Ok only the closed source binary having to use it not great solution.

Silverlight/.Net there is no open statement for anyone deciding to duplicate to current day version. Only statement on .Net stops at out dated ECMA defines. Don’t throw stones unless your house is in order.

Flash clones are not good enough yet but they can be legally made all the approvals for that exist. There are some video codec issues with patents but we do know exactly were we stand on all format flash uses.

Now this review of yours could have gone a bit deeper and found out what video codec the sites were using and if that was the reason play back would not work.

Find me the statement from MS like Adobe on SWF and FLV laying out protection for ever from thier designed stuff. Of course we cannot expect Adobe to license over stuff they don’t own.

At least the Adobe docs on the formats tell you want you can and cannot use completely.

Lots of development on mono or silverlight is a hot foot waiting to happen until we have that information. People can only choose there path truly if they have correct information.

So there is a bus stop full of mechanics, but they still choose the working bus instead of fixing the broken one.