It makes perfect sense: otherwise you end up dependent on one vendor for stuff that works. Case in point: Adobe didn't bother to make a 64-bit Linux build for many years... When they finally did, it didn't support the GPU-related stuff, it pegged the CPU at 100% and didn't support webcams, all of which worked well on Mac and PC. The reason was that Adobe didn't think the Linux market share was high enough to warrant their attention. That's NOT a good enough reason, especially when you consider that you can't "measure" Linux marketshare in the same way you measure Mac and Windows. If Flash Player had been open, plenty of folks would have gladly contributed code (time and effort) to make it work better, at little or no cost to Adobe. But we were forced to wait, and wait and wait. "Open" doesn't solve every problem, but it yields far better choices than single-company monocultures.
Maybe I did misread your second point. I am not accustomed to thinking of Adobe as part of the HTML5 (or any other open) community. I just found this [1], and will reconsider after I read it. Profit is fine, and bills still have to be paid, but companies don't have to cut corners and be restrictive to do it. I'm glad we agree on the tremendous impact of the open-source community. I just wish Adobe had been a bigger part of it. tlj [1] http://www.adobe.com/devnet/html5.html -----Original Message----- From: mike_l_mcconn...@lamd.uscourts.gov [mailto:mike_l_mcconn...@lamd.uscourts.gov] Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2013 1:55 PM To: users@flex.apache.org Subject: RE: future of flash (yes, that old chestnut again) @Timothy '"Standards-based" is criteria #0 of the open internet. No matter how slick, non-standards-based technologies are not open, and __that_alone__ makes them inferior.' I'm sorry, but this argument makes no sense. If there is a more feature rich and capable technology that allows you to deliver better products on a wider number of platforms with less effort (and less support and maintenance headaches long-term), why would you not use that technology? To rule it out simply because it's not standards based or open is shortsighted. "Open" is not a magical panacea of developer goodness. 'It's odd to me how you question the profit-making motivations of the HTML5 community...' You misread my post. I WAS talking about Adobe. And I made sure to point out that seeking profit is not a bad thing. If I held Adobe stock, I would EXPECT it. I'm simply suggesting that to claim their efforts are to "drive the web forward" is a bit dubious. That might be a by-product of their efforts (even that's debatable), but it is not the driver in my opinion. And just to clarify - I think the open source community does incredible, and often thankless, work. Were it not for their efforts, we would not have many of the JavaScript libraries, frameworks, etc. that make working with web standards bearable. And obviously we would not have Flex any longer were it not for the open source community. I did not, nor would I ever, criticize the efforts going on in that arena. MLM From: Timothy Jones <timothy.jo...@syniverse.com> To: "users@flex.apache.org" <users@flex.apache.org> Date: 05/15/2013 11:31 AM Subject: RE: future of flash (yes, that old chestnut again) "Standards-based" is criteria #0 of the open internet. No matter how slick, non-standards-based technologies are not open, and __that_alone__ makes them inferior. Open-sourcing Flex under Apache was a great move, and that's why I monitor this mailing list. I'm quite encouraged by the events here since Adobe's donation of Flex to Apache 18 months ago. But as long as Flex requires the proprietary Flash Player to run, the end-to-end result still falls short of this most basic requirement. Someday, Shumway or FalconJS will solve that! As a developer who prefers to work with Linux, the state of Flash Player on Linux has been quite disappointing over the years. By contrast, almost everything in the HTML5 world is driven by the W3C, Firefox and Chrome, and because those communities value all users, new features appear on Linux versions of those browsers at the same time as everywhere else. And this is the way it should be. It's odd to me how you question the profit-making motivations of the HTML5 community, when they are the ones donating their time on W3C committees, building open source HTML5 libraries, and giving it away, while not criticizing Adobe's profit-only decisions that do not strive to treat all users equally well. The "drive the web forward" initiative is quite real, and among open-source developers, it is a far more powerful incentive than profit ever could be. You have *them* to thank for most of the things you enjoy on the internet today. Without forward-thinkers like them, we would still all be on CompuServe. There, my $0.02¢.. (....now get off my lawn ... :-) ) tlj -----Original Message----- From: mike_l_mcconn...@lamd.uscourts.gov [ mailto:mike_l_mcconn...@lamd.uscourts.gov] Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2013 9:11 AM To: users@flex.apache.org Subject: Re: future of flash (yes, that old chestnut again) I worry less about the message than I do the motivation behind the push towards HTML5. It still makes no sense to me from a developer's perspective, though I've tried very hard to understand it. "Standards based" or not, HTML5 is inferior technology when compared to what can be delivered with Flash and AIR (and the ease with which it can be done using development environments like Flex). Users don't know or care about the runtime environment in which their applications run, nor should they. This isn't really about users, though. It's not about the web. It's not about getting behind a "standard". What it's about is creating demand for products that make the difficult task of developing in HTML/CSS/JavaScript a bit more palatable. And where there's demand, there's profit (theoretically, anyway). I don't believe for a minute that this is some noble "drive the web forward" initiative. That's only the veneer. The true goal, in my not so humble opinion, is what it always is and always will be: enhancing the bottom line. There's certainly nothing wrong with a company making money....it's why they exist, after all. But to tout what is clearly a less suitable solution (for RIAs) as the next great frontier is, at best, disingenuous. These are my opinions...your mileage may vary. M. McConnell From: Lee Burrows <subscripti...@leeburrows.com> To: users@flex.apache.org Date: 05/15/2013 06:15 AM Subject: Re: future of flash (yes, that old chestnut again) Thanks Alex. I appreciate your comments - with the 5 year commitment from Adobe, and FlexJS on the horizon, i can relax (a bit). I just worry about your employers sometimes. At Max 2011, the message was "use HTML5 for RIAs", and shortly afterwards mobile Flash Player was dropped. At Max 2013, the message was "use HTML5 for games" - which made me wonder what bombshell Adobe may drop this time. -- Lee Burrows ActionScripter On 14/05/2013 20:29, Alex Harui wrote: > The relevant documents are: > [1] http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplatform/whitepapers/roadmap.html > [2] http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/whitepapers/roadmap.html > > It is [2] that mentions "five years". > > But realize that, to the best of my knowledge, there is no code that > will cause Flash to stop working after some day about 4 years from > now. To do so > would "break the web" and neither Adobe nor the major desktop/laptop > OS vendors are interested in doing that. It is just that Adobe is not > committing to new versions or taking support calls after that date. Also, > IMO, if something happens that gives Adobe a reason to extend that > date, they probably would, but I don't really know what that would be. > > Meanwhile, Apache Flex is doing the best it can to make sure that Flex has > fewer bugs, supports more locales, etc. And some of us are even > looking into a next generation of Flex that will let you use MXML and ActionScript > to create apps that run in a browser or on mobile devices without Flash/AIR > so you don't have be quite so concerned about this "five year" commitment. > > On 5/14/13 11:12 AM, "Lee Burrows" <subscripti...@leeburrows.com> wrote: > >> Hi All, >> >> I seem to remember that Adobe committed to supporting Flash Player >> and AIR for 5 years - during, or shortly after, the Flex Community >> Summit (of Dec 11). >> >> Is that right, or did i imagine it? - i cant find any reference to it >> on adobe.com
