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Petition to open source Flash

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Re: Petition to open source Flash

#241

Post by phkahler »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #168
phkahler wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not need to be open source. Just save the plug-in along with your legacy browser and legacy OS and run it all on an emulator. Making it open source is an excuse to allow people to continue flash development in some way.

What if, rather than just play the Flash content, I want to write a tool to convert it to a different format? Or what if I want to port the player to a new platform, or compile it to WASM so I can run it in a browser? There are a lot of things open sourcing Flash would enable that just running it in a VM would not. And also, why do you care if some people _do_ want to continue developing Flash? It's going to get remo…

>> And also, why do you care if some people _do_ want to continue developing Flash?

The argument presented was that open sourcing would allow that little bit of internet history to be preserved. My point is that you don't need source code for that. IMHO we don't want anyone to continue developing flash. Even it's creator has declared EOL for it. I understand there are people who want to mess around with it and do things that are potentially interesting, I object to disguising those desires as a preservation activity.

Re: Petition to open source Flash

#242

Post by simion314 »

notacoward wrote: post #234
simion314 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you don't want some code to be open source because you care about some tech people may used that open source code and get infected? Java was open sourced and you don't have an open source Java plugin forced upon you.

Yes, I do, quite often.

What do you mean is Firefox and Chrome forcing Java on you? Did Java getting open sourced affected you in a negative way? how?

Re: Petition to open source Flash

#243

Post by odbol_ »

notacoward wrote: post #19

No no no no NO. It's time to get rid of Flash. Open-sourcing will make it live forever. Flash has very little to offer that is not at this point duplicated (or improved upon) by others. It's also woefully insecure. "Many eyes make all bugs shallow" will only work for the most trivial bugs in the most common code paths. Plenty of vulnerabilities will remain. In open source, they'll be even easier for attackers to find…

Flash has very little to offer as a tool, but as a platform with thousands of hours of beautiful, creative content made for it (Homestar Runner, games, interactive art, etc), it will be tragic to lose all that art and history.

If we open-source Flash, at least museums will have an option to preserve that content for future generations to learn from and enjoy.

Re: Petition to open source Flash

#245

Post by matt_kantor »

nradov wrote: post #28

Chances are that Flash contains licensed third-party IP and thus Adobe couldn't unilaterally open source it even if they wanted to.

Right. This is mentioned near the top of TFA:

> We understand that there are licenced components you can not release. Simply leave them out with a note explaining what was removed. We will either bypass them, or replace them with open source alternatives.

As bdcravens and ghaff allude to elsewhere in this subthread, the question is whether Adobe can be convinced to put in the effort required to strip out licensed IP. Maybe a crowdfunded campaign with a bounty to cover Adobe's costs would be more compelling than a slacktivist petition like TFA.

Re: Petition to open source Flash

#246

Post by matt_kantor »

mstade wrote: post #138

FWIW I posted[1] in the Flash EOL thread the other day that an Adobe employee told me years ago that licensing issues were the main hindrance to open sourcing the Flash player. (Another HN user who said they used to work for Adobe seems to back this up.) A lot of technology in the player was licensed and difficult to remove/refactor such that the player code could realistically be opened up, and there was little busi…

I said this already in another comment, but for this reason I think a crowdfunded campaign with a bounty that Adobe can use to cover their costs would be more likely to succeed than a simple petition.

Such a campaign could also send a much stronger signal of how badly people actually want an open source flash player. Starring a repo is too easy; it's better to let folks put money where their mouth is. Imagine if the hypothetical campaign raises a million dollars. It'd be hard for Adobe to ignore.

Re: Petition to open source Flash

#247

Post by gamedna »

simion314 wrote: post #103
gamedna wrote: post #77

Flash has generated a tremendous amount of assets that will be lost. Preserving them for historical reasons is extremely important but i am far less interested in preserving the technology than preserving the idea or creation itself. I would love to see an effort around conversion or transcoding flash assets to other technologies. For example, flash movies being rendered to an open standard or flash games being autom…

To transcode all Flash content you need a similar amount of work as reimplementing Flash since you need to transcode all the functions, it is similar as Wine project is doing and it is always behind and there are bugs, having the source will help implementingt the translation.

Wine is an emulator, hence the name. (WINdows Emulator) By transcoding I am referring to rendering the flash content in a completely new medium. For example videos could be rendered using the existing closed source implementation into an open source video codec/format. For the interactive flash content, the content creators have the option of porting it to another platform to preserve the idea. Adobe even provides a tool to assist with this (https://helpx.adobe.com/animate/how-to/convert-flash-ads-to-...) Finally transcoding would recompile the framework into another framework. Think of this as converting Flash/Actionscript into HTML5 Canvas/Javascript.

Re: Petition to open source Flash

#248

Post by gamedna »

niutech wrote: post #154
gamedna wrote: post #77

Flash has generated a tremendous amount of assets that will be lost. Preserving them for historical reasons is extremely important but i am far less interested in preserving the technology than preserving the idea or creation itself. I would love to see an effort around conversion or transcoding flash assets to other technologies. For example, flash movies being rendered to an open standard or flash games being autom…

They will not be lost after 2020. They will run as usual using the Flash Player Standalone Projector or Swiff Player.

Its naive to assume that devices in 2020 will still be able to run Flash Player Standalone or that Swiff Player is still in existence.

Re: Petition to open source Flash

#249

Post by apt-gett »

gamedna wrote: post #247
simion314 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To transcode all Flash content you need a similar amount of work as reimplementing Flash since you need to transcode all the functions, it is similar as Wine project is doing and it is always behind and there are bugs, having the source will help implementingt the translation.

Wine is an emulator, hence the name. (WINdows Emulator) By transcoding I am referring to rendering the flash content in a completely new medium. For example videos could be rendered using the existing closed source implementation into an open source video codec/format. For the interactive flash content, the content creators have the option of porting it to another platform to preserve the idea. Adobe even provides a…

(W)ine (I)s (N)ot an (E)mulator

It's a compatibility layer.

Re: Petition to open source Flash

#250

Post by niutech »

gamedna wrote: post #248
niutech wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will not be lost after 2020. They will run as usual using the Flash Player Standalone Projector or Swiff Player.

Its naive to assume that devices in 2020 will still be able to run Flash Player Standalone or that Swiff Player is still in existence.

Really? Will standard Windows EXE files be no longer executable by 2020?
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