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For what it's worth, I think Adobe has two paths in front of it: 1) Resolve the licensing issue and transfer ownership of the Flash player code to the communit

by swombat 17y ago

For what it's worth, I think Adobe has two paths in front of it: 1) Resolve the licensing issue and transfer ownership of the Flash player code to the community, and do that quickly. This, with plenty of cooperation with the community, could mean that Flash development is taken over by the community, and it may even be integrated into HTML5 in some way. 2) Rebuild their culture to be competitive. Reported, documented, reproducible crash bugs hanging around for years are inexcusable, for any reason. The main reason I see for this is their slow culture that allows long release cycle and a "we'll fix it in the next release" attitude. I suspect the second one is far harder to fix, so my recommendation would be for the first one.

pavs 17y ago
What do you mean by "Resolve the licensing issue"? They don't own H.264, how do you want them to "resolve" something they don't own?
- tomerico 17y ago
  I assume they could keep the part that decode H.264 closed source, or other creative solution.
  - baby 17y ago
    or use ogg ?
- swombat 17y ago
  Problems can always be resolved. Some things are truly impossible (change the taste of the colour purple), some are technically impossible (fly by flapping your wings), and some are just impossible due to disagreements between people (release an open-source implementation of a closed codec). If you can resolve the first, you're God. If you can resolve the second, you're a technological visionary. If you can resolve the third, you're a good politician. Only the first category can be really considered impossible to achieve. Resolving licensing issues with H.264 is hardly impossible in that respect.
  - pavs 17y ago
    What do you _mean_ by "resolving"? You want adobe to buy H.264 and give it away for free? That's pretty much impossible. You can't just throw around the word "resolve" things without understanding the complexity or nature of the possible solutions.
    - swombat 17y ago
      I mean "do 'stuff' that makes the problem 'go away'". As a former management consultant, and now a start-up founder, believe me, I speak from experience when I say every problem of this kind is solvable if you want to do it badly enough.
      - pavs 17y ago
        There is only "one stuff" they can do to make the problem go away (in your words "resolving licensing issues"), which is, they can buy H.264 and give it away for free (open source it), which is impossible without making themselves bankrupt. The other stuff that I can think of is that they can use Ogg Theora, which is hardly a solution, considering (IMO) it is an inferior codec.
        swombat 17y ago
        "There is only one way to do X" = the way narrow-minded, uncreative people see the world.
        lftl 17y ago
        they can buy H.264 and give it away for free (open source it), which is impossible without making themselves bankrupt. As the discussion around H.264/Theora etc has heated up I've started wondering about this. There are now at least 3 rather large players with relatively deep pockets that all have licensed h.264 for products they essentially give away. So what if Google, Apple, and Adobe all pooled together and purchased the patents for h.264 and licensed it for free (or possibly a free non-commercial license, and force any other big players using it to chip in). I wonder what the price tag on that would be.
- jwr 17y ago
  It always annoys me when people talk about "stuff" without thinking for a moment what the "stuff" actually is. What do you mean by "they don't own H.264"? What does "H.264" mean in your sentence? H.264 is a standard that defines how to decode an elementary video stream. You can't "own it". You can own rights to an implementation — but that's where things get interesting. There are many H.264 decoders, some of which are open source and could be used by Adobe. So their argument is rather weak.
  - mambodog 17y ago
    "You can't "own it"." Well sure you can... you can patent it. In that case, making use of even an F/OSS implementation (such as x264) doesn't guarantee that you have not infringed upon MPEG LA's patents (where they are applicable/enforced).
- joeyo 17y ago
  Presumably they are already paying for H.264 in flash anyway; why would they stop after open sourcing it?
pvg 17y ago
Hang on, rebuild their culture to be competitive? Whatever the merits of Flash, it competes in the open market with HTML 5, SVG, Silverlight, Java [FX], you name it. Having somebody decide for you what you can and you can't run on your own device seems a lot more anti-competitive. Flash has tremendous market penetration and is in very wide use. On the strength of that, I don't think Adobe's choices are constrained just to what bloggers, HN posters or even Steve Jobs say. I'm not a great fan myself (other than when sinking hours into the latest Tower Defense game), FlashBlock is among the first things I download on a fresh install of Firefox but the notion that Flash is somehow teetering on the precipice of oblivion is fanciful, to put it very mildly.

by swombat 17y ago

pavs 17y ago

What do you mean by "Resolve the licensing issue"? They don't own H.264, how do you want them to "resolve" something they don't own?

tomerico 17y ago
I assume they could keep the part that decode H.264 closed source, or other creative solution.
- baby 17y ago
  or use ogg ?
swombat 17y ago
Problems can always be resolved. Some things are truly impossible (change the taste of the colour purple), some are technically impossible (fly by flapping your wings), and some are just impossible due to disagreements between people (release an open-source implementation of a closed codec). If you can resolve the first, you're God. If you can resolve the second, you're a technological visionary. If you can resolve the third, you're a good politician. Only the first category can be really considered impossible to achieve. Resolving licensing issues with H.264 is hardly impossible in that respect.
- pavs 17y ago
  What do you _mean_ by "resolving"? You want adobe to buy H.264 and give it away for free? That's pretty much impossible. You can't just throw around the word "resolve" things without understanding the complexity or nature of the possible solutions.
  - swombat 17y ago
    I mean "do 'stuff' that makes the problem 'go away'". As a former management consultant, and now a start-up founder, believe me, I speak from experience when I say every problem of this kind is solvable if you want to do it badly enough.
    - pavs 17y ago
      There is only "one stuff" they can do to make the problem go away (in your words "resolving licensing issues"), which is, they can buy H.264 and give it away for free (open source it), which is impossible without making themselves bankrupt. The other stuff that I can think of is that they can use Ogg Theora, which is hardly a solution, considering (IMO) it is an inferior codec.
      - swombat 17y ago
        "There is only one way to do X" = the way narrow-minded, uncreative people see the world.
      - lftl 17y ago
        they can buy H.264 and give it away for free (open source it), which is impossible without making themselves bankrupt. As the discussion around H.264/Theora etc has heated up I've started wondering about this. There are now at least 3 rather large players with relatively deep pockets that all have licensed h.264 for products they essentially give away. So what if Google, Apple, and Adobe all pooled together and purchased the patents for h.264 and licensed it for free (or possibly a free non-commercial license, and force any other big players using it to chip in). I wonder what the price tag on that would be.
jwr 17y ago
It always annoys me when people talk about "stuff" without thinking for a moment what the "stuff" actually is. What do you mean by "they don't own H.264"? What does "H.264" mean in your sentence? H.264 is a standard that defines how to decode an elementary video stream. You can't "own it". You can own rights to an implementation — but that's where things get interesting. There are many H.264 decoders, some of which are open source and could be used by Adobe. So their argument is rather weak.
- mambodog 17y ago
  "You can't "own it"." Well sure you can... you can patent it. In that case, making use of even an F/OSS implementation (such as x264) doesn't guarantee that you have not infringed upon MPEG LA's patents (where they are applicable/enforced).
joeyo 17y ago
Presumably they are already paying for H.264 in flash anyway; why would they stop after open sourcing it?

pvg 17y ago

Hang on, rebuild their culture to be competitive? Whatever the merits of Flash, it competes in the open market with HTML 5, SVG, Silverlight, Java [FX], you name it. Having somebody decide for you what you can and you can't run on your own device seems a lot more anti-competitive. Flash has tremendous market penetration and is in very wide use. On the strength of that, I don't think Adobe's choices are constrained just to what bloggers, HN posters or even Steve Jobs say. I'm not a great fan myself (other than when sinking hours into the latest Tower Defense game), FlashBlock is among the first things I download on a fresh install of Firefox but the notion that Flash is somehow teetering on the precipice of oblivion is fanciful, to put it very mildly.