Open source Flash Player

[flosculus]

adobe are holding something reat back here i think, 98.x% of browsers have the flash plugin installed however flash could be made an industrial standard if only adobe made the player open source.

since adobe gives the player away for free, there are plenty of reasons why adobe, developers, and web users could benefit from flash being made open.

i'll just go over a list of advantages:

- it would knock silverlight out of the picture and a RIA.

- open communities could contribute to the player, making it more compatible with server side languages.

- the player might be forced to run on the fly, reading from actionscript classes whenever used, rather than compiled into a swf, as a result, download time would be reduced, expecially for the flex framework. Also actionscript could include 'its own' server side framwork, just like jsp.

- while the open source community work on the player, adobe could work on the IDE 'Flash', keeping it up to date with the 'massive' aray of new and exciting features included on the player.

Now a few disadvantages:

- with an open source player, open source IDEs would become reliable and therefor pose greater competition.

- various versions of the player would be released, possibly by different authors, causing browser compatibility issues.

these disadvantages could be avoided however if adobe continued to take a leader role in the development of the player.



ok, theres my argument. please give your thoughts as to why adobe should or shouldnt make the flash player open source.

flos :P

[asheep_uk]

How would Adobe make any money? We all know they charge too much, but if they made it too open, they wouldn't make any money.

[jAQUAN]

Adobe would make money by refocusing on what made them indispensable in the first place. They simply have no place in other markets such as data tracking.

I think flosculus answered his own question in that what it takes to be truly open source is a poisonous business model when it comes to a plug-in market. I think even I would start to detest flash content on the whole if I were constantly downloading (potentially harmful) new versions of the player with each new site I visited.

I always site the Panavision Camera business model. You cannot buy a panavision camera. Why? Because if you don't take care of the product, continue to shoot with it and place their logo at the end of your closing credits that not only hurts your image but skews Panavisions identity. So you can only rent their equipment and upon return, their certified techs will assure it goes back out with the same quality.

If some fp amalgamation crashes your browser, as a typical web user, who are you going to blame. It's a lot less about hoarding than it is insurance. And while adobe could just leave it at that, they don't. Adobe labs is pretty evident that they care about providing as much flexibility as they can while protecting themselves and their share holders. The recent contribution for would be iPhone devs is hard proof of that.

[MyFriendIsATaco]

Hold on, on a side note here, has anyone else read flosculus's footer? "Wow" is all I can say about it.

[jAQUAN]

Lol!

[flosculus]

Hold on, on a side note here, has anyone else read flosculus's footer? "Wow" is all I can say about it.

lol, i wrote that after streamline.net refused me to give me coldfusion support :P, only a few hours after i discovered amfphp and all my problems were solved

anyway one topic ---

its true that multiple versions of flash player would be a problem, but on the other hand modern browsers generally come with client language versions already decided. there are plenty of open source technologies which are in the hands of particular groups:

- linux
- vlc
- netbeans

and all the SS languages mentioned in my footer lol

however all there technologies are generally run by sole groups who claim a patent on the 'name' of the product, adobe will have just claimed a patent on the brand flash not to be redistributed under another author with the contents 'as is'.

naturally groups who would take the player in other directions could rebrand the player, and IF any of these variations (plus the flash player by adobe) became open standards, then web browsers would include them in the software (apart from microsoft OBVIOUSLY).

remember adobe built a commercial plugin for ecplise, as did zend. so they follow a fair marketting standard.


i debate this, but i certainly dont beleive that adobe making the player open is ever likely to happen. the only concern is that with nearly 100% of computers with the flash player 9 installed, it has almost become an open standard all by itself without the help of W3.

so if for whatever possible reason adobe shut down, would they make it open source, or would they let every website with flash fall down with them?

[jAQUAN]

This makes no sense.
Modern browsers come with html, css and js support. period. These are constructs outlined by the W3C who exists to ensure the most basic and acceptable uses of hyper text. Flash is a plug-in ie. it's optional and a luxury (in most cases). It would be a dark day in hell before the w3c would consider a black box an open standard.

The flash player is a success story not shared by any other plug-in nor will there ever be another one as ubiquitous. On the ridiculous notion that adobe may disappear or drop support, they have no monopoly on motion graphics or media driven ux. HTML5, its canvas tag and svg have already proven we shouldn't care. The only issue would be the time it takes for the abyss flashplayer has gouged to be filled in with alternative IDE's.

What developers are willing to deal with in order assemble a tool box is a far cry from what users are willing to deal with in order to update their twitbookspace.

[flosculus]

then i stand corrected. i understand now that like any application or plugin will be used at the users discretion and not by force. just like firefox itself, flash is an optional third party application/plugin for free or commercial benefit to those who choose to use it.

thank you for the discussion

flos

[jAQUAN]

It sucks that firefox can be considered a third party app and a first class citizen at the same time. :{