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Agree, getting rid of OSS is a good thing.

I went to the Adobe Wish Form http://www.adobe.com/go/wish and said "please sign me up as a beta-tester for Flash 9 / Linux". ;-)

* A definitive statement on whether they'll support 64-bit (i.e. "it'll be released at the same time as the 32-bit version" or "it'll be released X months after the 32-bit version" or "it'll never be released"). Sadly, Adobe are somewhat pig-ignorant w.r.t. the 64-bit platform and don't even have a 64-bit version for XP!

They've made their position on 64-bit support pretty clear.

Ignoring the 64-bit world seems shortsighted to me. Sure, most users are 32 bit at the moment, but are new 32 bit machines even sold any more? Old stock, maybe, before current models push it out of the supply chain. Even Semprons are 64 bit now.

Despite their link saying they are working on it, I'm a little skeptical about a Flash 9 player as well. At least until a beta is released anyway. Sun Microsystems helped develop Flash 7 for Linux, nearly 18 months after the Flash 7 IDE was released, so I don't think Adobe is doing what they could with this.

Adobe is creating a Flash 9 player for linux. You can read the developer's blog here

You may not use the Software on any non-PC product or any embedded or device versions of the above operating systems, including, but not limited to, (A) mobile devices, set top boxes (STB), handhelds, phones, web pads, tablets and Tablet PCs that are not running Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, game consoles, TVs, DVD players, media centers (including Windows XP Media Center Edition and its successors), electronic billboards or other digital signage, internet appliances or other internet-connected devices, PDAs, medical devices, ATMs, telematic devices, gaming machines, home automation systems, kiosks, remote control devices, or any other consumer electronics device, (B) operator-based mobile, cable, satellite, or television systems, (C) other closed system devices, or (D) any operating system that is not an Authorized Operating System.

Actually, the timeline was *when* Flash is coming is not known, specifically. Could be 2007, 2008 or...

I just scanned through the Flash EULA at the Adobe site. Either they've recently changed it, or you mis-interpreted it. I couldn't find any reference to auditing your computer, and MCE is specifically permitted.

Flash 8 was released almost a year ago and it still isn't available for Linux!

June 29 is out of date?

Adobe - Adobe Press Room: For immediate release

And they're working on a Linux version, so again, what's the complaint?

Emmy Huang: Yes, Virginia, there will be a Flash Player 9 for Linux

You make me want to puke. the end. Flash works on Mozilla Firefox, and almost all browsers and operating system combinations and Adobe can successfully report I believe a 97.7% installation of all computers connected to the internet. You can find that statistic here. http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashp layer/. Thanks - now go kill yourself.

Although in some ways the pervasion of Google as a verb might possibly be a Bad Thing (TM) for them (as reflected in earlier comments), they just appear petty to people by doing this. I would have thought such widespread use just reflects the strength of their brand.

Adobe also gets their knickers in a twist about the use of 'Photoshop' as a verb. Though I'm not totally sure it's not meant in a 'It's funny. Laugh' sense...

If you're a Mac user, the iLife suite includes two tools that greatly simplify just such tasks, iMovie HD and iDVD. These tools follow the Apple mantra of ease of use, straightforward, and simple - while codec and compression settings are there, they are unnecessary for most things. These tools are relatively cheap, especially compared to Adobe Premiere, they don't have the features either. Seriously nonlinear editing comparable to Premiere is available on Mac OS in Final Cut, but the use case you present doesn't really call for most of Premiere's capabilities.

I've been impressed by these products, and use them for 95% of my non-professional video work - family movies, open source project presentations, hobby art films, etc. The only other product I added to keep me out of the $1,300USD price tag attached to Final Cut is a license for QuickTime Pro. $30USD for QTPro, plus the $80USD for iLife - $110USD is reasonable.

Mind you, these are Mac OS-only tools. If you don't own a Mac, I'd hope that there are PC equivalents. That said, if you do this sort of DVD compliation on a regular basis, buying a Mac might be worthwhile. If you don't feel you need a Mac for anything else, or the cost seems high, even the entry-level Mac Mini will do what you need, in this case.

I'm not trying to be a Mac bigot here, I don't own Apple stock, there's no commission in it for me. That said, there's a reason Apple is the darling of media developers. Their years of experience in Hollywood and professional multimedia have resulted in the some really mature, usable, and cheap prosumer tools for home use. Enjoy!

Flash can play video. That is not possible w/ HTML/CSS/JS.

works in almost *every* browser

In case you haven't seen penguin.swf.

"And the 9.0 player is coming for Linux over the next few months."

From their comments they say a beta may be available by Christmas.. meanwhile more and more sites lock out users with out player 8 or 9. ( http://weblogs.macromedia.com/emmy/ or http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/ ).

Explain why they can't release a Linux version when OSX and Windows get it? Sure they explain the "challenges" in developing for Linux in their postings, but you can't tell me there aren't challenges for OSX or Windows either. They just aren't dedicating the resources to make it happen, for whatever reason!

"With the new direction Adobe is heading I'd expect much more regular Linux releases."

Care to back that up with some sort of proof? So far they've haven't proven good on their previous statements/release time frames. It's starting to become vaporware like Vista. So again I'd like to see some sort of evidence of the "New Direction" they are heading. Otherwise you're spreading FUD.

Cross platform? Flash does not work on all platforms.

Flash 9 is only SUPPORTED on Windows 98-2003 server and Mac OS 10.1-10.4 ppc. They have a beta for intel macs.

http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/producti nfo/systemreqs/

Flash 7 supports Mac OS 9, x86 linux (no AMD64 or other processors) and Solaris x86/sparc64. The linux support is only for redhat and the java desktop system (linux builds).

http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/producti nfo/systemreqs/flashplayer7/

I wouldn't call that cross platform.

Cross platform? Flash does not work on all platforms.

Flash 9 is only SUPPORTED on Windows 98-2003 server and Mac OS 10.1-10.4 ppc. They have a beta for intel macs.

http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/producti nfo/systemreqs/

Flash 7 supports Mac OS 9, x86 linux (no AMD64 or other processors) and Solaris x86/sparc64. The linux support is only for redhat and the java desktop system (linux builds).

http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/producti nfo/systemreqs/flashplayer7/

I wouldn't call that cross platform.

> I'm still waiting for my 8.0 Flash player for Linux.

And you're not gonna get it. They're skipping 8 for Linux and will just be coming out with the 9 player.

http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/

Did you even read that link?
From http://www.adobe.com/licensing/developer/fileforma t/license/:
" a. You may not use the Specification in any way to create or develop a runtime, client, player, executable or other program that reads or renders .swf files."

That's why we need free/open source flash

...Adobe is committed to getting Flash Player 9 on Linux released this fall, probably around October.

I'm curious about your source; Emmy Huang's blog says

"We expect to make a pre-release version available on Adobe Labs for early feedback and testing before the end of the year, with the full release expected in early 2007*."

and even then the asterisk points you at a disclaimer saying that those dates may change... and do you really think that they'd change in the good direction, i.e. earlier?

If you look at the blog done by a fellow working on Flash for Linux, you'll see that as of late July, they're still at the "which libraries should we use?" stage (and in at least one case, the choice is rather disturbing, i.e. v4l version 1, which is about to be obsolete if I understand the discussion).

Another aspect of Flash is the Flash cookies, cookies that are separate and distinct from those the browser creates. The Flash cookies are not managed by any of the cookie management facilities in browsers or security programs, bypassing the security and privacy measures that are in effect for HTML cookies.

My guess is Captivate. I've used it before, it's pretty good for creating demos.

This is what we call a PEBKAC problem. Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair. The developers wrote the code before the case-sensitive file system was released. The code therefore doesn't support the case-sensitive file system. Adobe tells you to install the software on a case-insensitive volume. http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/326193.html. So the real problem is that the user is too stupid and/or lazy to follow directions.

Don't like hearing that do ya? Maybe next time you can avoid calling people stupid when they didn't anticipate everything you could possibly do to fuck up the software they've written.

AFAICT, Adobe has released a Flash player for Linux only up to version 7. Are they skipping v8? Just shafting Linux indefinitely?

Is there some alternative source for a FPv8-compatible player that actually works?

Just because the largest portion of MySpace users seem to have hideous pages doesn't mean that those running MySpace are complete morons and can't manage their system.

It's not Fedora (or Red Hat's) fault that the licensing of those products and the US Laws on those subjects are so anal. Welcome to the age of DRM, patents and vendor lock-in due to the 2 previous reasons.

If you didn't know in the USA you are not allowed to reverse-engineer or even include software that is reverse engineered. You are not allowed to import it, export it or use it. Thus MP3, WMV, AAC support or the DRM-versions of it can not be included in a distro for/created in the USA. If you do, you get massive lawsuits or treated as a terrorist. You can of course go and ask permissions and pay big bucks to Fraunhofer/Thomson, MS or Apple.

Welcome to the Nazi world of the 21st century where the Fuhrers are big companies and the Gestapo respectively SS is represented by lawyers and government. Oh, you can of course always rat out at your favorite kamerat.

lexxe.com is implemented in ColdFusion. ColdFusion used to be a neat solution back in 97 for your first-guestobook(tm) and the sorts. CFML is s server parsed language embedded in HTML. The coldFsuion server was written in Delphi and later with kylix (i guess since it was made available on linux too). They must done quiet some string parsing and when CF hit version 4 it became really slow and did not scale well.

Then someone had the neat idea to emulate the cf syntax by using a java xml parser. compared to the original cf it was pretty fast. So Allaire (back then) decided to move to Java and nearly went bankrupt (might be unrelated).

Macromedia aquired allaire and the coldFusion server has seen some more half-hearted development. ColdFusion was now based on JRun, an EJB Server. JRun had everything but a kitchen sink + the ColdFusion functionality. and because it was based on some "Enterprise" thechnology became the flagship of Macromedias server side technologies. Macromedia wasn't showing much interest in supporting ColdFusion anymore (apart from selling what they had).

now that Macromedia was aquired by Adobe, interest in the product (read: stability, performance , support) is/will be more problematic than ever.

Long comment short meaning; WTF are they using such an utterly bad performing (and expensive as well) technology to implement a meta search engine. Do they expect any traffic soon? or is this just a playground of some kid ?

i have tried to use lexxe just now and got the following response

Sorry, Lexxe has just experienced Internet connection problem. Please try a few minutes later. Thank you for your cooperation.

When they were disconnected from the "internet" then i would probably not even get an error message, right? right!. So i gues this "search" engin just got slashdottet, hehe. Or the search providers are blocking their requests ?

His solution to the hack that destroys a section of your profile is not that he will fix the site, but that you should install Flash 9.

So if you're not a Windows or Mac OS X (PowerPC) user, you're SOL.

There's a weblog by a Flash developer about Flash on Linux. It's on Movable Type, so you know it's hardcore devotion.

http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/

Why do people feel obcessed to implement simple things in complex and incompatible ways?

Complex, possibly, but Flash is far from incompatible in the modern Internet. The most recent numbers from Macromedia (which may not be entirely accurate, but probably aren't all that far off) are that if you restrict yourself to Flash 6, you can reach 97% of the world's end users. Assuming that's accurate, if your site works properly on both Internet Explorer and Firefox, but not on Opera or Konquerer, you would have more people for whom your site breaks than if you had put it together in Flash.

First, Flash is as closed as closed can be.

Just check out Lightroom. http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom/ This will, probably, be the ultimate tool for serious amateur and pro photographers and any other pros in the imaging field. If you got Mac then you can test it already now. Think it's in beta3 atm. The Win version is at same beta stage but is not released for test to the public. Been waiting for this to come out as a test version for PC users since end of last year. Seems I have to wait until beginning of next year tho. Long time to wait for something I long for and need. Starting over with a large DB is hell.

We already went through this just a few years ago with OS X. Apple would be STUPID to wait until CS3 comes out. Yes, designers squirmed for a year or two while they waited for all their apps to come out, but Apple managed to stay in business in the meantime, and by the time the apps came out, the OS was quite nice. Hell, the FINDER in OS X 10.0 sucked ass performance-wise; I can't imagine trying to run any real APPS with it. (I used 10.0 to play around with the UNIX side of OS X while I waited 9 months for 10.1 to appear. While 10.1 was out, all the apps were released, and then Apple came out with 10.2 and the whole package was finally very nice.)

Same thing this time: Apple will have new hardware out, and one day when the apps appear, users will be able to buy them and use them that day. Apple will continue to sell G5s, and designers will hoard them, just like they did with the last of the OS-9-booting MDD G4s. The switch to Intel is really no different. Doesn't matter if it's the OS or hardware changing, the effect on the applications is the same: the apps won't run in an ideal manner, so people will either wait to change, or get by with non-optimal systems, untill the apps match the system.

Besides, plenty of people buy nice Macs and don't use CS. Final Cut is already shipping for Intel and Apple's other pro apps will all be universal soon--maybe even coincident with the release of the hardware. I'd expect to see an announcement regarding that at the WWDC as well: "We at Apple have just finished our transition to Intel, and we've also transitioned all of our apps. Yay us!"

The biggest difference this time, actually, is with Adobe: since OS 9 came out, they purchased Macromedia, and Quark almost dead, so Adobe can drag their feet all they want for the Intel transition.* That's another big reason that Apple would be stupid to wait for Adobe to get a product out the door. (Besides, how would it look for Apple to be waiting on Adobe before releasing new hardware? Very weak, that's how.)

* Plus, the switch to Intel ain't exactly easy. Same situation at Microsoft.

The problem with pdf is that you can't highlight then save the stuff...

You've obviously never used any Acrobat product other than the free reader:

Acrobat Family - Product Comparison

• Use familiar review and commenting tools including highlighter, sticky notes, pen and more
  • Acrobat 7.0 Standard
  • Acrobat 7.0 Professional
• Enable Adobe Reader 7.0 software users to participate in reviews
  • Acrobat 7.0 Professional

If you're interested, support for the Nikon D200 was added to Camera Raw in the 3.3 update back in January. The latest vesrion is 3.4 though.

If you're interested, support for the Nikon D200 was added to Camera Raw in the 3.3 update back in January. The latest vesrion is 3.4 though.

You're absolutely right -- one of the biggest weaknesses in web design is user-font dependence. But the situation is really quite a bit more complicated than simply throwing a font into a directory and linking to it. Now, once the issue was settled, that's exactly how it should work. Getting to that point is quite a bit more difficult though.

Most people get by with whatever is the default on their OS, never looking to see what else is out there. But lo and behold, if you did a little bit of looking, you'd find some exquisite examples of typeface design. You'd also find that they can cost a fair bit of money, generally in the $50-$100 range. And what do you get for that money, a 100KB file maybe? In a world where people regularly toss about pirated copy of movies in the GB range, what's to stop people from just emailing that typeface to everyone in their address list? Or better yet, post it on their website to make it available to the world at large?

How much work and effort goes into tweaking a typeface to get it just so? Does it take a week? A year? 25 years?

Here's a pretty good discussion on the nuances involved: Typeblography: Fonts on the Web

There are lots of extensions with memory leaks and other serious problems. Be sure you're not using an extension on that list if you're having problems.

Plugins, especially Flash, have also been known to cause problems such as high memory use and 100% CPU use after waking up from hiberation. Be sure to get the latest Macromedia, Java, and Acrobat plugins.

There are lots of extensions with memory leaks and other serious problems. Be sure you're not using an extension on that list if you're having problems.

Plugins, especially Flash, have also been known to cause problems such as high memory use and 100% CPU use after waking up from hiberation. Be sure to get the latest Macromedia, Java, and Acrobat plugins.

Flash Player 9 will be available for linux, sometime later this year.

releas of flash 9 is out for ppc macs as of the 27th, it looks

http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi? P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash&P2_Platform=MacOSX

I see even so called Linux friendly IBM is blocking Linux users out because there is no Flash 8 for Linux yet. Oh well maybe next Wimbledon. Is there a Flash player 8 out for Mac?

Yes, Flash Player 8 is standard. The public beta of Flash Player 9 http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/public_b eta/ is also available (at least for Mac Intel).

If client wants a commercial font, and publishing house doesn't have a licence to the commercial font, then the contract between client and publishing house needs to specify who pays for the font licence and who owns the font licence when the print job is complete.
[...]
Presumably you can sell on a 'second-hand' font licence, like you can sell on the right to use pretty much any kind of intellectual property ?

What you can and can't do with a commercially-licensed font naturally depends on the terms of the license. Let's look at some.

Here is Linotype's standard license. With regard to your first point, observe 1.4, which states that you do not need to own a license simply to print documents that use the font, i.e. a license is only needed to create or modify such documents; this implies that only designers and typesetters need licenses. With regard to selling licenses second-hand, observe 1.3: they permit it under certain strict conditions.

Here are Adobe's font licenses. They're pretty similar, and permit transferring the license to a third party in much the same way. Interestingly, Adobe appears to be stricter than Linotype: they require printers to own a valid license as well, even if they are only printing a document that you created. This may be why so many unlicensed Adobe products were found in this raid.

Note that font licenses do tend to be valid contracts; typically you are presented with the license before you have made any payment, and in the case of more expensive fonts you may even have to provide a physical signature. These aren't dodgy shrink-wrap EULAs of the sort we all hate so much.

For your other point:
Can you rent fonts, like you can rent cars ? You might only need it for one print job; or you might need to own the licence like you own a car, to use every day for years and years.

That is entirely up to the person issuing the licenses; the answer is typically "no" (assuming you live in a jurisdiction where it's possible to prohibit this). But with the price of a perpetual license to a single weight of a font typically being between $10 and $30, it's unlikely in practice that you'd save much money that way anyway. Just buy the weights the job needs -- it's peanuts compared to the other expenses.

It just so happens that fonts have varying degrees of security. If these security flags are honored applications will refuse to embed these fonts (as Acrobat does for example). Most fonts are licensed to be subsetted but not embedded. You'll probably find nearly all Adobe PDF files have subsetted fonts.

Subsetting means that if your doc only has the letters "abcde" the only part of that font that is embedded into the PDF is "adbde

And yes - Adobe has got in trouble before for minor bugs in Distiller and Acrobat for fully embeding fonts into PDF files (see the case Agfa vs. Adobe Systems - where they settled out of court).

Anyhow you can read more about embedding opentype fonts in this pdf doc > http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/acro bat/sdk/FontPolicies.pdf

So yes - while it seems Adobe apps are inserting fonts into documents - they really aren't - fully at least.

For spot audits?

That would be the license. Read the fine license sometime -- a lot of them allow the vendor to do an audit.

Lets take the Adobe License for Photoshop for example:

http://www.adobe.com/products/eulas/index.html

"Compliance with Licences. If you are a business, company or organization, you agree that upon request from Adobe or its authorized representative you will within thirty (30) days fully document and certify that use of any and all Adobe software at the time of the request is in conformity with your valid licences from Adobe."

Lets take Monotype next:

http://www.fonts.com/Legal/MI-EULA.htm

"If you are a business or organization, you agree that upon request from MI or MI's authorized representative, you will with thirty (30) days fully document and certify that use of any and all MI Font Software at the time of the request is in conformity with your valid licences from MI."

I am not bothering with Microsoft right now. You should have the idea already...

Ratboy

No idea how it's coming along, but they've got a guy working on it, and he's blogging a little to let everyone know he's alive.

The guy is Mike Melanson.

Blog link here: http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/

He has actively sought input on various issues on the past. If a Linux Flash Player is important to you, check it out.

Although it's nice of them to helpfully include carefully selected sotware from premier partners (where the careful selection process is making sure it's the highest bidder), even if they promise to be really, really, good and not create a bloated installer, perhaps they could get the message that if I'd wanted to install X, I would have. If I'm installing a player so you can make massive profits selling people the encoder, I shouldn't have to look at ads as well. The fact that they've had to create a FAQ telling people why they shouldn't be annoyed suggests they know this.

Flash 9 is coming.... http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/

http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/pdf/ind ex_reference.html

Please repeat:

PDF is not a closed format.
PDF is not a closed format.
PDF is not a closed format.
PDF is not a closed format.
PDF is not a closed format.
PDF is not a closed format.

Lightroom.