back to article Adobe open source code backs – gasp! – HTML5

Adobe believes in Flash on mobiles. But it believes in HTML5 too, and it would like the world to know that these two beliefs are not mutually exclusive. On Thursday, at a press event in San Francisco, the company announced that over 20 million smartphones now ship with Flash Player 10.1, and that it hopes to push the player …

COMMENTS

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  1. Tom 38
    Jobs Halo

    Flash uses, apart from video

    Annoying animated adverts

    Bad games

    If playing video is taken care of by 'HTML 5', then why on earth would I need flash?

    Stevie J knows the Truth*.

    * Only half-facetious.

  2. AndrueC Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Clever stuff

    ..but I'd be happier if they modified their installer so it doesn't drop a useless icon on my desktop every time it updates. I've said it before - why the hell would anyone want an AR icon on their desktop?

  3. Neil Lewis
    Thumb Up

    At last!

    "Adobe makes its money selling tools, not giving away players. Let’s help people target whatever media they need, as efficiently as possible."

    I was beginning to think Adobe would flounder on the rocks of belief in their own ubiquity. It is obvious that free codecs are the way forward, and Flash's days as the primary format for web video are numbered. Adobe's interests are indeed best served by producing the best creative tools they can, whatever format they're using, so users are prepared to pay for those tools. I haven't noticed Adobe's Photoshop business being wrecked by the use of .jpg, .tiff or .png, as well as .ps.

    Full support for free standards and codecs is not a weakness. It just means you have to make really good software which is it's own 'value proposition' to survive instead of relying on lock-in.

  4. A J Stiles
    Thumb Down

    Hmm

    I'll believe it when I see an Open Source Flash player.

    1. The Grime

      Write one then

      The reason there is no open source flash player is presumably there's no point writing one. Adobe has published the swf format information and the player code, and you can download Adobe's open source contribution in project Tamarin to get a headstart. But why would anyone bother? The open nature of the Adobe player / tooling technology is being used by developers to use languages other than Actionscript, or roll their own compilers to produce the byte code in a Flash app.

      The sheer ignorance displayed time and again about Flash and the related technologies by commentards does really start to grate after a while. I despair reading through the comments on the Flash on Android story today. It works, its not a resource hog (if the app isn't written by a bozo), in fact the Flash player has had major rewrites and redesigns over the last few years to get it right on mobile. And they've succeeded. Then you come on hear and read comment after uninformed comment saying Flash is not designed for mobile. Change the bleedin record, and actually do a bit of research before writing your biased sheep-like anti-Flash bleating.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Stop

        @The Grime

        The published SWF spec does not include any part about Adobe's proprietary DRM mechanisms. Therefore, although it is possible to write a spec-compliant player, it could not be used to (for example) watch BBC iPlayer. In other words, only Adobe can produce a truly compliant Flash player.

        "Adobe has declined to publish details about RTMP's DRM mechanism and will expressly forbid implementation of DRM circumvention measures in the license that governs the official RTMP specification."

        http://arstechnica.com/software/news/2009/01/adobe-opens-flash-streaming-protocol-keeps-drm-a-secret.ars

        Ignorance indeed....

      2. Tom 38
        FAIL

        Drink the kool-aid my friend

        If flash is so damn good, why do I have to have a button on my desktop that does 'killalll -9 npviewer.bin'*, and why do I have to press that 10-20 times a day to stop my browser locking up due to the flash player's inadequacies.

        swfdec and gnash is the open source flash plugin. Take a look, its utter shite, because the format is not open, it is partially open. They have released enough information that people like you can crow on about how it is open, but not enough for anyone to actually implement an open source version - it is missing huge sections of the spec.

        * This kills any running flash plugins.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      What?

      Like gnash / swfdec for instance?

      Oh, you mean when adobe open source /their/ flash player.

  5. RegisterThis
    Go

    A Jibe at Jobs ...

    "Adobe lives or dies by its ability to help customers solve real problems. That means putting pragmatism ahead of ideology"

    Meeow ...

    1. DZ-Jay

      Re: A Jibe at Jobs...

      Actually, it's a defensive reaction. After Job's "Thoughts On Flash," the light was shown on Adobe as pushing for its own proprietary technology above what the rest of the industry was choosing: an open, collaborative platform like HTML5. That surely did not look good, and although it was mostly Job's version, it did raise questions amongst the supporters of Adobe.

      This is Adobe screaming at the world that they are not just focused on "Flash," and that the industry can indeed bet on them because they will adapt to whatever technologies are practical and in vogue.

      But you are right, it is a reaction to Job's attack.

      -dZ.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    Adobe has used Webkit in AIR for years

    Adobe AIR, a collection of tools for making "desktop" (and later phone) applications with "web" technologies (HTML + javasacript + Flash) has used Webkit since day one, which was 3 years ago.

    Uses of this tech include the iPlayer desktop application.

  7. Paul Shirley
    Flame

    do we want the worlds worst programmers open sourcing?

    Do we really need a company notorious for the poor quality of its software infecting HTML5 with shoddy crap? Let's keep Adobe stuck in their Flash ghetto where I can at least make some attempt to sandbox it.

  8. Andy E
    Stop

    Flashed before my eye's

    I use Apple's Safari on a MacBook Pro and every now and then it crashes. The culprit is always reported as Flash. Now this could be down to Safari's poor support/implementation of Flash or because Flash is inherently buggy and unstable. I'm not technical enough to make sense of the crash dump output to come to a decision. However, I have also experienced the same behaviour using IE on Windows. I certainly don't miss Flash on my iPhone.

    As an aside, I was recently at a presentation where the presenter put up a slide containing a pie chart. It had two segments which from memory were: time spent using Adobe products 3%, time spent updating Adobe products 97%.

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