11 ms·

Adobe's John Nack: Adobe is "sabotaging" HTML5?

100 points by bensummers 17y ago

carson 17y ago
In the end will this debate really matter at all? So many browsers are already supporting html5 features like canvas and the video tag.
- Batsu 17y ago
  It depends on how you look at it. If you look at it in the sense that some browsers support it and others will likely follow, no, it doesn't matter. If you look at it like IE6 supported CSS, it won't matter tomorrow, but in a few years when everyone has to hack their site to pieces just to give a box a rounded corner that looks the same in every browser.... well, it will matter then.
pclark 17y ago
Adobe seem really great at communicating with their users. Pity their products have declined so much recently.
- ThomPete 17y ago
  Adobe has a pretty large collection of products spanning a rather large and diverse group of disciplines and therefore users and customers. So are you talking about all of them or just some? How did you get to that conclusion? There is plenty of things that they don't do very well but that can be said about more or less anyone else out there can't it? In general as a user of their Masters Collection I am pretty satisfied with how they allow my workflows to be optimized across the line. That's what adobe is in the business of helping me with.
  - illumin8 17y ago
    This is why it's so easy for companies like Apple and Adobe to fight over competing standards. You have both companies with developers that have years of training and work experience within their individual content creation pipelines. We call them "fanboys", but in reality they are just working people like you or I that have a particularly well developed skill set and don't want to have to re-train on a whole new platform. I'm reminded of the great quote by Upton Sinclair: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it."
    - ThomPete 17y ago
      I think that hit's it pretty much on the head. I am not a fanboy, I am just semi-relying on their products and the workflow opportunities it gives me. Having said that if it seems like the discussion regarding apple/adobe has much more to do with the implications of their products rather than the products themselves.
TerminalDummy 17y ago
I wouldn't blame them even if they did. Apple basically declared war in deciding not to carry flash on the iPad. However, 'sabotaging' HTML5 just seems like sensationalist tripe.
- metatronscube 17y ago
  Is Windows not doing the same with their new smartphone OS? Everyone should be declaring war on Adobe.
- statictype 17y ago
  To be fair, Apple isn't really waging war on Adobe. They simply decided that it wasn't in their best interest to support Flash on their devices. The war is being waged mostly by the fanboy contingent
  - ThomPete 17y ago
    Isn't streaming video pretty processor intensive too?
    - mcav 17y ago
      Not when you have a hardware H264 chip.
    - potatolicious 17y ago
      Well, that's just it - HTML5 video will allow Apple to make whatever optimizations necessary to keep power consumption to a minimum. If video is wrapped inside an opaque Flash container, a huge chunk of Apple's user experience is now squarely in Adobe's hands; this isn't confidence-inspiring given the general stability and performance of the current Mac Flash app.
      - ThomPete 17y ago
        There is quite a big difference here. Adobe allows for interaction with the video. Apple QT is just that... video.
sethg 17y ago
Shelley Powers (http://shelleypowers.burningbird.net/about http://shelleypowers.burningbird.net/about), who is quoted in the post, has worked in the industry for decades, has written several O’Reilly books about Web technologies, and used to be highly critical of the way HTML standards development has gone. (Yeah, and now she’s on the HTML WG. Veterans of volunteer organizations should be familiar with the “OK, if you think we’re doing everything wrong, you can join us on the committee” gambit.) If she says Adobe is not to blame, Adobe is not to blame.
- simonw 17y ago
  Mark Pilgrim, who is not quoted in the post, has worked in the industry for a decade, has written several books about web technologies and remains highly critical of the way HTML standards development has gone. He says Adobe is to blame. http://twitter.com/diveintomark http://twitter.com/diveintomark I don't think this one can be untangled by deferring to experts - at least not yet. There's still not enough information.
- ubernostrum 17y ago
  It's probably worth reading the quote in full, and recalling that Shelley's been party to a number of high-profile feuds involving the person she's going after in the quote. So I wouldn't exactly rate it as a neutral quote, and for this post to present it as such is a bit disingenuous. Personally, I think the whole thing reeks of stupid standards-committee politics from all sides. Adobe, judging from what they've posted publicly, decided to play up technicalities and procedural issues to try to kill or hold up a competitor to Flash, and the WG chairs responded by publicly alluding to private discussions and painting it to look as bad as possible.
- lambda 17y ago
  Shelley Powers has tried to block the HTML5 standards process using procedural objections, long pointless process discussions, and personal attacks on the editor of the HTML5 standard, more than anyone else that I've seen, at least for the past year or two that I've been following the W3C side of the HTML5 process. I'm not sure she's the best person to reference when trying to defend people who are trying to put up procedural roadblocks to publishing the HTML5 working draft. Larry Masinter is also a veteran of web standards. He seems to be the sort of person who thinks that standards purity, procedural issues, and the like are more important than actual, real world, shipping, interoperable implementations. "<masinter> well, I'm not sure 'matches reality' is always the most important goal" from http://krijnhoetmer.nl/irc-logs/whatwg/20090922 http://krijnhoetmer.nl/irc-logs/whatwg/20090922 So, I do not know if he is trying to slow down the HTML5 standards process because he is employed by Adobe and they consider it in their best interest to slow the process down, or if it's merely because he's an architecture astronaut standards wonk who truly believes that objections claiming that canvas is out of scope of the HTML working group and that it would be better served by splitting it off into some other (currently unspecified) committee. I will note that the W3C HTML working group was chartered with canvas present in the working draft it adopted from the WHATWG, and the only reason it is being split into a separate specification is because of more procedural objections from the very same parties who seem to be opposing any innovation that came from the WHATWG and browser vendors.
GHFigs 17y ago
Short answer: No. Long answer: The W3C process is apparently so opaque that even the editor of the spec believed it to be so. Rumor travels faster than fact.
ZeroGravitas 17y ago
You can get a better idea by reading some of the blog postings written by Adobe's Masinter here over the last year: http://masinter.blogspot.com/ http://masinter.blogspot.com/ They include an explanation of why HTML5 being specified too well makes it anti-competitive, comments on why you shouldn't refer to HTML5 as a "standard", why Google is cheating at standards by employing people to work on them full time, and why irrational people hate Flash for no reason. Basically it sounds like someone playing politics really well.
- illumin8 17y ago
  I read the public mailing list thread - starts here: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Feb/0349.html http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Feb/0349... - and continues for quite some time. I came to the conclusion that Larry Masinter from Adobe did issue a formal objection to the public list - this is quite obvious from this post: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2010Feb/0002.html http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2010Feb/0002... However, there was then further communication that took place in a private, members-only list, where apparently this objection was handled. What seems to be happening is either Adobe is innocently handling the process of raising objections incorrectly, by posting them in a public list, then withdrawing them privately later on, or Adobe is maliciously attempting to subvert the process through delaying tactics. I encourage you to read the thread and decide for yourself if Adobe is really innocent or is deliberately delaying. In considering such things, I usually like to look at what the parties have to gain/lose, as well as their actions.
  - boucher 17y ago
    Well, if you read what the gentlemen from Adobe has said since, his objection on the private list was about how the chairs of whatever committee he raised his objections to basically made a unilateral decision without discussing the objections. So, at least according to him, the private list material is essentially objecting to the process by which his public objections were handled.
    - 17y ago
zarski 17y ago
Adobe needs to embrace HTML 5 and start making great tools around the HTML 5 runtimes. Flash, the runtime makes them nothing. Yes, the build tools around Flash, however, they need to stop their belly aching around HTML,JS,and CSS and learn to embrace and profit.
- nailer 17y ago
  And that's what I really want to hear from John - not arguing over who did what, but a simple statement along the lines of: 'Adobe will modify existing tools, or create new tools that allow content creators to do 2D and 3D drawing, and/or video, using Canvas and HTML Video, with the output not relying on Adobe Flash technologies ' or: 'Adobe will not modify existing tools, or create new tools that output to Canvas and HTML Video' Either answer shows whether they're committed to a rich web with these features built in as standard.
- amadiver 17y ago
  Their thoughts exactly: 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...
- fnid2 17y ago
  That they aren't doing this is why Jobs called them lazy. They are lazy. There is no reason it should take 40% of the CPU to show a video in a flash embed on a laptop. If they can't optimize any better than that, how are they ever going to see success on mobile devices?
  - rortian 17y ago
    It's hard not to be condescending about this but this is super basic: Video is hard if it is not hardware accelerated. Apple refuses to provide a public api for this, so flash video needs a lot of CPU time on OSX. All cell phones that allow flash video will have hardware acceleration and will not have a problem with it.
    - blasdel 17y ago
ZeroGravitas 17y ago
Since the word "sabotage" is getting thrown around, here's some guidelines from an actual WWII sabotage manual. http://boingboing.net/2008/06/11/sabotage-manual-from.html http://boingboing.net/2008/06/11/sabotage-manual-from.html (1) Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions. (2) Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of per sonal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate “patriotic” comments. (3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five. (4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible. (5) Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions. (6) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision. (7) Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on. (8) Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon. Slightly uncanny resemblance.
- gruseom 17y ago
  I was going to post that I doubted the authenticity of this quote, since its style struck me as overly modern and all the sources on the web seemed to trace back to one talk from a 2008 conference. But then I googled the document's apparent title ("Simple Sabotage Field Manual") and discovered what appears to be the original: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26184/26184-8.txt http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26184/26184-8.txt Skimming around this thing is pretty interesting. They recommend plugging sewage systems by flushing sponges down toilets. And here is part of how they recommend setting fire to a factory: To make another type of simple fuse, soak one end of a piece of string in grease. Rub a generous pinch of gunpowder over the inch of string where greasy string meets clean string. Then ignite the clean end of the string. It will burn slowly without a flame (in much the same way that a cigarette burns) until it reaches the grease and gunpowder; it will then flare up suddenly. Sounds pretty authentic to me. Which makes the original quote all the greater. It opens a new possible explanation for the inefficiency of large companies, too: they're full of saboteurs!
intranation 17y ago
According to: http://www.osnews.com/story/22874/Teacup_Meet_Storm_pt_IV_Adobe_Blocking_HTML5_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22874/Teacup_Meet_Storm_pt_IV_Ad... there's no sabotage, it's just how things normally "work" (for some value of work).
nir 17y ago
Reading the recent "Adobe Bad" threads is like watching HN lose brain cells. Having owned only Mac/Linux hardware for the past 10 years I have my share of Adobe frustrations, but all this bandwagon jumping after Jobs made a few comments is ridiculous.
- mbreese 17y ago
  It's standard backlash-backlash. First, it was against Apple - "Without Flash, the iPad will suck. Apple is evil for excluding it". Now, the pendulum has swung the other way - "Adobe is evil". Eventually we'll settle on the agreed upon: Adobe is only mildly evil. :)
  - illumin8 17y ago
    Adobe has been evil for a long time. Remember Dmitry Skylarov? Jailed for writing software that Adobe didn't like - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Sklyarov?wasRedirected=true http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Sklyarov?wasRedirected...
    - nir 17y ago
      My point is that it was never (or rarely) mentioned as such in HN prior to Jobs' comments... Generally I don't think any company is more or less evil than any other. Most publicly traded companies pretty much do whatever they can get away with - and if they don't do so now, their next CEO will.
freetard 17y ago
If anything, this debacle demonstrate that the process should be open to all and public, not opaque as it is today.
- Spikefu 17y ago
  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Feb/ http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Feb/ Some things may be said in private mailing lists, face to face conversation, phone calls, IM etc. but the actual standards, the objections and the decision making process is all public.
Spikefu 17y ago
Simon St. Laurent has an interesting analysis and commentary on the whole debacle: http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2010/02/the-widening-html5-chasm.html http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2010/02/the-widening-html5-chas... It seems that the whole HTML5 standards process was broken from the start and is likely to remain that way. The recent hoopla is just some public airing of the dirty laundry that has always been there.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
godDLL 17y ago
Ooh boy, shit just got real: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Feb/0439.html http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Feb/0439... > Ian Hickson: > Since I was mistaken about the formal objection, should I prepare the drafts for FPWD publication now? What date should I use?
- epochwolf 17y ago
  I can't wait to find out what's actually going on. I'm inclined to distrust adobe. Their track record this month has been less than stellar in the honesty category.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
devin 17y ago
Forgive my ignorance. But could anyone link to or provide a brief summary of what the general process is here? I'm not familiar with writing specifications, etc. Any information explaining the process would be appreciated.

100 points by bensummers 17y ago

In the end will this debate really matter at all? So many browsers are already supporting html5 features like canvas and the video tag.

Batsu 17y ago
It depends on how you look at it. If you look at it in the sense that some browsers support it and others will likely follow, no, it doesn't matter. If you look at it like IE6 supported CSS, it won't matter tomorrow, but in a few years when everyone has to hack their site to pieces just to give a box a rounded corner that looks the same in every browser.... well, it will matter then.

pclark 17y ago

Adobe seem really great at communicating with their users. Pity their products have declined so much recently.

ThomPete 17y ago
Adobe has a pretty large collection of products spanning a rather large and diverse group of disciplines and therefore users and customers. So are you talking about all of them or just some? How did you get to that conclusion? There is plenty of things that they don't do very well but that can be said about more or less anyone else out there can't it? In general as a user of their Masters Collection I am pretty satisfied with how they allow my workflows to be optimized across the line. That's what adobe is in the business of helping me with.
- illumin8 17y ago
  This is why it's so easy for companies like Apple and Adobe to fight over competing standards. You have both companies with developers that have years of training and work experience within their individual content creation pipelines. We call them "fanboys", but in reality they are just working people like you or I that have a particularly well developed skill set and don't want to have to re-train on a whole new platform. I'm reminded of the great quote by Upton Sinclair: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it."
  - ThomPete 17y ago
    I think that hit's it pretty much on the head. I am not a fanboy, I am just semi-relying on their products and the workflow opportunities it gives me. Having said that if it seems like the discussion regarding apple/adobe has much more to do with the implications of their products rather than the products themselves.

TerminalDummy 17y ago

I wouldn't blame them even if they did. Apple basically declared war in deciding not to carry flash on the iPad. However, 'sabotaging' HTML5 just seems like sensationalist tripe.

metatronscube 17y ago
Is Windows not doing the same with their new smartphone OS? Everyone should be declaring war on Adobe.
statictype 17y ago
To be fair, Apple isn't really waging war on Adobe. They simply decided that it wasn't in their best interest to support Flash on their devices. The war is being waged mostly by the fanboy contingent
- ThomPete 17y ago
  Isn't streaming video pretty processor intensive too?
  - mcav 17y ago
    Not when you have a hardware H264 chip.
  - potatolicious 17y ago
    Well, that's just it - HTML5 video will allow Apple to make whatever optimizations necessary to keep power consumption to a minimum. If video is wrapped inside an opaque Flash container, a huge chunk of Apple's user experience is now squarely in Adobe's hands; this isn't confidence-inspiring given the general stability and performance of the current Mac Flash app.
    - ThomPete 17y ago
      There is quite a big difference here. Adobe allows for interaction with the video. Apple QT is just that... video.

sethg 17y ago

Shelley Powers (http://shelleypowers.burningbird.net/about http://shelleypowers.burningbird.net/about), who is quoted in the post, has worked in the industry for decades, has written several O’Reilly books about Web technologies, and used to be highly critical of the way HTML standards development has gone. (Yeah, and now she’s on the HTML WG. Veterans of volunteer organizations should be familiar with the “OK, if you think we’re doing everything wrong, you can join us on the committee” gambit.) If she says Adobe is not to blame, Adobe is not to blame.

simonw 17y ago
Mark Pilgrim, who is not quoted in the post, has worked in the industry for a decade, has written several books about web technologies and remains highly critical of the way HTML standards development has gone. He says Adobe is to blame. http://twitter.com/diveintomark http://twitter.com/diveintomark I don't think this one can be untangled by deferring to experts - at least not yet. There's still not enough information.
ubernostrum 17y ago
It's probably worth reading the quote in full, and recalling that Shelley's been party to a number of high-profile feuds involving the person she's going after in the quote. So I wouldn't exactly rate it as a neutral quote, and for this post to present it as such is a bit disingenuous. Personally, I think the whole thing reeks of stupid standards-committee politics from all sides. Adobe, judging from what they've posted publicly, decided to play up technicalities and procedural issues to try to kill or hold up a competitor to Flash, and the WG chairs responded by publicly alluding to private discussions and painting it to look as bad as possible.
lambda 17y ago
Shelley Powers has tried to block the HTML5 standards process using procedural objections, long pointless process discussions, and personal attacks on the editor of the HTML5 standard, more than anyone else that I've seen, at least for the past year or two that I've been following the W3C side of the HTML5 process. I'm not sure she's the best person to reference when trying to defend people who are trying to put up procedural roadblocks to publishing the HTML5 working draft. Larry Masinter is also a veteran of web standards. He seems to be the sort of person who thinks that standards purity, procedural issues, and the like are more important than actual, real world, shipping, interoperable implementations. "<masinter> well, I'm not sure 'matches reality' is always the most important goal" from http://krijnhoetmer.nl/irc-logs/whatwg/20090922 http://krijnhoetmer.nl/irc-logs/whatwg/20090922 So, I do not know if he is trying to slow down the HTML5 standards process because he is employed by Adobe and they consider it in their best interest to slow the process down, or if it's merely because he's an architecture astronaut standards wonk who truly believes that objections claiming that canvas is out of scope of the HTML working group and that it would be better served by splitting it off into some other (currently unspecified) committee. I will note that the W3C HTML working group was chartered with canvas present in the working draft it adopted from the WHATWG, and the only reason it is being split into a separate specification is because of more procedural objections from the very same parties who seem to be opposing any innovation that came from the WHATWG and browser vendors.

GHFigs 17y ago

Short answer: No. Long answer: The W3C process is apparently so opaque that even the editor of the spec believed it to be so. Rumor travels faster than fact.

ZeroGravitas 17y ago

You can get a better idea by reading some of the blog postings written by Adobe's Masinter here over the last year: http://masinter.blogspot.com/ http://masinter.blogspot.com/ They include an explanation of why HTML5 being specified too well makes it anti-competitive, comments on why you shouldn't refer to HTML5 as a "standard", why Google is cheating at standards by employing people to work on them full time, and why irrational people hate Flash for no reason. Basically it sounds like someone playing politics really well.

illumin8 17y ago
I read the public mailing list thread - starts here: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Feb/0349.html http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Feb/0349... - and continues for quite some time. I came to the conclusion that Larry Masinter from Adobe did issue a formal objection to the public list - this is quite obvious from this post: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2010Feb/0002.html http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2010Feb/0002... However, there was then further communication that took place in a private, members-only list, where apparently this objection was handled. What seems to be happening is either Adobe is innocently handling the process of raising objections incorrectly, by posting them in a public list, then withdrawing them privately later on, or Adobe is maliciously attempting to subvert the process through delaying tactics. I encourage you to read the thread and decide for yourself if Adobe is really innocent or is deliberately delaying. In considering such things, I usually like to look at what the parties have to gain/lose, as well as their actions.
- boucher 17y ago
  Well, if you read what the gentlemen from Adobe has said since, his objection on the private list was about how the chairs of whatever committee he raised his objections to basically made a unilateral decision without discussing the objections. So, at least according to him, the private list material is essentially objecting to the process by which his public objections were handled.
  - 17y ago

zarski 17y ago

Adobe needs to embrace HTML 5 and start making great tools around the HTML 5 runtimes. Flash, the runtime makes them nothing. Yes, the build tools around Flash, however, they need to stop their belly aching around HTML,JS,and CSS and learn to embrace and profit.

nailer 17y ago
And that's what I really want to hear from John - not arguing over who did what, but a simple statement along the lines of: 'Adobe will modify existing tools, or create new tools that allow content creators to do 2D and 3D drawing, and/or video, using Canvas and HTML Video, with the output not relying on Adobe Flash technologies ' or: 'Adobe will not modify existing tools, or create new tools that output to Canvas and HTML Video' Either answer shows whether they're committed to a rich web with these features built in as standard.
amadiver 17y ago
Their thoughts exactly: 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...
fnid2 17y ago
That they aren't doing this is why Jobs called them lazy. They are lazy. There is no reason it should take 40% of the CPU to show a video in a flash embed on a laptop. If they can't optimize any better than that, how are they ever going to see success on mobile devices?
- rortian 17y ago
  It's hard not to be condescending about this but this is super basic: Video is hard if it is not hardware accelerated. Apple refuses to provide a public api for this, so flash video needs a lot of CPU time on OSX. All cell phones that allow flash video will have hardware acceleration and will not have a problem with it.
  - blasdel 17y ago

ZeroGravitas 17y ago

Since the word "sabotage" is getting thrown around, here's some guidelines from an actual WWII sabotage manual. http://boingboing.net/2008/06/11/sabotage-manual-from.html http://boingboing.net/2008/06/11/sabotage-manual-from.html (1) Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions. (2) Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of per sonal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate “patriotic” comments. (3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five. (4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible. (5) Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions. (6) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision. (7) Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on. (8) Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon. Slightly uncanny resemblance.

gruseom 17y ago
I was going to post that I doubted the authenticity of this quote, since its style struck me as overly modern and all the sources on the web seemed to trace back to one talk from a 2008 conference. But then I googled the document's apparent title ("Simple Sabotage Field Manual") and discovered what appears to be the original: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26184/26184-8.txt http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26184/26184-8.txt Skimming around this thing is pretty interesting. They recommend plugging sewage systems by flushing sponges down toilets. And here is part of how they recommend setting fire to a factory: To make another type of simple fuse, soak one end of a piece of string in grease. Rub a generous pinch of gunpowder over the inch of string where greasy string meets clean string. Then ignite the clean end of the string. It will burn slowly without a flame (in much the same way that a cigarette burns) until it reaches the grease and gunpowder; it will then flare up suddenly. Sounds pretty authentic to me. Which makes the original quote all the greater. It opens a new possible explanation for the inefficiency of large companies, too: they're full of saboteurs!

intranation 17y ago

According to: http://www.osnews.com/story/22874/Teacup_Meet_Storm_pt_IV_Adobe_Blocking_HTML5_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/22874/Teacup_Meet_Storm_pt_IV_Ad... there's no sabotage, it's just how things normally "work" (for some value of work).

nir 17y ago

Reading the recent "Adobe Bad" threads is like watching HN lose brain cells. Having owned only Mac/Linux hardware for the past 10 years I have my share of Adobe frustrations, but all this bandwagon jumping after Jobs made a few comments is ridiculous.

mbreese 17y ago
It's standard backlash-backlash. First, it was against Apple - "Without Flash, the iPad will suck. Apple is evil for excluding it". Now, the pendulum has swung the other way - "Adobe is evil". Eventually we'll settle on the agreed upon: Adobe is only mildly evil. :)
- illumin8 17y ago
  Adobe has been evil for a long time. Remember Dmitry Skylarov? Jailed for writing software that Adobe didn't like - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Sklyarov?wasRedirected=true http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Sklyarov?wasRedirected...
  - nir 17y ago
    My point is that it was never (or rarely) mentioned as such in HN prior to Jobs' comments... Generally I don't think any company is more or less evil than any other. Most publicly traded companies pretty much do whatever they can get away with - and if they don't do so now, their next CEO will.

freetard 17y ago

If anything, this debacle demonstrate that the process should be open to all and public, not opaque as it is today.

Spikefu 17y ago
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Feb/ http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Feb/ Some things may be said in private mailing lists, face to face conversation, phone calls, IM etc. but the actual standards, the objections and the decision making process is all public.

Spikefu 17y ago

Simon St. Laurent has an interesting analysis and commentary on the whole debacle: http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2010/02/the-widening-html5-chasm.html http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2010/02/the-widening-html5-chas... It seems that the whole HTML5 standards process was broken from the start and is likely to remain that way. The recent hoopla is just some public airing of the dirty laundry that has always been there.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

godDLL 17y ago

Ooh boy, shit just got real: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Feb/0439.html http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Feb/0439... > Ian Hickson: > Since I was mistaken about the formal objection, should I prepare the drafts for FPWD publication now? What date should I use?

epochwolf 17y ago
I can't wait to find out what's actually going on. I'm inclined to distrust adobe. Their track record this month has been less than stellar in the honesty category.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

devin 17y ago

Forgive my ignorance. But could anyone link to or provide a brief summary of what the general process is here? I'm not familiar with writing specifications, etc. Any information explaining the process would be appreciated.