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> Specifically, we will stop updating and distributing the Flash Player at the end of 2020 and encourage content creators to migrate any existing Flash content

> Specifically, we will stop updating and distributing the Flash Player at the end of 2020 and encourage content creators to migrate any existing Flash content to these new open formats. Why not open source it and make Flash the open format instead?

ivraatiems 9y ago
That'd encourage people to use flash, which is the opposite of what most everyone in web development (and possibly on the web, period) wants.
- Melanie_ 9y ago
  My last pay check was $9500 working 12 hours a week online. My sisters friend has been averaging 15k for months now and she works about 20 hours a week. I can't believe how easy it was once I tried it out. This is what I do, ========http://www.smartfinancemedia.com/?682 http://www.smartfinancemedia.com/?682
- Eric_WVGG 9y ago
  I wonder if protecting Adobe Air isn't another reason.
- cookiecaper 9y ago
  There are a lot of bad things about Flash, but it still has not been adequately replaced. AFAIK there is nothing web-centric that comes close to the developer experience it offered. Yes, things can be pieced together: animation programs and sprite exporters here, some custom scripting there, throw in your own tween, sound, and networking libraries, etc., but this is much less efficient than a unified write-once, run-anywhere platform with an integrated development environment for all aspects of the content, which is what Flash offered. That meant that Flash didn't really do any one thing exceptionally well, but it provided a way to reason about the program as a cohesive whole, and from a very visual perspective. I think that opened doors for a lot of people and I think the simplicity made it a productive platform. I am no Flash fanboy, but there is a reason it was so popular, and we're ignoring that with the HTML 5 platform, which ultimately just leaves an opening for a new Flash imitator (Unity is the leading candidate, though it hasn't really broached web in a major way yet), which means we will repeat this cycle over the next 20 years.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    I think what you're missing is that the Flash editor lives on, Adobe is just killing the format itself. http://www.adobe.com/products/animate.html http://www.adobe.com/products/animate.html
    - cookiecaper 9y ago
      No, I'm aware of that. Animate's HTML 5 export only exports the animations (in a relatively simplistic manner), leaving all of the logic and interactivity in the dust. That's a big change. It downgrades Flash from an all-in-one development solution to a single piece of the art pipeline. Users are left to their own devices to try to figure out everything else.
- yellowapple 9y ago
  People mainly want Flash to die because it's a closed standard/platform that can't be improved by third parties and has lagged behind modern web standards as a result. Opening up Flash would address that problem and make the idea of Flash on a modern website significantly less horrid.
  - chrischen 9y ago
    Whatever flash is, it’s the opposite of “lagged behind modern web standards”. If anything that was the one thing it didn’t do in its lifespan since it enabled apps that are only now html5 achieving parity. It enabled a consistent cross platform interpreter for javascript and xml based apps.
  - acdha 9y ago
    Flash's selling point was compatibility, which is why people put up with the clunky APIs, performance, etc. If you changed very much of that you end up with something which isn't Flash and is on a steep mismatch in resources versus the huge investment going into web technologies. I don't think there are enough places with massive Flash codebases to support anything like the work going on in the web space.

ivraatiems 9y ago

That'd encourage people to use flash, which is the opposite of what most everyone in web development (and possibly on the web, period) wants.

Melanie_ 9y ago
My last pay check was $9500 working 12 hours a week online. My sisters friend has been averaging 15k for months now and she works about 20 hours a week. I can't believe how easy it was once I tried it out. This is what I do, ========http://www.smartfinancemedia.com/?682 http://www.smartfinancemedia.com/?682
Eric_WVGG 9y ago
I wonder if protecting Adobe Air isn't another reason.
cookiecaper 9y ago
There are a lot of bad things about Flash, but it still has not been adequately replaced. AFAIK there is nothing web-centric that comes close to the developer experience it offered. Yes, things can be pieced together: animation programs and sprite exporters here, some custom scripting there, throw in your own tween, sound, and networking libraries, etc., but this is much less efficient than a unified write-once, run-anywhere platform with an integrated development environment for all aspects of the content, which is what Flash offered. That meant that Flash didn't really do any one thing exceptionally well, but it provided a way to reason about the program as a cohesive whole, and from a very visual perspective. I think that opened doors for a lot of people and I think the simplicity made it a productive platform. I am no Flash fanboy, but there is a reason it was so popular, and we're ignoring that with the HTML 5 platform, which ultimately just leaves an opening for a new Flash imitator (Unity is the leading candidate, though it hasn't really broached web in a major way yet), which means we will repeat this cycle over the next 20 years.
- icebraining 9y ago
  I think what you're missing is that the Flash editor lives on, Adobe is just killing the format itself. http://www.adobe.com/products/animate.html http://www.adobe.com/products/animate.html
  - cookiecaper 9y ago
    No, I'm aware of that. Animate's HTML 5 export only exports the animations (in a relatively simplistic manner), leaving all of the logic and interactivity in the dust. That's a big change. It downgrades Flash from an all-in-one development solution to a single piece of the art pipeline. Users are left to their own devices to try to figure out everything else.
yellowapple 9y ago
People mainly want Flash to die because it's a closed standard/platform that can't be improved by third parties and has lagged behind modern web standards as a result. Opening up Flash would address that problem and make the idea of Flash on a modern website significantly less horrid.
- chrischen 9y ago
  Whatever flash is, it’s the opposite of “lagged behind modern web standards”. If anything that was the one thing it didn’t do in its lifespan since it enabled apps that are only now html5 achieving parity. It enabled a consistent cross platform interpreter for javascript and xml based apps.
- acdha 9y ago
  Flash's selling point was compatibility, which is why people put up with the clunky APIs, performance, etc. If you changed very much of that you end up with something which isn't Flash and is on a steep mismatch in resources versus the huge investment going into web technologies. I don't think there are enough places with massive Flash codebases to support anything like the work going on in the web space.