6 ms·

So why doesn't Adobe just open source flash?

fenomas 9y ago
It has tons of of licensed code. I worked at Adobe at the time, and everyone I knew on the Flash team would have loved to open source the player.
- theandrewbailey 9y ago
  I've never worked at/near Adobe or the Flash source, but I figured 3rd party licensing was the case.
  - ryandrake 9y ago
    I've always disliked this excuse. Software licenses are negotiated with third parties, not handed down from god. If Adobe really thought it would be advantageous and profitable to open source Flash, wouldn't they have gone back and renegotiated these licenses? "We'd love to do Xyz, bbbbbut licenses!" doesn't really make sense.
    - jandrese 9y ago
      Or release a crippled version with with the commercial dependencies stubbed out and let the community bring it back up to speed? This could even slightly advantage Adobe as they could replace their licensed solutions with open source code and avoid the support contracts.
      - jancsika 9y ago
        That's a really novel idea. But I suppose it would all depend on how modular the codebase is. If there's any doubt about where Adobe's code ends and company X's code begins you'd be back to square one-- especially given that company X could easily exploit any ambiguity to scare hobbyist developers from an effort to fill in the stubs.
      - megaman22 9y ago
        If I recall correctly, some of the reference implementations of .NET were somewhat like this; I remember a story about how the GC was pretty naive, because the real one was patent-encumbered, or something along those lines.
    - ternaryoperator 9y ago
      You greatly underestimate how much work it is to negotiate licenses among major vendors, much less renegotiate an existing license.
    - fenomas 9y ago
      > wouldn't they have gone back and renegotiated these licenses? Why assume they didn't try?
- jancsika 9y ago
  Would it be a license violation to release specs or design docs for Flash?
  - userbinator 9y ago
    Specs are already released, although not complete. Look around Adobe's website for "SWF file format specification".
    - jancsika 9y ago
      What's missing? Is what is missing the part that made efforts like Gnash fail?
  - fenomas 9y ago
    Flash's content format (SWF) has been an open specification since 2008. The current version is here: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf.html http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf.html
- userbinator 9y ago
  If https://github.com/adobe/flash-platform https://github.com/adobe/flash-platform (currently empty, but placeholdered) is any indication, maybe they are planning to do it. The ActionScript VM is already opened here: https://github.com/adobe-flash/avmplus https://github.com/adobe-flash/avmplus
shove 9y ago
Few remember, but Adobe tried to submit a variant of ActionScript 3 as an ECMAScript candidate but the open web folks were dubious and it went nowhere. That's not the same thing as open-sourcing the Flash authoring tool, but they still sell the modern variant Animate. They could open source the player, but why bother -- the browser vendors have basically shut the gates. The swf file spec is pretty well documented but the player architecture doesn't map well to 2d canvas performance wise and is nearly a complete impedance mismatch for webgl.
- Marazan 9y ago
  It wasn't the open web people, it was the other companies like Microsoft who killed ECMA 4 as they saw the massive lead Adobe had in corporate Rich Internet Applications and needed to block them.

It has tons of of licensed code. I worked at Adobe at the time, and everyone I knew on the Flash team would have loved to open source the player.

theandrewbailey 9y ago
I've never worked at/near Adobe or the Flash source, but I figured 3rd party licensing was the case.
- ryandrake 9y ago
  I've always disliked this excuse. Software licenses are negotiated with third parties, not handed down from god. If Adobe really thought it would be advantageous and profitable to open source Flash, wouldn't they have gone back and renegotiated these licenses? "We'd love to do Xyz, bbbbbut licenses!" doesn't really make sense.
  - jandrese 9y ago
    Or release a crippled version with with the commercial dependencies stubbed out and let the community bring it back up to speed? This could even slightly advantage Adobe as they could replace their licensed solutions with open source code and avoid the support contracts.
    - jancsika 9y ago
      That's a really novel idea. But I suppose it would all depend on how modular the codebase is. If there's any doubt about where Adobe's code ends and company X's code begins you'd be back to square one-- especially given that company X could easily exploit any ambiguity to scare hobbyist developers from an effort to fill in the stubs.
    - megaman22 9y ago
      If I recall correctly, some of the reference implementations of .NET were somewhat like this; I remember a story about how the GC was pretty naive, because the real one was patent-encumbered, or something along those lines.
  - ternaryoperator 9y ago
    You greatly underestimate how much work it is to negotiate licenses among major vendors, much less renegotiate an existing license.
  - fenomas 9y ago
    > wouldn't they have gone back and renegotiated these licenses? Why assume they didn't try?
jancsika 9y ago
Would it be a license violation to release specs or design docs for Flash?
- userbinator 9y ago
  Specs are already released, although not complete. Look around Adobe's website for "SWF file format specification".
  - jancsika 9y ago
    What's missing? Is what is missing the part that made efforts like Gnash fail?
- fenomas 9y ago
  Flash's content format (SWF) has been an open specification since 2008. The current version is here: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf.html http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf.html
userbinator 9y ago
If https://github.com/adobe/flash-platform https://github.com/adobe/flash-platform (currently empty, but placeholdered) is any indication, maybe they are planning to do it. The ActionScript VM is already opened here: https://github.com/adobe-flash/avmplus https://github.com/adobe-flash/avmplus

shove 9y ago

Few remember, but Adobe tried to submit a variant of ActionScript 3 as an ECMAScript candidate but the open web folks were dubious and it went nowhere. That's not the same thing as open-sourcing the Flash authoring tool, but they still sell the modern variant Animate. They could open source the player, but why bother -- the browser vendors have basically shut the gates. The swf file spec is pretty well documented but the player architecture doesn't map well to 2d canvas performance wise and is nearly a complete impedance mismatch for webgl.

Marazan 9y ago
It wasn't the open web people, it was the other companies like Microsoft who killed ECMA 4 as they saw the massive lead Adobe had in corporate Rich Internet Applications and needed to block them.