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Official reasons why Adobe doesn't open-source Flash

blogs.adobe.com

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Re: Official reasons why Adobe doesn't open-source Flash

#41

Post by pingswept »

swombat wrote: post #35
pingswept wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've just submitted this comment (we'll see if it gets posted): -- Hello Mr. McAllister, I'm glad to hear that Adobe has opened as much as they have. That's the right direction; I'm glad you're doing it. I'm a little concerned about your claim that anyone can implement SWF, RTMP, and so forth. Didn't Adobe issue a DMCA takedown when someone implemented RTMP? Here's a copy of what appears to be the takedown notice: ht…

Utterly uber-lame that no comments get posted on an article about how Adobe is being open. Open my arse.

Well, it is Sunday morning. I'm not checking for comments on my work blog either.

Re: Official reasons why Adobe doesn't open-source Flash

#42

Post by nzmsv »

brown wrote: post #23
steve19 wrote: post #20

Like Sun and Java, I think Adobe will eventually open source but when they finally do it, it will be too little too late.

I think Java developers everywhere were happy that Sun opened up Java, but does anyone think it was a good business decision?

Why not? The JRE was a free download for end users anyway, and open-sourcing it removed a large source of bad press. If Java was open-sourced earlier, it might have seen more adoption by hackers, and innovation. Now, it's an "enterprise" language, which basically means it has entered the "legacy" stage of its lifetime, and will go the way of COBOL in under 10 years.

Re: Official reasons why Adobe doesn't open-source Flash

#44

Post by icefox »

agazso wrote: post #32
madars wrote: post #15

From Wikipedia: On 20 January 2009 Adobe announced it will publish the RTMP specification. On 21 May 2009 Adobe filed a DMCA removal request on a Sourceforge-hosted implementation of the protocol. And now we are about to believe that: The Flash file format (SWF) specifications are open and unrestricted, so any company - even Apple - can build their own Flash Player if they want. Also freely available are related spec…

While it's true that since then Adobe published the RTMP specification, but they left out the description of the handshake procedure, without it cannot be called full and open. What's more they are constantly changing the handshake procedure in every point release. I wouldn't call that open either.

Is there a good link on more information about this?

Re: Official reasons why Adobe doesn't open-source Flash

#45

Post by george_morgan »

swombat wrote: post #36
swombat wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean "do 'stuff' that makes the problem 'go away'". As a former management consultant, and now a start-up founder, believe me, I speak from experience when I say every problem of this kind is solvable if you want to do it badly enough.

What's with the group downvotes, folks? I stopped responding to this guy because his points are worthless. I'd rather the space on this page was used up by intelligent discussion rather than needless debate over a concept that is obvious to anyone who actually does any kind of ambiguous, difficult work (e.g. running a start-up, being a consultant, and generally being anything more than an employee who takes orders).…

It doesn't surprise me you were a management consultant. You're getting downvotes for repeating simplistic abstracts, without suggesting anything close to a reasonable course of action.

"How do we fix this problem?" "Well, all problems can be fixed by fixing the problem." "Ok, so how do we do that?" "Simple, fix the problem." "Right."

Re: Official reasons why Adobe doesn't open-source Flash

#46

Post by lftl »

pavs wrote: post #11
swombat wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean "do 'stuff' that makes the problem 'go away'". As a former management consultant, and now a start-up founder, believe me, I speak from experience when I say every problem of this kind is solvable if you want to do it badly enough.

There is only "one stuff" they can do to make the problem go away (in your words "resolving licensing issues"), which is, they can buy H.264 and give it away for free (open source it), which is impossible without making themselves bankrupt. The other stuff that I can think of is that they can use Ogg Theora, which is hardly a solution, considering (IMO) it is an inferior codec.

they can buy H.264 and give it away for free (open source it), which is impossible without making themselves bankrupt.

As the discussion around H.264/Theora etc has heated up I've started wondering about this. There are now at least 3 rather large players with relatively deep pockets that all have licensed h.264 for products they essentially give away. So what if Google, Apple, and Adobe all pooled together and purchased the patents for h.264 and licensed it for free (or possibly a free non-commercial license, and force any other big players using it to chip in). I wonder what the price tag on that would be.

Re: Official reasons why Adobe doesn't open-source Flash

#47

Post by invisible »

swombat wrote: post #8
pavs wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you _mean_ by "resolving"? You want adobe to buy H.264 and give it away for free? That's pretty much impossible. You can't just throw around the word "resolve" things without understanding the complexity or nature of the possible solutions.

I mean "do 'stuff' that makes the problem 'go away'". As a former management consultant, and now a start-up founder, believe me, I speak from experience when I say every problem of this kind is solvable if you want to do it badly enough.

They could just wait 18 years - that's one feasible option. I'd suppose it wouldn't benefit them greatly though.

Re: Official reasons why Adobe doesn't open-source Flash

#48

Post by agazso »

icefox wrote: post #44
agazso wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's true that since then Adobe published the RTMP specification, but they left out the description of the handshake procedure, without it cannot be called full and open. What's more they are constantly changing the handshake procedure in every point release. I wouldn't call that open either.

Is there a good link on more information about this?

Here is a thread from the Red5 mailinglist: http://osflash.org/pipermail/red5_osflash.org/2009-August/03...

The main issue is that the spec says (5.4, page 10) that in C2 and S2 messages you send random bytes. If you do that only VP6 streaming will work but H.264 won't. You have to do a HMAC like digest on the "random bytes" and send it back so that H.264 works.

Of course all of this was reverse-engineered before the spec was released, but later with the release of Player version 10.0.32.18 it stopped working. So it had to be reverse-engineered again.

About that time I stopped working on a Flash Media Server (fortunately), so I just heard from my ex-colleagues that Adobe changed the handshake again with a new Player version.

EDIT: changed the link to a better one.

Re: Official reasons why Adobe doesn't open-source Flash

#49

Post by TallGuyShort »

As someone who programs in ActionScript very often and makes heavy use out of RTMP, I'm very well aware of Flash's shortcomings and how quickly they would be fixed if it were more open. However, I really wish discussions like this weren't full of so much empty talk. If you don't like Flash, don't use it. Uninstall the Flash player and leave it all behind. Fact is, they have succeeded in getting a proprietary and commerically-trusted video codec available for the masses. If you think that is such a small feat, or such an insignficant reason to keep it closed, I challenge you to do better. If a lot of people really didn't like Flash and actually didn't something about it, Adobe would get the message REAL quick.

Re: Official reasons why Adobe doesn't open-source Flash

#50

Post by cmeranda »

swombat wrote: post #36
swombat wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean "do 'stuff' that makes the problem 'go away'". As a former management consultant, and now a start-up founder, believe me, I speak from experience when I say every problem of this kind is solvable if you want to do it badly enough.

What's with the group downvotes, folks? I stopped responding to this guy because his points are worthless. I'd rather the space on this page was used up by intelligent discussion rather than needless debate over a concept that is obvious to anyone who actually does any kind of ambiguous, difficult work (e.g. running a start-up, being a consultant, and generally being anything more than an employee who takes orders).…

Yup, george_morgan is right, you were being downvoted for using abstract corporate language to solve real problems. In a forum like this, most of us have heard it before: "We'll resolve this by applying creativity and resourcefulness." "But how exactly?" "We're going to give it our all, and it will work out!" As engineers, we're the ones who actually do the resolving, and we like to apply concrete, tenable options to problems.
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