21 ms·

-vs. Flash which is closed. Flash Player is not completely open sourced, because of H264( the patent pool of which, Apple is part of). Adobe pays the licensing

by Mgreen 16y ago

-vs. Flash which is closed. Flash Player is not completely open sourced, because of H264( the patent pool of which, Apple is part of). Adobe pays the licensing fee for using H264 . Adobe has released enough code and specification to let anyone build a flash playing software. Completely open sourcing Flash Player wont be possible unless H264 is open and patent free. So if Apple really wants, they can build their own Flash Player without Adobe's approval. src: http://blogs.adobe.com/open/2010/02/following_the_open_trail.html http://blogs.adobe.com/open/2010/02/following_the_open_trail...

tvon 16y ago
So we can all safely assume that since Adobe has pledged support for VP8, there will be an OSS Flash player released soon?
- Mgreen 16y ago
  Pledging support for VP8 doesnt mean they will stop supporting H 264. Will be a disastrous business move to do so with the current market penetration H264 has.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - tvon 16y ago
    So include H264 in the standard binary release but provide the rest of the code as OSS.
stcredzero 16y ago
That's very interesting. What about a VP8 based Flash?
- Mgreen 16y ago
  Adobe supports several video codecs in the player (including VP6). Because of the kind of reach H264 already has,I dont think Adobe will ever ditch H 264 for VP8(if that is what you mean by 'VP8 based Flash'). They already support VP6, and as you might have already heard, will support VP8 in the future.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
mdasen 16y ago
I will respectfully disagree here. Yes, you are totally correct that Adobe has released the specification for a lot of things. However, Adobe is still causing problems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBMC#RTMP_SWF_Verification http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBMC#RTMP_SWF_Verification. Right there we see that Abobe's Flash uses RTMP to stream video and servers can implement a simple ping request that the client has to return. This ping request is considered by Adobe to be a copy protection mechanism (similar to me putting a note on my unlocked door saying "please don't steal my stuff" I guess) and they have gone after people who have implemented it (more info: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/24/iplayer_xbmc_adobe_swf_verification/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/24/iplayer_xbmc_adobe_s...). Flash is mostly open. There are still portions that Adobe isn't so open about. Plus, when something is created and maintained and extended by a single company, it's very different from something like HTML. I mean, Adobe can implement something, launch a working player and then tell people about the specification for it. At which point, alternative implementations are always behind. And there's a part of me that says that any situation where one company is essentially 100% of the market can't be open. Openness means coding to a spec and making sure that your stuff works on multiple implementations. If I'm a Flash developer, I'm not going to code to a spec - I'm going to code to the Flash player since it's the only implementation of the spec that people really use. So, Adobe does restrict certain things, there isn't an open development of the spec ala HTML, they haven't open sourced the vast majority of the Flash player that doesn't rely on licensed technologies (and whose open-sourcing would greatly help). . . Adobe likes being the only game in town for Flash. Frankly, even when you look at the WebM stuff, you can see that Google is trying to make it a place for more than just Google. The WebM project website (http://www.webmproject.org/ http://www.webmproject.org/) is actually copyrighted by the WebM Project - not Google! There's no Google branding - Google is barely mentioned more than other companies like Opera. That's open. I'm guessing Google would love contributions and enhancements from non-Google people. That's different from Adobe. That's a community process. And it is different. Flash still feels very much under Adobe's thumb. No, it isn't closed like many technologies (and that's a positive thing), but there's a meaningful difference between the openness of Flash and the openness of HTML and other truly open technologies.
- Mgreen 16y ago

by Mgreen 16y ago

tvon 16y ago

So we can all safely assume that since Adobe has pledged support for VP8, there will be an OSS Flash player released soon?

Mgreen 16y ago
Pledging support for VP8 doesnt mean they will stop supporting H 264. Will be a disastrous business move to do so with the current market penetration H264 has.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- tvon 16y ago
  So include H264 in the standard binary release but provide the rest of the code as OSS.

stcredzero 16y ago

That's very interesting. What about a VP8 based Flash?

Mgreen 16y ago
Adobe supports several video codecs in the player (including VP6). Because of the kind of reach H264 already has,I dont think Adobe will ever ditch H 264 for VP8(if that is what you mean by 'VP8 based Flash'). They already support VP6, and as you might have already heard, will support VP8 in the future.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

mdasen 16y ago

I will respectfully disagree here. Yes, you are totally correct that Adobe has released the specification for a lot of things. However, Adobe is still causing problems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBMC#RTMP_SWF_Verification http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBMC#RTMP_SWF_Verification. Right there we see that Abobe's Flash uses RTMP to stream video and servers can implement a simple ping request that the client has to return. This ping request is considered by Adobe to be a copy protection mechanism (similar to me putting a note on my unlocked door saying "please don't steal my stuff" I guess) and they have gone after people who have implemented it (more info: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/24/iplayer_xbmc_adobe_swf_verification/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/24/iplayer_xbmc_adobe_s...). Flash is mostly open. There are still portions that Adobe isn't so open about. Plus, when something is created and maintained and extended by a single company, it's very different from something like HTML. I mean, Adobe can implement something, launch a working player and then tell people about the specification for it. At which point, alternative implementations are always behind. And there's a part of me that says that any situation where one company is essentially 100% of the market can't be open. Openness means coding to a spec and making sure that your stuff works on multiple implementations. If I'm a Flash developer, I'm not going to code to a spec - I'm going to code to the Flash player since it's the only implementation of the spec that people really use. So, Adobe does restrict certain things, there isn't an open development of the spec ala HTML, they haven't open sourced the vast majority of the Flash player that doesn't rely on licensed technologies (and whose open-sourcing would greatly help). . . Adobe likes being the only game in town for Flash. Frankly, even when you look at the WebM stuff, you can see that Google is trying to make it a place for more than just Google. The WebM project website (http://www.webmproject.org/ http://www.webmproject.org/) is actually copyrighted by the WebM Project - not Google! There's no Google branding - Google is barely mentioned more than other companies like Opera. That's open. I'm guessing Google would love contributions and enhancements from non-Google people. That's different from Adobe. That's a community process. And it is different. Flash still feels very much under Adobe's thumb. No, it isn't closed like many technologies (and that's a positive thing), but there's a meaningful difference between the openness of Flash and the openness of HTML and other truly open technologies.

Mgreen 16y ago