So here’s a small update to last week’s Swfdec
Youtube post. I’ve spent most of the time on the awesome
IRC feedback that I got. Thanks everyone. Here’s some
answers to the most common questions I got:

Swfdec plays Youtube. Now what does that
mean?
It means that when you grab the Swfdec library and the
swfdec-mozilla package out of git and manage to install it
correctly, you will be able to go to any Youtube video site
and have it play back the videos in your browser. The
buttons don’t work yet and it certainly doesn’t behave 100%
like the Adobe plugin, but it certainly plays the videos.

OMG, swfdec doesn’t work on 64bit machines!
OMG, it does! Since I posted the last entry, I’ve got lots
of offers for remote access to 64bit machines and spent the
last hours making sure it compiles and passes the testsuite.
Of course I have no 64bit machine and until 3 hours ago
didn’t know most of the things I’d need to look for, so
expect some bugs being left. Please test if you’re on 64bit
and if you find crashers, file bugs.

Where’s the release?
I intend to do a release soon, but I’d like to have a
working pause button and slider in Youtube. I’m hoping for a
release at the end of this week. For now, use git.

How close is Swfdec to being a complete Adobe Flash
replacement
That really depends on your definition of close. For the
definition “implements all of Flash’s features” it’ll
probably not hit 5%. For the definition of “plays all the
Flash files on the Web” I think it’s 80/20 right now. Swfdec
plays 80% of the ads and 20% of the real content. And no,
that wasn’t on purpose. I’ve been following a simple rule
for what to implement: I take an interesting flash file and
make it work correctly. So if there’s any Flash files that I
might find interesting and that you want to have working in
Swfdec, don’t hesitate to contact me with URLs to those
files. I’m always looking for cool Flash files.

What can be expected from Swfdec in the
future?
I have no idea. I’m looking for a job at the moment and
since that job will most likely not be me hacking on Swfdec
fulltime, expect the Swfdec development to slow down in the
future. However, it only took me half a year to get Youtube
working and Youtube is already quite complicated. So in
short: I have no idea.