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Shumway. Shumway shumway SHUMWAY! This is what Shumway was supposed to be for. Creating a Flash runtime in javascript/html5 which would allow all that "existi

Shumway. Shumway shumway SHUMWAY! This is what Shumway was supposed to be for. Creating a Flash runtime in javascript/html5 which would allow all that "existing valuable fun, educational, historical etc Flash content" to live on, without making it attractive to continue creating Flash content. Allowing all that content to be archived for the future. Unfortunately, according to that same thread, Shumway's been killed off. Without shumway, we're now losing a huge chunk of the web's early history and the first years of online video games, gaming on the web, etc. Whatever.

moron4hire 10y ago
Homestar Runner alone is worth it.
saurik 10y ago
I wish I understood what Firefox's mission is anymore, or what their goals were... they seem to just be randomly wandering around from vision to vision without really ever completing anything, which is not only extremely depressing but also extremely annoying, as I really really want to feel like there is an "upstream" I trust for "the web" :/.
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  From what I've read, the leadership of Mozilla has been taken over by money-minded suits rather than those who understand the mission of Mozilla, and there's a rift between the engineering team and this leadership. Of course I'm sure the reality is more nuanced than that, and I'm sure there are principled leaders that still remain at Mozilla, but that's the general impression I get. It's not unusual either, for non-profits to become more corporate over time, sadly it's a reflection on what can happen when the financial base of an organisation relies on making money.
  - chris_wot 10y ago
    Well, I really still want tomboy what they stand for. First it was mobile, then it was a project to authenticate, then it was IoT, now... What?
    - ZenoArrow 10y ago
      You can't reduce a collection of the priorities of individuals down to a single one. Mozilla doesn't have a single direction in the same way Apple or Google don't have a single direction. You can look at the general goal of pushing the web forward if you want, but that idea has many forms of expression. The real problem doesn't come from being confused about what Mozilla 'stands for', it's comes from short term thinking by their leadership. Their products are being undermined by a leadership that doesn't understand their potential worth (both in terms of their importance to the web, and financially to Mozilla). Without leadership that looks long term at what benefits the web and has a vision of how to get there, that leadership will mostly be a hindrance. Thankfully the engineering teams seemed to have struck gold with Rust/Servo (and in ASM.JS's influence on WebAssembly), which should serve Mozilla well as the technical basis for future development.
gkya 10y ago
Not all the world has access to latest hardware that can run a pdf renderer and a flash interpreter in Javascript without hiccups.
- scrollaway 10y ago
  That is so irrelevant I'm having a hard time understanding why you're even bringing it up: 1. The flash plugin is honestly a piece of crap. Has always been. If running "a flash interpreter in javascript" is bad on your hardware, the plugin will be just as bad. 2. Nobody cares about performance on low hardware in the context of a project that is meant to move you off Flash and into more standard/open technologies. 3. We're talking about archival here. Performance isn't a concern today, and it definitely won't be in 70 years.
  - gkya 10y ago
    1: No, it is faster. 2: Don't make up facts. Also, if the pdf renderer will be faster and less memory intensive this will be a win for who can't afford new hardware. 3: Performance is a concern today and it definitely will be in 70 or more years. Remember, pdf part has nothing to do with archival. You're bending facts and using rhetoric to make a false argument that implementing browser parts in C++ is somehow bad for web. These are the internal implementations of the given features and the more efficient the better.
    - scrollaway 10y ago
      You have got to be kidding me. You're seriously arguing that a closed flash plugin is better for archival than an open-tech-based solution because of performance? When one requires a specific browser, with specific APIs whereas the other is a generic open source runtime?
      - gkya 10y ago
        This is a strawman, as it has nothing to do with the performance issues I brought up against your words. Though I admit I didn't know if pepper stuff was closed-source, my intuition was that it were open source if not why Mozilla would consider using it, but I was apparently wrong on that. Still, though, that does not mean a JS pdf reader and more importantly a JS flash player are the way to go. That if you don't want to cater only to those who can afford high-end devices, which Mozilla seemingly is not doing, seen with the target market of Firefox OS and with their motto: > Hi. We’re Mozilla, the proudly non-profit champions of the Internet, helping to keep it healthy, open and accessible to all. [https://www.mozilla.org/en-US https://www.mozilla.org/en-US]
blub 10y ago
After the initial exuberance when it seemed that OSs could be implemented in Javascript the harsh reality sets in that the language is not even adequate for implementing a pdf renderer, nevermind a Flash VM. Any sensible person could have figured this out, but Javascript developers are arrogant enough to think that they should use JS for everything and succeed. This is a more than welcome wake-up call.

moron4hire 10y ago

Homestar Runner alone is worth it.

saurik 10y ago

I wish I understood what Firefox's mission is anymore, or what their goals were... they seem to just be randomly wandering around from vision to vision without really ever completing anything, which is not only extremely depressing but also extremely annoying, as I really really want to feel like there is an "upstream" I trust for "the web" :/.

ZenoArrow 10y ago
From what I've read, the leadership of Mozilla has been taken over by money-minded suits rather than those who understand the mission of Mozilla, and there's a rift between the engineering team and this leadership. Of course I'm sure the reality is more nuanced than that, and I'm sure there are principled leaders that still remain at Mozilla, but that's the general impression I get. It's not unusual either, for non-profits to become more corporate over time, sadly it's a reflection on what can happen when the financial base of an organisation relies on making money.
- chris_wot 10y ago
  Well, I really still want tomboy what they stand for. First it was mobile, then it was a project to authenticate, then it was IoT, now... What?
  - ZenoArrow 10y ago
    You can't reduce a collection of the priorities of individuals down to a single one. Mozilla doesn't have a single direction in the same way Apple or Google don't have a single direction. You can look at the general goal of pushing the web forward if you want, but that idea has many forms of expression. The real problem doesn't come from being confused about what Mozilla 'stands for', it's comes from short term thinking by their leadership. Their products are being undermined by a leadership that doesn't understand their potential worth (both in terms of their importance to the web, and financially to Mozilla). Without leadership that looks long term at what benefits the web and has a vision of how to get there, that leadership will mostly be a hindrance. Thankfully the engineering teams seemed to have struck gold with Rust/Servo (and in ASM.JS's influence on WebAssembly), which should serve Mozilla well as the technical basis for future development.

gkya 10y ago

Not all the world has access to latest hardware that can run a pdf renderer and a flash interpreter in Javascript without hiccups.

scrollaway 10y ago
That is so irrelevant I'm having a hard time understanding why you're even bringing it up: 1. The flash plugin is honestly a piece of crap. Has always been. If running "a flash interpreter in javascript" is bad on your hardware, the plugin will be just as bad. 2. Nobody cares about performance on low hardware in the context of a project that is meant to move you off Flash and into more standard/open technologies. 3. We're talking about archival here. Performance isn't a concern today, and it definitely won't be in 70 years.
- gkya 10y ago
  1: No, it is faster. 2: Don't make up facts. Also, if the pdf renderer will be faster and less memory intensive this will be a win for who can't afford new hardware. 3: Performance is a concern today and it definitely will be in 70 or more years. Remember, pdf part has nothing to do with archival. You're bending facts and using rhetoric to make a false argument that implementing browser parts in C++ is somehow bad for web. These are the internal implementations of the given features and the more efficient the better.
  - scrollaway 10y ago
    You have got to be kidding me. You're seriously arguing that a closed flash plugin is better for archival than an open-tech-based solution because of performance? When one requires a specific browser, with specific APIs whereas the other is a generic open source runtime?
    - gkya 10y ago
      This is a strawman, as it has nothing to do with the performance issues I brought up against your words. Though I admit I didn't know if pepper stuff was closed-source, my intuition was that it were open source if not why Mozilla would consider using it, but I was apparently wrong on that. Still, though, that does not mean a JS pdf reader and more importantly a JS flash player are the way to go. That if you don't want to cater only to those who can afford high-end devices, which Mozilla seemingly is not doing, seen with the target market of Firefox OS and with their motto: > Hi. We’re Mozilla, the proudly non-profit champions of the Internet, helping to keep it healthy, open and accessible to all. [https://www.mozilla.org/en-US https://www.mozilla.org/en-US]

blub 10y ago

After the initial exuberance when it seemed that OSs could be implemented in Javascript the harsh reality sets in that the language is not even adequate for implementing a pdf renderer, nevermind a Flash VM. Any sensible person could have figured this out, but Javascript developers are arrogant enough to think that they should use JS for everything and succeed. This is a more than welcome wake-up call.