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Adobe blocking publication of latest HTML5 draft?
- alexandros 17y agoMust be hard to be Adobe these days. These guys just cannot get a break.
- bensummers 17y agoIt's not easy trying to hold back the web and prevent open standards from making expensive authoring tools redundant, especially when it's in everyone else's interests for them to fail. They're doing the best they can. We should admire their persistence.
- ddrouin 17y agoIt's a funny situation, in the sense that Microsoft did exactly the same thing on the ECMAScript 4 standard on which Actionscript 3 is based and managed instead to stall the evolution of the ES standard... http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2008/08/ru-roh-adobe-screwed-by-ecmascript.html http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2008/08/ru-roh-adobe-screwe...
- glymor 17y agoEveryone focused on Microsoft at the time but Yahoo and others also dissented. I think for good reason; ES4 is nearly completely different from normal Javascript (static types, class-based inheritance). Also Adobe was getting a standard that was what they already had and Mozilla had a AS3 VM runtime from Adobe. Microsoft would have been starting from scratch. I don't blame them for blocking it. (EDIT: If you look at this Apple also marked red to much of ES4: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pFIHldY_CkszsFxMkQOReAQ&gid=2 http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pFIHldY_CkszsFxMkQORe...)
- voidpointer 17y agoI don't see how HTML5 makes authoring tools (commercial or not) redundant. Do you expect people that are relying on visual authoring software to migrate to writing HTML5/JS/CSS in a text editor "just because"?
- bensummers 17y agoI meant their particular authoring tools, which output Flash rather than HTML5. They could adjust them to output HTML5 with Flash fallback, and that would be a Good Thing. But it seems odd to keep on going with a poorly integrated[1] plugin which duplicates the work done in open HTML+JS runtimes available everywhere from desktops to smartphones[2]. 1) eg Flash 'cookies' which don't get wiped when you delete your cookies in the browser. 2) And 'superphones', of course. :-)
- voidpointer 17y agoSo we agree that there is a lot of room for innovation in the space of tools enabling people to output to the HTML5 stack.
- bensummers 17y agoAbsolutely. And it would be a good thing, since every new internet connected platform is going to implement an HTML5 runtime, and the more people who can create stuff the better.
- cjbos 17y agoI think they are planning on updating their tools to output HTML5, check out this video http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2009/10/sneak_peek_ai_fl_dw_canvas.html http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2009/10/sneak_peek_ai_fl_dw_can...
- mambodog 17y agoAnd its built around their own Flash-renderer-optimised clone of SVG (FXG)... because... its more convenient for them, I guess?
- ryanhuff 17y agoObviously there is a whole flash ecosystem that Adobe profits from. If html 5 helps move the market away from Flash, Adobe's influence and market position would be impacted. Going from a position of controlling Flash to being one of many html 5 tools companies is not in their best interest. So, its understandable that a public company is digging in their heals, but its up to the community to help push through the politics.
- hyperbovine 17y agoThey only profit from the sale of the authoring tools; the runtime is free. (In fact they're probably paying everyone to preload Flash.) Their content authoring suite has no real competitor. I can see culturally why they are so wedded to Flash (they spent $3.4 billion on it four years ago) but it's not like CS* sales would crater if everyone switched to HTML5 (assuming Adobe tools started writing HTML5). If anything the market would grow. I think Adobe knows this. The writing is on the wall so far as Flash is concerned.
- ryanhuff 17y ago6% of Adobe's revenues come from Platform segment, which includes Flash Player, AIR, Cold Fusion, Flex and the Flash developer tool. ($181M in 2009). While Adobe would survive if Flash disappeared tomorrow.. In the end, Adobe's actions speak for themselves. They are heavily promoting Flash. http://news.ebrandz.com/miscellaneous/2009/2472-adobe-unfolds-flash-to-media-inks-strategic-alliance-with-time-warner-companies-.html http://news.ebrandz.com/miscellaneous/2009/2472-adobe-unfold... I agree that the writing is on the wall, but Adobe isn't going to watch millions of dollars in revenue disappear without a fight.
- dangrossman 17y agoThe links in the post go to password protected pages, so I can't get much context on this post.
- bensummers 17y agoI believe that's the point of the post, to show how it's all taking place behind closed doors.
- radley 17y agoOr it may possible he forgot the links are password protected because he's part of the discussion and doesn't sign in everyday... Occam's or conspiracy? you decide...
- bensummers 17y agoOr his intended audience is people on that list, I suppose.
- ZeroGravitas 17y agoNo, he's complained publicly about the very existence of these secret lists before. They links you can't follow are there to drive home the point that youcant follow them.
- Lancer383 17y agoOf course! Adobe is now blocking the pages about Adobe blocking the HTML5 Draft!
- moron4hire 17y agoSo we don't know anything about the content of their objection, but we're going to call Adobe assholes anyway? Maybe it's the W3C blocking the release of objections, who knows. This article is woefully thin on actual information, don't jump to any conclusions just yet.
- acg 17y agoCertainly recent comments by Adobe's CTO see a future with HTML5 http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2010/02/open_access_to_content_and_app.html http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2010/02/open_access_to_... Although Apple's policy is beginning to worry them, it reads more like a HTML5 is a complementary technology rather than a competitor.
- mbreese 17y agoBut it's so much easier to redefine HTML5 to compliment Flash than it is for Flash to compliment a complete HTML5 spec.
- acg 17y agoHTML may represent new business for adobe. HTML5 has more to worry about from O/S vendors and browser makers in my view. An example of this is indecision about video codecs. A rich html spec makes life easier for adobe: their primary business is tools (I was told this by a Flex evangelist as he gave people copies of the FlexSDK).
- nickyp 17y agoThe article is very thin on the particulars, but my guess is that they're reading the draft on Scribd and a well-known plugin keeps crashing. You can't approve something if you can't read it IMHO!
- bonaldi 17y agoLooks like they want RDFa, microformats and Canvas (2D) to be stripped: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Feb/0349.html http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Feb/0349... and http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2010Feb/0002.html http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2010Feb/0002...
- mcav 17y agoAdobe seems to think that those three things aren't related to HTML5. That may or may not formally be the case, but HTML5 without canvas is so much less.
- bensummers 17y agoHTML5 without canvas needs something like, er, Flash!
- ZeroGravitas 17y agoSo what's the real story here? My wild guess is that Microsoft is making noises about implementing more of HTML5. If Adobe gets Canvas shifted out of the spec that radically reduces the chances of it being implemented in IE. edit: or, "As a First Public Working Draft, this publication will trigger patent policy review." Is Adobe trying to keep patents on Canvas under wraps?
- Hixie 17y agoNo idea what the "real story" is here, or if there is one beyond what they've said. There's no patent review issue here, though, since the canvas stuff has already been published as FPWD by the W3C HTML working group in the HTML5 spec itself. Thus Adobe is already bound by the patent policy on this stuff.
- radley 17y agoIt appears that representatives from Google and Opera are the ones playing politics: At least two members of this team, Ian Hickson[1] and Anne van Kesteren[2], representing Google and Opera, respectively, have been writing this morning that Adobe is officially blocking publication of HTML5. This type of communication could cause FUD among the community of users, and should be addressed as soon as possible.
- cwilson 17y agoRegardless of this being light on the details it's the responsibility of the web community to keep this potential issue in the spotlight until Adobe decides they need to respond and clarify their intentions.
- yumraj 17y agoThis post is so thin on real content that it seems like a FUD. I'm not saying it is, but almost feels like crying wolf. I will reserve my opinion till some details are made available and not just take the word of hixie who is after all an involved and hence non-neutral party.
- telemachos 17y agoMark Pilgrim makes a good point that I wonder about (http://twitter.com/diveintomark/status/9013587732 http://twitter.com/diveintomark/status/9013587732): why are there member-only lists at all? That is, HTML is an open standard. I had no idea there were secret holds. Was this a known part of the process? Is it done often? Are there any precedents?
- seldo 17y agoIt has been a long time since I was involved in the W3C, but I can tell you that the public lists are plagued with clueless people who jump onto, e.g., the XHTML 2.0 standards definition list and ask for help with converting their BMPs into GIFs for their homepage. Even without those, there are legions of self-important blowhards who will spend weeks arguing whether "<section>" is the semantically best name for a tag. W3C is not terribly quick at getting things done at the best of times, but the public lists are even more so. All that said, I've never heard of a "hold" before, but then I was only ever on the public lists.
- mrduncan 17y agoI agree that allowing users to post to the lists might be harmful in some cases, but I can't think of a good reason why these lists aren't readable by the public.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- carson 17y agoIt is probably there to allow the members to talk freely about internal projects that they don't want to have exposed externally before they are ready.
- ZeroGravitas 17y agoI'm fairly certain that Apple communicated that it wouldn't implement Theora in private.
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- nir 17y agoAlso, I heard that Adobe's CEO totally wore the same shirt three days in a row! Gross!
- tolmasky 17y agoThe more things change the more they stay the same. The standards process is basically designed for this kind of hold up.
- c00p3r 17y agoThey still refuse to approve that what they should make was a browser instead of investing in an outdated middle-layer, or say it differently, a modern browser now is what flash or java was ought to be? =) The game of "You need our special VM here" is over.