevant if think that this notebook has 1024MB shared memory (256MB for the Intel 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics device) and a CPU Intel Celeron 1.30GHz.

Have fun !