4 ms·

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

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