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Flash For Linux Will Only Be Available For Chrome

blogs.adobe.com

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Re: Flash For Linux Will Only Be Available For Chrome

#171

Post by tyleregeto »

Fargren wrote: post #144
ugh wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the same place where they declare mobile (a bit of a misnomer, tablets aren't exactly mobile, not much more than notebooks anyway) Flash dead. Flash is appealing because it has features HTML/CSS/JS do not have and because everyone on every platform has it. Since mobile devices are becoming ever more important and Flash is not supported on those devices (or will not be) the second part of that sentence is no longer…

They never did that. They declared the Flash Player for mobile dead. but it's still very viable to make Flash applications for mobile, using AIR.

That's Adobes biggest problem, for so many people "Flash" means "browser plugin." They need to kill that notion, the Flash Player is just a part of the Flash platform.

Re: Flash For Linux Will Only Be Available For Chrome

#172

Post by tyleregeto »

zmmmmm wrote: post #152

Is it really Chrome or is it the new "pepper" plugin API driving this? ie. if other browsers decide to support the new plugin API, will Adobe also support them too?

The API was developed jointly by Adobe and Chrome, so its not Chrome or the API causing it, it's both parties wanting a better solution. It makes it cheaper for Adobe to support more platforms with less development hours.

Adobe has stated (not in any press releases, but from the mouth of employees) that they will work with any other browser wanting to implement the same API.

Re: Flash For Linux Will Only Be Available For Chrome

#174

Post by ugh »

Fargren wrote: post #144
ugh wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the same place where they declare mobile (a bit of a misnomer, tablets aren't exactly mobile, not much more than notebooks anyway) Flash dead. Flash is appealing because it has features HTML/CSS/JS do not have and because everyone on every platform has it. Since mobile devices are becoming ever more important and Flash is not supported on those devices (or will not be) the second part of that sentence is no longer…

They never did that. They declared the Flash Player for mobile dead. but it's still very viable to make Flash applications for mobile, using AIR.

Which isn’t part of the web.

Flash may well survive as AIR - that’s an uphill battle but it's possible – but that’s kinda irrelevant for the web.

Re: Flash For Linux Will Only Be Available For Chrome

#175

Post by gcp »

tyleregeto wrote: post #170
hub_ wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Just that Google will do it for them in Chrome. That's what they already do anyway because of the security hole that Flash is.

Where'd you pull that idea out of? Google's not implementing the Flash player, only providing new API for the Flash engineers to build against, the same as they always have.

From previous statements and actions of Google regarding Flash (fixing security holes in a way that implies they have source code access), it is very likely that it is indeed Google that are doing this.

Re: Flash For Linux Will Only Be Available For Chrome

#176

Post by rmc »

ruediger wrote: post #153
rmc wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree they would probably benefit from open sourcing it. However I don't think they can. In order to "fully open source" it, they would have to include an open source H264/mp4 decoder. Which would probably not be allowed by everyone who owns H264. Alas.

> In order to "fully open source" it, they would have to include an open source H264/mp4 decoder. Which would probably not be allowed by everyone who owns H264. Alas. There are existing open source implementations of H264. Even the best encoder (x264) is open source. But I guess there are license issues with third party code/libraries used in Flash.

Yes there are H264 software that is released under an open source copyright licence. However the implementation might still be breech patents and might still be illegal to use.

It's a shame that a complete clean room open source implementation (e.g. x264) might still be illegal to use in some territories.

Re: Flash For Linux Will Only Be Available For Chrome

#177

Post by rmc »

hub_ wrote: post #162
rmc wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree they would probably benefit from open sourcing it. However I don't think they can. In order to "fully open source" it, they would have to include an open source H264/mp4 decoder. Which would probably not be allowed by everyone who owns H264. Alas.

You are confusing licensing of code and patents. You can have an implementation that is Open Source. The problem is licensing the patents and eventually having that license trickle down to "sublicensee". Usually this does not work. So technically the code is Open Source but each distributor must get a patent license... that is restricted to redistributing binary form only. (I deliberately did avoid the use of the wor…

You are right that you might be able to claim "open source" while still requiring a patent licence under the letter of the 'open source'. However that would definitly go against the spirit of "open source" and it would not be viewed by anyone as actually open source at all.

"Free Software" vs "Open Source" would not be relevant here, since both FS and OS would view this "you-still-need-a-patent-licence" clause as incompatible with FS & OS.

There are a few bits in the new GPLv3 that say "if you release under GPLv3 then you have to give everyone a patent licence". However I don't know how that works if you don't have a full patent licence…

Re: Flash For Linux Will Only Be Available For Chrome

#178

Post by chalst »

orblivion wrote: post #119
dchest wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that other browser users won't be able to acquire Flash Player without installing Chrome: the Flash Player browser plugin for Linux will only be available via the “Pepper” API as part of the Google Chrome browser distribution and will no longer be available as a direct download from Adobe

And again, couldn't Firefox at least theoretically implement this part of the API? Would it just be a legal issue?

The announcement says:

> Because of this work, Adobe has been able to partner with Google in providing a “Pepper” implementation of Flash Player for all x86/64 platforms supported by the Google Chrome browser. Google will begin distributing this new Pepper-based Flash Player as part of Chrome on all platforms, including Linux, later this year.

It says that the plug-in will be bundled with Chrome, and Adobe have said they won't be releasing more Flash players for Linux, but the announcement does not even hint whether a stand-alone Pepper plug-in will be available from Google. I hope the Chromium blog will clarify this in due course.

I guess Adobe might forbid Google from developing a plug-in, but I don't see why they would want that, seeing as they have been distributing plug-ins for years. If Google could but didn't, that would make them look unsupportive of Chromium.

Re: Flash For Linux Will Only Be Available For Chrome

#179

Post by pbhjpbhj »

ConceptJunkie wrote: post #49
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Google really are evil after all.

On the whole I don't think this is evil. More of a lateral move, morally. I can't imagine what Google hopes to accomplish with this since Flash is currently circling the drain, relevancy-wise, but if it does anything to hasten the move away from using Flash at all, then it's a plus.

So Google is not evil because forcing Adobe to remove flash support from other 'vendors' browsers is actually a good thing? Basically Google knows best and anyone who thinks that they might actually want to continue to use flash on Linux in a non-Google browser (or at least without installing Chrome) is wrong?

This looks like the sort of heavy-handed monopoly activity that made Microsoft so great.

It's possible that Adobe were intending to cease all Linux-based browser support and Google prevented that by buying back Chrome support; in which case Google has slipped in their PR big time.

Re: Flash For Linux Will Only Be Available For Chrome

#180

Post by Tichy »

bzbarsky wrote: post #100
Tichy wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have relatives on Linux and this will complicate things for me. Basically I have to install Chrome and explain why videos and other stuff work only on Chrome. However, it is the way I prefer it by now anyway: use a Firefox without Flash for daily browsing and Chrome for Flash things. Don't underestimate how complicated it might be to explain this to "noobs", though.

> Basically I have to install Chrome and explain why videos > and other stuff work only on Chrome. Starting 5 years from now, when Adobe actually drops support for Flash on Linux, right? We'll see how much video and other stuff still requires Flash in 5 years. With any luck, not much.

Missed the timeline. In five years, Flash should be gone for good.
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