As part of the Open Screen Project, Adobe has removed restrictions on the use of its SWF and FLV/F4V specifications. (In the past, they could be referenced to develop Flash encoders, not decoders. Developers of third-party players such as Swfdec and Gnash can now legally look at the specifications instead of reverse engineering.)

This means I’ve joined the 98% of Netizens with a Flash player – Swfdec, because the Adobe Flash Player is still proprietary. I’m not sure how I feel about patent-encumbered formats, so I haven’t installed the necessary codecs to get YouTube, Pandora, etc. working. (Yeah, I’ve lived without them for this long.)