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It's OK because proprietary plugins like QuickTime are a threat to the open web, and should be eliminated according to Steve Jobs (who I always turn to for mora

It's OK because proprietary plugins like QuickTime are a threat to the open web, and should be eliminated according to Steve Jobs (who I always turn to for moral guidance on the use of open vs. proprietary systems): "... we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open." http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

davidedicillo 16y ago
Yeah, not like the famously open Adobe Flash.
- Recoil42 16y ago
  You mean this one? http://techcrunch.com/2008/04/30/adobes-open-screen-project-write-once-flash-everywhere/ http://techcrunch.com/2008/04/30/adobes-open-screen-project-... http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf.html http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf.html http://www.adobe.com/devnet/f4v.html http://www.adobe.com/devnet/f4v.html
  - bogomips 16y ago
    I see you got downvoted. HN has descended into a pro-Apple prattle pit yet again, which is sad.
    - recoiledsnake 16y ago
      Yet again? You mean there was some time when it wasn't? I missed it.
  - WiseWeasel 16y ago
    Open Screen is a trojan horse to make Flash the standard development API for TV sets (leaving everyone dependent on Adobe's professional tools to create the content for these devices). SWF and F4V container formats are indeed published freely, however the Flash runtime itself is still proprietary, and thus incompatible with an open web.
    - benologist 16y ago
      There's lots of non-Adobe tools for developing in Flash. I use http://fdt.powerflasher.com/ http://fdt.powerflasher.com/ now and before that http://flashdevelop.org/ http://flashdevelop.org/
      - WiseWeasel 16y ago
        Good luck competing with a company that controls the underlying frameworks you're building your development environment for. There will never be a truly viable alternative to Flash Builder from Adobe as long as they control the runtime. Depending on third party IDEs for a proprietary API is shaky ground to build a business on.
        danenania 16y ago
        Have you used the IDEs he mentioned? They are both quite good and definitely viable alternatives to Adobe's products.
        WiseWeasel 16y ago
        I have not, but my concern would be becoming dependent on a third party Flash development tool for my workflow, and then being left behind as Adobe adds new features to the runtime unsupported by the IDE I'm using, or worse, that they find a way to break content created with the competing IDE. I don't think such a possibility would be all that unexpected, given Adobe's competitive nature and refusal to cede control of the runtime.
        benologist 16y ago
        The Flex SDK which the 3rd party IDEs and Adobe's own Flash Builder* IDE use is actually open source too. * formerly Flex Builder, renamed to avoid confusion with the SDK
        whatever_dude 16y ago
        Disagree. FDT is in fact a much better solution than Flash CS and Flex Builder.
  - CountSessine 16y ago
    I like the Open Screen project and I agree that SWF is a minimally open standard, but to say that Flash is open, enough to code a competitive Flash player, is misleading. There's enough behavior that a practical Flash player needs to implement that isn't in the Open Screen spec (error handling in particular) that creating your own Flash player for general content on the web produced by Adobe Flash, and not just carefully-vetted SWF's, is hard. But at least Adobe stopped threatening legal action against anyone who implemented their own Flash player. Edit: Open Page? Open Screen. Oops...
danilocampos 16y ago
He's definitely correct in this. Good thing Chrome also disables Flash by default. Between this and the Honeycomb source I just checked out through git, Google has really hooked me up with the mad openness. edit: Really, though, this is a bullshit argument that's been cooked up. These are two companies trying to preserve their ability to make money. That's it. The thing I admire about Apple, though, is that they're not making any bones about it. They go with what works better for them, and, as they see it, what works better for users. No silly holy wars or sanctimonious proclamations. I trust the guy who is honest about his self-interest a whole lot more than phony altruists.
- bogomips 16y ago
  No silly holy wars or sanctimonious proclamations. I'm really torn trying to figure out which parts of your post is sarcasm. Because if you're really claiming that Apple hasn't pursued almost every initiative with "sanctimonious proclamations", you must not be paying attention. Gruber echos the Apple talk points, and they all revolve around "just trying to do right by the customer" (instead of "just trying to ensure massive profit margins aided by complete control and industry domination).
  - danilocampos 16y ago
    You suggest a dichotomy that doesn't exist. Apple makes massive profit margins by doing right by the customer (as they see it).
    - bogomips 16y ago
      Apple makes massive profit margins by doing right by the customer (as they see it). Sure, and so does Microsoft. That argument works for any company. The problem is that many of Apple's transparent positions aren't held on their merit, but instead are shrouded behind layers of sanctimonious bullshit. See the anti-Flash screeds as an example of this. That you would claim that insult about Google, in this case, is quite laughable. Though I see that HN is once again a bastion of pro-Apple delusion as the more enlightened fled.
iwwr 16y ago
Quicktime just had horrible (breaking, crippling) support for Windows. Have things changed significantly in the last 2 years?
- raganwald 16y ago
  Great point. This is exactly the problem with Flash for OS X and presumably iOS if it existed. Horrible, breaking, crippling behaviour.
- tvon 16y ago
  Apple does a good job of proving their own point when it comes to their Windows software and cross-platform apps.
podperson 16y ago
As a pro-Apple, so-so-Google kind of guy, I have no problems with disabling the QuickTime plugin by default, since it won't affect most users and quite a bit of malware exploits bugs in QuickTime (generally the QuickTime/Java interface). But Flash is worse in every respect, and Google isn't disabling Flash. If you had to pick between QuickTime and Flash for playing H264 (given that Google has pulled native support for H264) I'd pick QuickTime since it doesn't allow the website designer to festoon the video with ads, links, stupid overlays, and random UI decisions, but better yet would be if Google supported H264 directly and fixed the ugly and buggy <video> tag support.

davidedicillo 16y ago

Yeah, not like the famously open Adobe Flash.

Recoil42 16y ago
You mean this one? http://techcrunch.com/2008/04/30/adobes-open-screen-project-write-once-flash-everywhere/ http://techcrunch.com/2008/04/30/adobes-open-screen-project-... http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf.html http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf.html http://www.adobe.com/devnet/f4v.html http://www.adobe.com/devnet/f4v.html
- bogomips 16y ago
  I see you got downvoted. HN has descended into a pro-Apple prattle pit yet again, which is sad.
  - recoiledsnake 16y ago
    Yet again? You mean there was some time when it wasn't? I missed it.
- WiseWeasel 16y ago
  Open Screen is a trojan horse to make Flash the standard development API for TV sets (leaving everyone dependent on Adobe's professional tools to create the content for these devices). SWF and F4V container formats are indeed published freely, however the Flash runtime itself is still proprietary, and thus incompatible with an open web.
  - benologist 16y ago
    There's lots of non-Adobe tools for developing in Flash. I use http://fdt.powerflasher.com/ http://fdt.powerflasher.com/ now and before that http://flashdevelop.org/ http://flashdevelop.org/
    - WiseWeasel 16y ago
      Good luck competing with a company that controls the underlying frameworks you're building your development environment for. There will never be a truly viable alternative to Flash Builder from Adobe as long as they control the runtime. Depending on third party IDEs for a proprietary API is shaky ground to build a business on.
      - danenania 16y ago
        Have you used the IDEs he mentioned? They are both quite good and definitely viable alternatives to Adobe's products.
        WiseWeasel 16y ago
        I have not, but my concern would be becoming dependent on a third party Flash development tool for my workflow, and then being left behind as Adobe adds new features to the runtime unsupported by the IDE I'm using, or worse, that they find a way to break content created with the competing IDE. I don't think such a possibility would be all that unexpected, given Adobe's competitive nature and refusal to cede control of the runtime.
        benologist 16y ago
        The Flex SDK which the 3rd party IDEs and Adobe's own Flash Builder* IDE use is actually open source too. * formerly Flex Builder, renamed to avoid confusion with the SDK
        whatever_dude 16y ago
        Disagree. FDT is in fact a much better solution than Flash CS and Flex Builder.
- CountSessine 16y ago
  I like the Open Screen project and I agree that SWF is a minimally open standard, but to say that Flash is open, enough to code a competitive Flash player, is misleading. There's enough behavior that a practical Flash player needs to implement that isn't in the Open Screen spec (error handling in particular) that creating your own Flash player for general content on the web produced by Adobe Flash, and not just carefully-vetted SWF's, is hard. But at least Adobe stopped threatening legal action against anyone who implemented their own Flash player. Edit: Open Page? Open Screen. Oops...

danilocampos 16y ago

He's definitely correct in this. Good thing Chrome also disables Flash by default. Between this and the Honeycomb source I just checked out through git, Google has really hooked me up with the mad openness. edit: Really, though, this is a bullshit argument that's been cooked up. These are two companies trying to preserve their ability to make money. That's it. The thing I admire about Apple, though, is that they're not making any bones about it. They go with what works better for them, and, as they see it, what works better for users. No silly holy wars or sanctimonious proclamations. I trust the guy who is honest about his self-interest a whole lot more than phony altruists.

bogomips 16y ago
No silly holy wars or sanctimonious proclamations. I'm really torn trying to figure out which parts of your post is sarcasm. Because if you're really claiming that Apple hasn't pursued almost every initiative with "sanctimonious proclamations", you must not be paying attention. Gruber echos the Apple talk points, and they all revolve around "just trying to do right by the customer" (instead of "just trying to ensure massive profit margins aided by complete control and industry domination).
- danilocampos 16y ago
  You suggest a dichotomy that doesn't exist. Apple makes massive profit margins by doing right by the customer (as they see it).
  - bogomips 16y ago
    Apple makes massive profit margins by doing right by the customer (as they see it). Sure, and so does Microsoft. That argument works for any company. The problem is that many of Apple's transparent positions aren't held on their merit, but instead are shrouded behind layers of sanctimonious bullshit. See the anti-Flash screeds as an example of this. That you would claim that insult about Google, in this case, is quite laughable. Though I see that HN is once again a bastion of pro-Apple delusion as the more enlightened fled.

iwwr 16y ago

Quicktime just had horrible (breaking, crippling) support for Windows. Have things changed significantly in the last 2 years?

raganwald 16y ago
Great point. This is exactly the problem with Flash for OS X and presumably iOS if it existed. Horrible, breaking, crippling behaviour.
tvon 16y ago
Apple does a good job of proving their own point when it comes to their Windows software and cross-platform apps.

podperson 16y ago

As a pro-Apple, so-so-Google kind of guy, I have no problems with disabling the QuickTime plugin by default, since it won't affect most users and quite a bit of malware exploits bugs in QuickTime (generally the QuickTime/Java interface). But Flash is worse in every respect, and Google isn't disabling Flash. If you had to pick between QuickTime and Flash for playing H264 (given that Google has pulled native support for H264) I'd pick QuickTime since it doesn't allow the website designer to festoon the video with ads, links, stupid overlays, and random UI decisions, but better yet would be if Google supported H264 directly and fixed the ugly and buggy <video> tag support.