Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 1st May 2008 12:44 UTC
Just yesterday Mozilla Europe's Tristan Nitot predicted that Adobe might open source Flash one day if competition from Microsoft's Silverlight got too fierce. It seems as if he can look into the future, as today Adobe has announced the Open Screen Project. While not exactly an open source announcement, it does open the door a little bit more.
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Well, Adobe aren't promising to open source their own code.
So what does it mean for FOSS software?
* Removing restrictions on use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications
* Publishing the device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player
* Publishing the Adobe Flash Cast protocol and the AMF protocol for robust data services
* Removing licensing fees - making next major releases of Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices free
... can now work to open, unencumbered specifications and APIs.
This could accelerate it considerably. There will be no longer any need to reverse engineer the specs and APIs ... the programmers can just go ahead now and concentrate on coding the gansh implementation.
At the current version 0.8.2, gnash is really only beta quality software right now. It apparently supports flash v7 and pieces of v8 and v9.
Member since:
2007-02-17
Well, Adobe aren't promising to open source their own code.
So what does it mean for FOSS software?
* Publishing the device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player
* Publishing the Adobe Flash Cast protocol and the AMF protocol for robust data services
* Removing licensing fees - making next major releases of Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices free
What this means is that priority #3 of the FSF:
http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/priority.html
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/
... can now work to open, unencumbered specifications and APIs.
This could accelerate it considerably. There will be no longer any need to reverse engineer the specs and APIs ... the programmers can just go ahead now and concentrate on coding the gansh implementation.
At the current version 0.8.2, gnash is really only beta quality software right now. It apparently supports flash v7 and pieces of v8 and v9.
Edited 2008-05-01 13:07 UTC