Official reasons why Adobe doesn't open-source Flash • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by joeyo » Mon, Feb 08, 2010, 5:42 AM UTC

pavs wrote: post #3

swombat wrote: post #2

For what it's worth, I think Adobe has two paths in front of it: 1) Resolve the licensing issue and transfer ownership of the Flash player code to the community, and do that quickly . This, with plenty of cooperation with the community, could mean that Flash development is taken over by the community, and it may even be integrated into HTML5 in some way. 2) Rebuild their culture to be competitive. Reported, documente…

What do you mean by "Resolve the licensing issue"? They don't own H.264, how do you want them to "resolve" something they don't own?

Presumably they are already paying for H.264 in flash anyway; why would they stop after open sourcing it?

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

#62

Post by rbanffy » Mon, Feb 08, 2010, 9:42 AM UTC

nzmsv wrote: post #58

rbanffy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well... COBOL and Fortran have been going the dinossaur way for far more than 10 years and show no sign of disappearing...

Yes, but would you start a new project in COBOL today?

That's a silly question. I am a computer conservationist proud of a growing computer collection. Of course I would, just for the kick of it!

I would like, of course, to run it on an IBM /360, or, if that were not possible, an emulator. You would access it via your own 3270 terminal. It would be made to look specially cool on 3290s - wouldn't be hard: anything looks cool on a 3290. I would develop it while wearing a white lab coat.

A Burroughs B-series would also be considered ;-)

Now, seriously, no. I wouldn't start a new product (I can conceive lots of maintenance projects done in whatever was already done to maintain code commonality) in COBOL.

And yes, you would have a hard time convincing me of starting one in Java too. I cringe even when someone proposes one in PHP.

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

#63

Post by otakucode » Mon, Feb 08, 2010, 5:01 PM UTC

simonk wrote: post #59

ams6110 wrote: post #39

"Official reasons" ??? The subhead of this blog states: Please note that opinions expressed within are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Adobe.

The blog is at http://blogs.adobe.com and called "Open at Adobe". The person writing it is Director of Open Source and Standards (OSS) at Adobe, its an official comment.

Perhaps they should amend their disclaimer to say "but it does not NOT necessarily represent the views of Adobe either."

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

#64

Post by pingswept » Mon, Feb 08, 2010, 5:24 PM UTC

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.

I now agree. Judging by his Twitter account, Dave McAllister has been awake for at least 3 hours this fine Monday morning. My comment does not appear on his blog yet.

I just tweeted at him. Maybe it's caught in a spam trap or something.

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

#65

Post by coderdude » Mon, Feb 08, 2010, 5:30 PM UTC

I'm surprised that no one is concerned that open sourcing Flash would be dangerous. Flash is installed on some 95% of machines, or so I read. If they open source Flash and allow everyone the ability to find the holes, we'll have a flood of exploits that affect everyone. I thank Adobe for keeping their implementation of Flash closed source.

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

#66

Post by x_entrik » Wed, Feb 10, 2010, 9:12 AM UTC

pingswept wrote: post #34

Flow wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Post this info in a reply on that blog entry plz. Or maybe you did, but their "Open at Adobe" moderator didn't approve it.:)

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…

Highly doubtful if Adobe will ever come out with a clear answer, meanwhile - wanted to point you to this comment exchange on another Adobe blog:

http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2010/01/sympathy_for_the_devil....

Quote:

  Your comment is extremely interesting because it 
  seems to be the first time Adobe has publicly acknowledged
  that the real reason for that DMCA takedown was the
  encryption scheme NOT *potential* copyright infringement.
  Meaning that Adobe deliberately mis-used the DMCA and mis-led
  the entire community about the real reasons for the takedown
  right?

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

#67

Post by pingswept » Mon, Feb 15, 2010, 8:55 PM UTC

x_entrik wrote: post #66

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…

Highly doubtful if Adobe will ever come out with a clear answer, meanwhile - wanted to point you to this comment exchange on another Adobe blog: http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2010/01/sympathy_for_the_devil.... Quote: Your comment is extremely interesting because it seems to be the first time Adobe has publicly acknowledged that the real reason for that DMCA takedown was the encryption scheme NOT *potential* copyright…

Thanks for that. It seems like Adobe could actually refute the accusation pretty well if they wanted to. My impression from the exchange you link to is that Mr. Nack (the Adobe guy) has a point, but I can't say that I understand it, since he's only written a couple of sentences.

It looks to me like some of the folks at Adobe are genuinely trying to be open, but others aren't, so it looks like the genuine folks are lying, since you can't tell who's really doing what. It's weird, because I don't see how Flash could possibly win in the long term without becoming completely open. (I do think a non-open option can win, but it doesn't look like it will be Flash.)