But do they have a modern version of Flash?

This is pretty impressive if true:

flash penetration

Quote: Original post by Sneftel
Honestly, I don't know that an inability or unwillingness to install software characterizes a large segment of the population. It's also technically infeasible, unless you think that installing Flash or Silverlight shouldn't "count" in the you-can't-install-anything game.

There are many legitimate reasons to prefer browser-based software over offline installations: you might be using a computer where you don't have admin rights (an internet cafe, a friend's house); you might be using an uncommon operating system (how many people test and release offline software for Linux?); it is often easier to write cross-platform software that runs on the browser (or flash) than offline - even with stuff like Mono/.Net in the mix.

@capn_midnight: ouch, that hit closer to home than I'd like. Although, to be honest, the performance of flash is more an indication of Adobe's skills as a software developer than Linux, Mac OS X and Windows (and that's not taking into account its mobile versions). It also offers installers for 9 different distributions (and a large number of versions of each distribution), plus a generic archive - goes to show how properly managed software can overcome the difficulties of the Linux platform.

Quote: Original post by AndreTheGiant
This is pretty impressive if true:

flash penetration

I'm suspicious of their figures for v9, and v10 especially. I don't think many sites require Flash 10 and that's the main reason people upgrade, when a site says "you need a new version".

I'd expect the sites like YouTube to drive the adoption of Flash, but I can't find any information on what versions they require.

Quote: Original post by Fiddler
how many people test and release offline software for Linux?

Debian for an instance consists of more than 25,000 [optional] software packages of all sorts, which have been written, tested and released. Debian itself has a few hundred contributors and volunteers.

If you browse through sourceforge or ohloh, you'll recognize that there is a bazillion of softwares for Linux.

Quote: Original post by Fiddler
There are many legitimate reasons to prefer browser-based software over offline installations: you might be using a computer where you don't have admin rights (an internet cafe, a friend's house); you might be using an uncommon operating system (how many people test and release offline software for Linux?); it is often easier to write cross-platform software that runs on the browser (or flash) than offline - even with stuff like Mono/.Net in the mix.

All of which comes to a very small segment of the video-chatting population.

Quote: Original post by Sneftel
All of which comes to a very small segment of the video-chatting population.

At some point webmail wasn't very popular either, but nowadays it is inconceivable to offer email without a web interface.

Quote: Original post by phresnel

Quote: Original post by Fiddler
how many people test and release offline software for Linux?

Debian for an instance consists of more than 25,000 [optional] software packages of all sorts, which have been written, tested and released. Debian itself has a few hundred contributors and volunteers.

Yeah, yeah and windows has a few million [optional] software packages of all sorts, which have been written, tested (or not) and released. As a Linux user and developer, I am well aware of the situation. :)

Truth is, noone(*) is releasing commercial software for Linux. Everyone is targeting Windows first, handhelds second, Mac OS X third and leave Linux as a distant afterthought, if that. At least browser-based software has a higher chance of working on Linux out of the box and that's a good thing in my book.

(*) exceptions under the noise threshold.

[Edited by - Fiddler on August 19, 2009 2:30:50 AM]

Quote: Original post by Fiddler
windows has a few million [optional] software packages of all sorts,

We are exaggerating, but Linux has as well (have you even bothered to look at the links I wrote down?), but there is a difference between

Quote: Original post by Fiddler - 8/18/2009 6:30:17 PM
which have been written, tested (or not) and released.

and

Quote: Original post by Fiddler - 8/18/2009 3:31:26 AM
how many people test and release offline software for Linux?

. And because you intially mentioned the latter, I only referred to Debian, which has stringent constraints and throrough tests on accepted packages.

Quote: Truth is, noone(*) is releasing commercial software for Linux. [...]
(*) exceptions under the noise threshold.

Underlined part was missing in original statement, untrue part striked through (truth != belief; to know != to be sure; no common definition of noise treshold). I would prefer "there are less vendors of commercial software for Linux than there are for Windows", as Sun, Intel, IBM, Suse, Alias/Wavefront, Softimage, Zend, SAS, Wolfram, PleskParallels, Symantec, VMware, Fujitsu, SGI, Marvell, Hewlett Packard, AMD, Google, Nokia, MIPS, Oracle, and a lot of others are not quite "noone" [0][1][2].

[0]: List of commercial Linux applications
[1]: Another list, Anno Domini 1999
[2]: Who writes Linux, Aug 2009


edit: add [2]

[Edited by - phresnel on August 20, 2009 5:59:05 AM]

Thanks to everyone for their opinions.

I want to make a website where a user can easily make a video chat session using their account/profile and has the ability to save their friends account in a "buddy list". So then they can just log in and see which of their contacts is online and they could video chat (or just voice chat) by clicking on their name... all within a browser.

I also want the user to be able to video conference with multiple people in a "video chat room" that would be created with a few clicks in the browser.

I think this would have potential for people that need to video conference quickly and easily.

The video chat component would use Flash, Silverlight, Java, I don't really know what would be best.... but it would have to be something that's widely installed.

I want to know if you think this website would have potential or not, or does this kind of thing already exist?

I'm not worried about what OS is used... I would target primarily the Internet Explorer / Firefox and Windows platform since that's what most professionals use these days (but a lot use Linux as a development workstation)

An example of a website that does something that I'm talking about is http://tinychat.com/... but it doesn't have a professional feel to it... and it doesn't have a profile/buddy-list system...

It is simple to use, and you can invite someone to your chat session by simply directing them to the URL of the chatroom.... it does use Flash