Open source Flash player coming soon

The GNU project has announced the development of Gnash, an open source player of ubicuous Macromedia Flash presentations and applications.

Currently the Flash Player is distributed by Macromedia as a free download but due to distribution restrictions it can’t be bundled with open source applications like Mozilla Firefox.

Gnash will be available as a stand alone application and as a Mozilla plugin (like Flash Player) available for Firefox, Camino, Netscape, Flock and other Gecko-based browsers. When released it could be possible for Mozilla to bundle it with Firefox and provide Flash support out of the box.