React
You can use this post to leave comments and reactions to the petition or the idea to open-source Flash Player in itself.
All opinions and ideas are welcome!
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19 Responses to “React”
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Open Source Flash Player Petition
A petition to ask Adobe to open the Flash Player source code
About this Entry
React was posted on
News feed
- React February 5, 2010
- Website opened February 2, 2010
Links
- A Letter to Adobe Flash: At Least Consider Open Source
- Adobe, HTML5 Standards Blocking, and the evil of the private backroom
- Apple: iPhone OS supports open standards; Flash is closed
- Can Flash be saved by Scobleizer
- What if Flash were an open standard? by Dave Winer
- What Would An Open Flash Look Like? by Alex Bustin
- Why Flash Dissatisfies Me, and What Adobe Can Do About it
- ZDNet : Will the Google-Adobe alliance benefit open source?
- [FR] Une pétition pour rendre Flash open-source
February 5th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Hi, you’re aware that SWF is as “open” as HTML, right? Both are published file formats which anyone can implement. It’s easy to argue that Adobe is more “open” than the WhatWG’s “HTML5″ process has been.
The runtime engines for HTML or SWF have various degrees of “openness”… Adobe gave the logic engine to Firefox to speed up their JavaScript, etc.
Here’s more on the history:
http://blogs.adobe.com/jd/2009/07/opening_the_flash_file_format.html
Can you be more specific about exactly what you hope to see, to do, to achieve?
tx, jd/adobe
February 5th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
Hi John, I’m aware that SWF is an open format . As a developer I really appreciate the effort Adobe made on opening it and publishing specification of RTMP, AMF, FLV. I also know they created open source projects like Flex SDK, BlazeDS, or Tamarin. I often relay those informations on the Internet and in my professional environment. Each time my audience is half surprised and seduced by this.
It’s why today, what we ask is to open-source parts of the Flash Player itself (those which can be open-sourced) to be able to better integrate it with current browsers, platforms and devices. I’m pretty sure that some really influential actors, all currently at W3C, can’t miss that Flash could be part of the open-web and be highly promoted by actively participating to it instead of being criticized for its closeness.
More and more people talk about something where ActionScript could be the low-level programming language in this open-sourced environment and JavaScript the higher-level language needed to orchestrate behavior of the webpage.
Open-sourcing Flash Player could offer Mozilla or Webkit a way to considerate Flash as a legitimate plug-in and open the DOM between the browser and the player. Possibilities offered by this integration are near infinite.
One example, I extract from your article “Troubleshooting Player stability and performance” http://blogs.adobe.com/jd/2010/02/troubleshooting_player_stabili.html, the wmode problem could probably be fixed everywhere instantaneously with a browser update as it relies on the way plug-ins are managed today by browsers. We all know this is the main CPU power consumption source in mobile devices with multi-task support.
So here, we’re not just talking about opening a format but really the player itself. And I understand that if it’s a major move for the web, it’s a tremendous hard work for the whole Adobe teams working on the Flash Player platform. But please considerate it as one of the good solutions for Adobe to promote Flash Player on the web, mobile and every new devices that emerges day after day.
February 7th, 2010 at 12:52 am
I’m concerned that if the player were open that it would result in a great multiplicity of players, just like with Linux. If not, it would at least result in per-browser versions. This would make companies have to develop to a certain version/browser, or make versions of their apps for each, just as JavaScript apps have to. One of the key selling points of the Flash Player is that it works virtually the same on every browser and OS. As soon as there is more than one version of the player, that benefit is lost.
February 7th, 2010 at 2:06 am
“what we ask is to open-source parts of the Flash Player itself (those which can be open-sourced) to be able to better integrate it with current browsers, platforms and devices.”
Thanks, I think we’re in agreement on that one.
(I’m not sure about the WMODE issue though… that seems to me an authoring issue, and not something that browser vendors could change save by removing that hard-won ability…?)
jd/adobe
February 7th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Philip, don’t you think that it could actually be worst if Apple take the current buzz opportunity to announce their own limited version of the Flash Player? They have developers, they have money, it is something I can see happening really seriously.
Adobe is a huge corporation, they have their own seats at W3C, they have legal and marketing services to find agreement on the future development of an open sourced Flash Player with all others great market actors as Microsoft, Mozilla, Google and even Apple all at W3C : http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List.
Imagine if we integrate Flash as a component of the HTML5 specification. HTML5 could add a profile attribute to say an <animation /> tag. Take this as an example, not a possible implementation, but something that enables to choose between <animation profile=”low-end” /> or <animation profile=”high-end” />. Profiles could be defined in a whitepaper with all restrictions, like possible framerate, authorized actions, graphics etc… What Apple could say to that if they have a Flash Player made to adapts itself to a range of devices like theirs?
February 28th, 2010 at 12:46 am
Saunier,
If Apple makes their own version, then at least the multiplicity will only be 2 total, rather than over a dozen. And they probably won’t even, because it would be quite an uphill struggle, similar to Silverlight’s fight.
Adobe will adapt the Flash Player to HTML5 regardless of whether or not it is open source. One of the good things about products being owned, is that they are compelled by profits and losses to keep up with trends. Where as with opensource, it happens whenever people have the free time to do it.
But what matters to me is what I posted previously. If it is opensource it will result in a multiplicity of versions. And no app will run the same for every user. And consistency of UX is key.
March 8th, 2010 at 11:58 pm
When sun eventually open sourced java, many people were afraid that it could be destroyed by forks. But that never happened and probably would not happen to the flash player as well. A fork is only an alternative to people, if it is more feature rich than the original or runs on a platform, where the original does not. And i can happily live with partial, non official support on platforms where otherwise would be no support be at all.
I think forks are no argument against open sourcing a technology, because i can think of no example(perhaps because of my non existing beard) where a fork seriously did hurt an open project. And Linux rarely gets forked in a big way(Android maybe), but is shipped as part of lots of distributions. I think you are comparing apples and oranges. Linux is only the kernel, but you mean the whole Distribution and we are only talking about a single runtime.
April 8th, 2010 at 9:04 am
Are you aware that if Adobe open source the player we will lose support for things like H.264 ?
H.264 is closed-source only, so they won’t be able to put support for it in the flash player sources.
And we don’t really want them to remove support for such things, do we ?
(And don’t get me started on “how does google chrome have H.264 support and integrate flash player then ?” it’s because chrome is CLOSED SOURCE, chromium is open source and doesn’t have nor H.264 nor flash player integrated)
April 8th, 2010 at 9:50 am
Martial,
as said in my previous comments, the text of the petition and the manifesto, I’m aware that some parts of the player use proprietary content.
Many open source softwares use proprietary libraries and particularly codecs and pay license for them. Mozilla even hesitated at one point to license or not H.264 in their open-source browser. They finally didn’t because of money concern but it was something they had thought to.
On the other hand Flash could in the future use open-source codecs to read or encode media formats. Many people argue that VLC media player is quite better and use less CPU power while reading H.264 than Flash Player. VLC yet use FFMepg with libavcodec an open-source library to read H.264 and even VP6. Why not Adobe ? They could participate in the FFMpeg project, create a web port of it and integrate it in the player. This way they could say that they participate to the open-source.
May 3rd, 2010 at 2:12 pm
great post as usual!
May 3rd, 2010 at 7:54 pm
wow.. i’m very
enjoy reading your post. great.
May 13th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
Saunier:
The trouble with VLC is that the software ignores software patents. The VideoLan Group is based out of France were software patents aren’t allowed and thus, the software is legal.
In the US however, VLC violates patents and can become a potential mine-field for any organization using it that doesn’t license the individual codecs or removes the codecs from the software entirely.
VP6 is now owned by Google and if they choose to release the software royalty-free, then Flash could have a viable position in regards to proprietary video codecs. But that still leaves mp3 and AAC audio hanging.
Furthermore, these codecs don’t need to be built into the Flash Player anymore if the player is integrated with the browser. The runtime could simply use the codec installed on the individual system. So Flash on Windows could use the MediaPlayer codec, GStreamer or FFMPEG for Linux variants. While this adds complications to the player, it removes a frequent excuse to keep the player closed.
May 13th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
That post should read “GStreamer AND FFMPEG”
May 13th, 2010 at 6:23 pm
>In the US however, VLC violates patents
Yep, I learned that during the days following my answer to Martial. I also learned that near all current videos codecs infringe MPEG LA licensing systems one way or another.
This said, Adobe probably pay the license for its use of the H.264 codec implemented in the Flash Player, so this wouldn’t be a problem with H.264 licensing if the Flash Player is opened while the library stay closed and Adobe pay the license for its use.
At least it’s even a good argument against people arguing that open-sourcing Flash will create numerous clones everywhere on the web. It will not as Adobe would be the only one to pay for codec licenses associated to the player.
I agree that the best solution would be to use audio and video plugins installed on the user system to render those contents, but there’s still the retro compatibility to Flash 1<-10 content to ensure. My thoughts, followed by some other people is that Adobe could branch the player the day it is open-sourced to reveal only the sources of the last version of the player code, like only the code used to render Flash 10.1 content. They could deliver a cleanest plug-in with clean code only in it, because to ensure such a retro-compatibility today, the player code must be a little dirty.
May 14th, 2010 at 8:35 pm
Subject: While waiting for the ‘answer’ from adobe…
Content: You can try gnash the FLOSS(Free Libre and Open Source Software) flash player.
Link: http://www.gnashdev.org/
May 14th, 2010 at 8:51 pm
Niklas, the problem with Gnash is that it only fully supports up to Flash 8 content. It’s a great work, a good idea too, but from what I know it can’t run all ActionScript 3 content through an AVM2 equivalent (the open-source VM from Adobe named Tamarin) which is nowadays the most efficient way to run Flash content. There were so much done since Flash 8 in the Flash Player that it would be impossible to have a good reason to target Flash 8 when you can target full Flash 10 support today, even if it will run in a proprietary player.
PS:Note that while I was answering to your comment I realized reading http://www.gnashdev.org blog that recent improvements in Gnash are nearest to Flash 10 from what I thought first.
October 5th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Gnash born like a solution for Flash in Linux, and that’s great, but we don’t need more plugins, we need only one to rule them all
Adobe and Flash Player is great, but we need more!
FP is fighting with a lot of things these days, Steve, Silverlight, HTML5, etc.
I don’t want to see Flash falling, please Adobe, we need a better faster and standard player, let us help you.
October 5th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
Please….fight something worthwhile…like all of the children being abused or neglected in the world.
Opening flash player has no commercial gain what-so-ever. period.
It would just be a plain nightmare to administer.
I like the ‘idea’ of openess from an idealistic and tree hugging angle but please, please…it’s just not going to benefit anyone to open flash player. if you want open, create an alternative…oh, wait a minute….there are already loads of ‘open’ SWF players on the market
October 6th, 2010 at 8:36 pm
@Dave – that’s not true. there are many projects that cannot be completed because of bugs in the flash player. there are plenty of developers than can write quality patches that the flash player team can apply.
i have a few open source projects and a few closed source projects where the source is available to developers. and as the administrator of these projects i’ve noticed a frequent behavior. if there is a bug or feature i’ll hear about it. if i don’t have time to do it myself then sooner or later someone else will and i’ll receive a patch. it doesn’t take long to review it and apply it. the project benefits dramatically with others help and i’m still able to maintain control of the quality and performance.
what’s being asked is to open up part of the source to fix bugs, enhance performance, add device support and introduce needed features in the main branch.