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Will Flash Be Taken Off The Shelf?
bugninja writes "According to an article at News.com, Adobe wins 2.8M from Macromedia today for using some patented interface stuff in Flash. But this isn't the end, further legal battles could require that Flash be removed from Macromedia's list of "products for sale". We may not all be Flash lovers, but is it right to take a good product away from so many people who really do like it just because another company's product isn't taking over the market like they hoped it would?"
Update: 05/03 13:29 GMT by J : Speaking of Flash, yesterday eEye discovered
a very serious security hole
in the version of Flash distributed with most copies of Windows. Go
download
the fixed release.
"is it right to take a good product away from so many people who really do like it just because another company's product isn't taking over the market like they hoped it would?"
if everyone's response to Adobe will be as vehement as if Microsoft did it...
Your actions on earth echo in eternity.
How are tabbed palettes patented? That is totally inane! From the article: 'alleging that the user interface of Macromedia's Flash Web animation tool infringed on Adobe's patent for "tabbed palettes," a feature that allows users of design software to rearrange the work space on the PC screen.'
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
my favorite quote from Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be the case. The patent is over "tabbed palettes", a type of user interface design. So it's not an invention, just a ludicrous software patent.
Many years ago, Apple tried to sue Microsoft for copyright infringement over their user-interface. Had they (ab)used the patent system instead, they might have won, and there would be no Windows.
from Macromedia today for using some patented interface stuff in Flash
One would assume there is prior use for tabbed palettes (which is the interface stuff the mentioned in the article). Adobe has been around for a long time, but I don't see how they can basically patent tabs
Apple sues Microsoft over "the close button in the upper corner of the window."
What's next, the icon? Are the tabs in Mozilla in violation? The concept of "tabs" in "windows" no matter if you call them "palettes" or not, was part of the Windows API as long as I can remember.
then where do I send my check to support the plaintiffs?
I know that on Adult Swim, "Home Movies" started using flash for their animation this season and it is wonderful, actually many of the Adult Swim Comedy block use flash if I'm not mistaken.
This is really a shame, I hope a new version is available soon.
Chicago2600.net more than a lifestyle, its a survival trait.
remember that NBA star that tried to patent the finger wiggle he did after he scored? ever notice how many web sites look exactly like Amazon.com? stand proud brother, you are an open source hero, you will never have to deal with this
pretzel_logic
Flash has long been the scourge of the internet. People use it to make large, annoying, ugly, flashy, and noisy animations instead of just making webpages. And now it's being used for obtrusive banner ads that even take up entire pages!
But Flash has a number of positive uses - it can be used to create complex animations for presentations, or to create simple amateur animated movies in a fraction of the time taken using other tools. It can be used to create simple database applications. It has a powerful variant of javascript, which allows you to do many complex scripting tasks using only flash. It has powerful XML support for exchanging data with servers, making it possible to use it for e-commerce and data-transaction applications. It has a light memory and disk footprint, doesn't use too much unnecessary bandwidth, and has great multimedia capabilities.
If Flash dissapears, I will sorely miss it.
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
I suppose they are talking about the interface in the upper right part of the app as shown in this screenshot.
Clicking the bars slides the bars and shows the tool you want. It isn't a tabpage like I am used to seeing but has the same function. I have seen this technique used somewhere else recently and it wasn't an Adobe product. I wish I could place it. Actually, it just dawned on me that this screenshot is a beta version so it is possible they have already corrected it.
'Same speed C but faster'
Flash is a tool. Many (perhaps all) tools can be abused. Saying that Flash is bad because too many monkeys use it in ways that are totally inappropriate is like saying e-mail is bad because too many monkeys use it for spam (i.e., a way that is totally inappropriate).
No Laughing Allowed!
This is the equivalent of a car company patenting their cup holders and suing any other manufacturer who put them in. Who's the real loser in the end? As Macromedia CEO Rob Burgess points out, "Ultimately, it is our customers, and particularly our mutual customers, that will be harmed." Yup, half of us wind up with burnt, coffee-stained crotches.
So what, now no software developer can include tabbed palettes? Wouldn't it be nice if Adobe said "Hey, Macromedia, you've used one of our ideas, but that's alright, we'll use one of your ideas, and both our products will be the better for it." No more can people stand on the shoulders of giants. Today, you have to stand on your tiptoes. Either that, or knock everyone else down.
Well Adobe, for 2.8m, you've impeded the progress of software development, created enemies, and left your customers with a bad taste in their mouths. And you know what? I bet a lot of people will feel a lot less bad about pirating your software after this. I hope it was worth it.
c-hack.com |
Oops, they've already done just that.
I wonder how this would affect Flash MX. It doesn't feature the UI elements that Adobe claims to have invented. (And thank the gods for that, I hate tabbed palettes as much as most of you Slashdotters hate the Flash plugin itself.) Would Macromedia only have to pull Flash versions 5 and earlier off the shelves?
What a waste of resources such lawsuits are. Companies squabbling like children, running complaining to mommy and daddy every time one of them has any kind of problem. Grow up or go to bed without any supper, I say!
With E-Mail it's about 50-50 at the moment. That is also not nice, but it is acceptable.
This is why people hate slash: The number of abuses exceeds the number of well-thought use by about a factor of 20.
michael at slashdot.org: The real answer is that a couple of the slashdot authors are sick.
Until government gets out of the business of subsidizing property by taxing those who create property for the protection of those who own property, we'll have this situation in which property rights are disrespected.
Seastead this.
. A key part of having a patent is defending it. If Adobe fails to defend their patents, they'll lose them.
Bzzzt. Try again. This is true for Trademarks but not Patents or Copyright.
Nothing about its technology. This is a user interface issue, not an issue on how Flash works. Nobody will have to stop using their Flash movies on their pages--the workings of those are not being disputed, nor how the Flash program generates them.
So big deal. Macromedia will make a "non-tabbed-window" version of Flash (and of all its other products I guess because Director and Dream Weaver have the same style menus) with one big solid window and non-movable menus. I doubt it'll be hard for them to do that. Heck, fix a few things, add a few features, and its Flash 6.0. Time to upgrade anyway.
Flash fans need not fear. You web pages are safe.
The first place that comes to mind is Visual Studio. In VC6 IDE, the "Output" window (where trace messages, build output, etc. appear), you select which type of output appears with a tab. I suppose it isn't a palette... But look at the tools palette in VB or Visual Interdev. Or the shortcuts in Outlook. Visual Studio 7 IDE uses these everywhere.
So why didn't Adobe sue Microsoft? Because Microsoft could afford to fight them in court. Macromedia is a somewhat smaller company, so it is a little bit easier to beat them into submission.
All in all, this just sucks. It doesn't matter how much we like or don't like Flash. What really matters is whether the "Tabbed Palette" is patentable...
This is why I work for a large company instead of a fun startup -- I don't make as much of a difference, but at least my company can't be thrown around by the big guys for no good reason, so I have a small amount of job stability.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Maybe I would if a program could produce SVG and JavaScript to do the same stuff as Flash, and as good as Flash. Also a new plug-in would be needed.
Not likely to happen anytime soon, if ever. Plus if it did, Flash would still be better in most ways.
From Adobe's FAQ at http://www.adobe.com/adobefacts/faq.html#Q11 they are not claiming to have a patent on all tabbed palettes but only on those that can be customized, separated, and reorganized by users. Also for all those who say Adobe is claiming a patent in tabs in general check out Question 17 on the FAQ. Lastly check out the pictures that Adobe has on the site showing the problems...I bet the court took on look at those and had a lot of questions. Daniel BTW Now whether this patent should have been issued is a whole different matter and I am sure that others will cover it.
"...but is it right to take a good product away from so many people who really do like it just because another company's product isn't taking over the market like they hoped it would?"
Suddenly, 'Internet Explorer' comes to mind, looking from an average Joe Windowsuser POV.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
I think the most useful thing anyone has ever implemented in "Flash" is the "Bypass Flash intro" button...
-- Terry
Actually, I like Home Movies. And while Sealab 2021 is amusing, I couldn't see it managing to hold on a larger time slot. But then, humor is a very subjective thing. To each their own.
t.
... afaik, the patent is about customisation in tabbed windows, thus customize your tabs. VS.net has that too. I'm sure MS will come up with 'but these are 'dockable windows' instead of tabs', but it could be fun to see some jury of non-geeks break their minds on that case :)
Btw, Macromedia isn't that small, they bought a lot of companies in the last couple of years and hold a strong marketshare in the webdesign market, where Adobe is, except for photoshop, a smaller player.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
...and this is coming from someone who just spent several hours learning all about the painful ins & outs of cross-platform/cross-browser Flash player plug-in detection...
/. are confusing the abuse of a general purpose tool (with some flaws that are being corrected) with the "dastardly deeds" done with it.
/. usually respond to attacks on general purpose tools that some people are attacking based on a relatively minor domain of applications that they dislike? (hint: CSS, copyable-CDs, PVRs, reverse-engineering tools...) ...Sigh...
For certain applications, Flash works wonderfully _and_ far better than anything else out there. I am thinking in particular of short animations (with or without limited interaction) that can demonstrate ideas/diagrams/or tell a story.
BTW, I work in educational R&D so I see great examples of this stuff used all the time to complement web-based curricula. Sure, it can't be indexed by a search engine, but it's there to _illuminate_ the ideas stated in the text; i.e. to enhance it, not to replace it.
Sure, Flash can be abused (as many advertisers have done, and designers who want to use it as their entire tookit); However, the Flash-haters on
BTW, how does
Yes, most Flash ads suck. And so do 90% of Flash-heavy sites. This problem won't be corrected by removing a particular tool - the crappy designers will just migrate to SVG/Real/WM/etc. Besides, banning/spitting on something disliked is the RIAA/MPAA way of doing things.
If we're such geeks we should be proposing/creating superior tools that are better focused on what Flash is best at, or improving Flash ourselves. Nope, I guess it's just easier to bitch about it.
Adobe's web-oriented offerings suck more balls than you can possibly imagine compared to Marcomedia's. Straight up, I use Adobe software to MAKE my content, and Macromedia software to DELIVER it. I would never DREAM of using Imageready for writing slicing or code and I sure as shit am not about to use pagemill.
Adobe did some things VERY well- then Photoshop 6 came out, targeted for "web intergration"... and things have been going downhill from there.
About two years ago, maybe three... all of a sudden, all of the new Macromedia apps started to look like Adobe apps. Fireworks is the best example- it handles like Photoshop the way Flash handles like Director (in other words, it looks exactly like it should handle the very same way and doesn't even try to).
Adobe has had the "tabbed" features for as long as I've used their product. (about 4+ years). They didn't show up in Macromedia apps until recently... coincidentally, they're in Director, Dreamweaver, and Fireworks (apparently they're in Flash as well, but I hate flash and don't use it.). That's a good chunk of the Macromedia catalogue.
If you really want to push it, the options screens for Word have ALWAYS been tabbed. And I'm sure Word's implementation predates Adobe's.
Tabbed UI elements are about as fundamentally usefull as pulldown menus, rubber-soled shoes, batteries and bread. Patenting them is dumb, as it only impedes the useability of products that could greatly benefit from consistant and well thought out design.
So it's bad. But if Adobe wins.... Flash could slowly wither and die. Which is fine by me- maybe then people will stop asking me if I know how to use it... and maybe, after that... they'll stop sending me links to flash sites.
Adobe's just pissed that people are buying Macromedia's productivity apps instead of theirs. They haven't considered that in the areas they compete, Macromedia is way, WAY superior. [with the possible exception of Illustrator/Freehand].
...because it doesn't use tabbed palettes. Those were introduced in Flash 5, and replaced in MX by a windowish-docking system. I would wager that Macromedia's decision to change the interface in MX was based far more on the lawsuit than on user feedback.
Adobe is seeking an injunction preventing Macromedia from selling "the infringing software" - which is, like I just said, Flash 5. Notice that Macromedia released Flash MX within the last month, and are now going to be actively phasing out their Flash 5 product and pushing MX instead. Is this good timing just a coincidence? You tell me. So what I'm wondering is what Adobe could possibly do to further harm the Flash product line (besides the $2.8mil in damages, of course).
The original Legend of Zelda in Flash MX: a prototype
Experts agree: everything is fine.
Note that the patent applies to a UI gimmick in the Flash authoring software, not the Flash player. And if Macromedia's software engineering is at all reasonable, they should be able to remove this feature from their software within days and without losing any significant functionality. They can probably actually just post a small patch that disables the dragging for now and later come up with an alternative in terms of non-patented UI technology.
The fact that this is patented at all and that Adobe has been brazen enough to sue over it is something we shouldn't forget, however.
How am I gonna watch Osama Bin Laden In a Blender now???
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
What the heck is that supposed to mean ?
/. is 'annoying banners'
Oh yes - I forgot, the only use for Flash according to
Forget the fact that it's the most widely used and distributed plugin. Forget the fact that people use it for presentations, cartoons, multi-media cd-roms, educational purposes etc. etc. etc.
No, perhaps most of you 'code no graphics geeks' don't like Flash, but 90% of the rest of us do.
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
That's detachable tabs with build-your-own-palette. Adobe specified early Excel tabbing in their patent as prior art they were deviating from with their own invention.
The Macromedia MX series now uses stackable and dockable palettes. After using it for a month I can say it's neither better nor worse, just different.
Good. Maybe they should have tried that in the first place instead of ripping off the dominant graphics app GUI.
If these idiots win against Macromedia (plugin required to view this message because format is not open), that will make it easier for them to take on Microsoft next. Their patent does seem rather trivial, though, and you could probably bring it down in flames by pointing out that it's just mimicing real-life paper layouts (ie is not in principle new).
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
In less than a week I was able to write a kick butt XML based Internet Call Notifcation client in Flash. It notifies our ISP customers when they get phone calls while online. The thing can even play back any voice messages left by callers in real time! I was blown away by how easy it was to write the client and it was less than 50k when finished!
Don't let lousy Flash ad banners or poorly designed webpage interfaces give you bad taste for the Flash format in general. It's really quite amaizing what can be done with it when used right... especially when developing sockets based web applications. Next on my list is a full fledged Flash chat client.
I hope Macromedia doesn't get hit too hard from this. I just bought MX and I really dig the new features.
I personally don't think this will ever happen simply because Flash is such a huge movement on the Internet.
It could have also been because around this time Adobe was working on their Flash competitor, LiveMotion. They had to have known the case wouldn't get to court for years, so stopping Flash to give a young LiveMotion a boost can't be it.
Maybe it's because one of the product differentiators of LiveMotion was that it had the same interface as all other Adobe products. Then Macromedia starts making all their products look like Adobe's, blowing their differentiator.
I don't know much about flash but I have fooled around with SVG and IMHO you can do MOST of the things that flash is usually used for in web-sites with SVG, Javascript ande SMIL animation. Also, SVG carries a lower network payload.
u ages/sv g/intro/s on_flash_s vg.html
There are a couple of tools for viewing SVG already: Batik, Mozilla can be compiled with native SVG support, there is and the is a general-purpose SVG plug-in put out by Adobe-- wonder if that's a motivation for them here. There are also tools to convert SWF files to SVG files.
Here are some relevant URLs:
http://www.webreference.com/authoring/lang
http://www.carto.net/papers/svg/compari
umm.. what is Adobe LiveMotion 2.0 then?
Admittedly, the graphics editing one I haven't had time to fully understand, and may have merit.
But the ones for editing waveforms I swear I was doing on my Atari 1040 ST in 1987.
Visit this Corel trial page and click on the "Try Online" link next to CorelDraw 10 or Corel Photo-Paint 10.
Wait until the demo applet loads.
Click New Graphic from the intro window.
Open a few dockers from the Window -> Dockers menu.
Drag one of the tabs for these dockers into the main work area of the app, so that it acts like a palette.
Now drag the other tabs still attached to the right side of the window over this palette.
You've just constructed a tabbed palette using non-Adobe software.
Now why would Adobe sue Macromedia and not Corel? Is it because Corel's take on the tabbed palette isn't as blatantly derivative as Macromedia's? Or is it because Corel isn't as much of a threat to Adobe's business as Macromedia? Yes, this is a trick question.
Actually it's not flash - it's their own package called Live Motion. It produces Flash-compatible graphics and SVG-based anims. SVG is open-source and where Adobe wants to go. Flash is binary and somewhat more constricted and where Macromedia keeps it's cashflow. Adobe wants to kill 2 birds with one stone...
Why is everybody talking like flash is dead because of this ? The existing product might be taken off the shelf, but that doesn't mean anything.
They lose a lawsuit, take the tabbed palletes out(which btw is not the 'normal' tab feature you see in almost every application, but the abbility to rearrange things to save space or something... read the other posts) and sell the new product just as well... Might cost them a bunch, but flash will still exist.
Say what you will about this case, and say what you will about the companies involved, but this happens fairly often. I know very well that a post on slashdot won't change anything, at least not much, but is there anyone who seriously is trying to fight these kinds of software patents?
I belive that if you put millions of dollars into a product, you want it to sell, and not be pirated or ripped off. Because of this I don't belive in removing patents all together, but I belive that they should only be used to protect, not to destroy. In the software field, they destroy, and they last way too long. Put the time down to two years instead of something.
Hmm, I rant too much, maybe I should patent that and sue you all ^_~
Then came Flash and with it every little shit with a pirate copy and the ability to convince other people to give them money.
To me, multimedia is about content. To everyone else it seems to be about designing a new GUI for every damn website. And if it's not flash, it's Fireworks and it's auto generating javascript rollovers.
There is no such thing as a cool cup-holder. In any sane country its illegal to drink while driving because its too distracting. One of my favourite features of my E46 BMW is that it has NO cup-holders. Face it, for a cup-holder to be an effective preventer of spilled drinks, it has to be combined with a car engine that doesn't have enough torque to pull the skin off custard, and a driver who doesn't have the will to go round corners above a walking pace. Now I understand why the larger Audis I see often have such small engines - its to save the interior from coffee stains.
Not saying I was the first one to do it, but I did and I can prove it. That predates the patent by ten years.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
That looks infringing. Of course, Corel could have simply licensed it from Adobe. Actually, this Adobe vs. Macromedia case is strange because the usual game is to claim infringement, do a counter-claim, and then cross-license.
OK. Idea. Let's see what you folks think about this one.
This case has established a precedent that elements of UI design can be copyrighted, lame as this decision is.
Wouldn't this set up the foundation for a lawsuit against Microsoft for ripping the whole WIMP (windows, icons, menus, pointers) paradigm from Apple? Who in turn could get sued by PARC, I think it was?
If my reasoning here is correct, then we'd have a win-win situation; MS is sued and that damn OS is pulled from the shelves, or MS wins the court case and Macromedia gets the Adobe sentence nullified.
Any lawyers skulking about to comment?
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
I've noticed more and more flash ads these days. Sometimes its obvious why - animations and interactive productions. But I've also seen very simple ads that would normaly be handled with either a still or animated GIF. So... why Flash?
With the various shenanigans marketing types seem compelled to do these days, I can't help but wonder if there isn't a more nefarious reason Flash is becoming popular.
With that in mind, how do YOU control Flash? I've been looking at junkbuster. I prefer to show banner ads where possible. But when an ad campaign uses technology I find offensive (tracking cookies, stupid java tricks, Flash) I will block it. Let the acceptable banners generate the stats.
It's happened already, ask Google about it.
The result was that MS said "well if you fuck with us, we'll fuck with you- drop this or we'll
stop making Office for Macintosh."
Apple bowed under the pressure, and nothing really was made of it.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Now this might be a strange position, but in a way,
/. or Linux people)
this news makes me glad.
Flash is software used by a lot of people. Most
of these people are average-Joe windows users.
(Not
This is the group we need to get to understand that software patents
are no good. Having a very popular browser plug-in taken off the market
makes for some good anti-patent opinion.
Sometimes the ends justify the means, I guess.
I hope this is the catalyst to get software patent reform moving. Unfortunately after the furor of the one-click patent died down, so did the attention on software patents.
Bzzt right back atcha. You can't "selectively enforce" patents, which is as near to a "defend or lose" as to make surprisingly little practical difference.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Like so many software patents, it's about who gets first exposure to new technology and then that person patenting the semi-obvious extensions. Patents were intended to be for those who either finally cracked long-standing problems or who created things in domains no one could ever have conceived of. Patents were not intended to protect market prognosticators.
Patenting dockable tabbed windows in 1994 is the moral equivalent of patenting polymorphic Web Services interfaces today -- perhaps not obvious to every dolt, but obvious to enough of the developer population once people have, say, at least a couple of years to start using Web Services!
And in other related news, Marc Maiffret of eeye reports over at bugtraq that the Macromedia Flash Activex control contains a Buffer overflow
I.O.U One Sig.
But, anyway, this lawsuit is ridiculous - just like most of the lawsuits that carry on inside this country.
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
Like most developers, when I design a GUI or a web page, I look at examples from similar applications or web sites. If I see an interface I like it, I'll attempt to do something similar, throwing in a little bit of my own style.
Am I ripping something off? Maybe, in the technical sense. But if I know something works, why shouldn't I want to use it?
Now it seems like I cannot do this anymore. If I imitate a GUI feature I see in an application or web page, I might be infringing on a patent. How can I know what is patented and what is not? In the physical world I can turn over a widget and if it is patented it says "USA Patent #xxxxxxxxxxxxxx" on the bottom. I can't do that in a GUI. Oh, the About box might state that the application contains patents xxx and yyy, but that doesn't tell me much.
Aside: does Adobe's Photoshop list any patents in its About box?
The point is I now feel like my hands are tied. I haven't clue if the GUI I am currently working on infringes patents or not, and I see no practical why of finding out.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
If they have few or no end users, Wall Street doesn't like it because they're supposed to make money at what they're doing (and litigating people out of existance isn't making money no matter HOW you slice it.).
I really don't like Adobe now (as if I liked them before after them pulling the stunt they did with Dimitri...). I'm sure there will be others as they burn up whatever goodwill they have with their customer base suing people over rather stupid things.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
This is not a good idea for Adobe since you have to consider who their market is
Flash does something that most other products are NOT able to do. Make interactive sites easy enough for even GRAPHIC developers to create. Most of the people I find that LOVE Flash love it for it's ease of use. All of those people are graphic designers the same people who buy Adobe Photoshop. Adobe has a bad PR hurricane just ready to brew over this if they decide to push for Macromedia to pull Flash
Also, what I find absolutely hilarious is Adobe's Front Page which, of all things, uses Flash
I have built a whiteboard that uses Mozilla's SVG capabilities, and it's nothing too productive at the moment. It crashes, has lots of bugs, etc. Plus it's not in the normal Mozilla builds.
One day maybe Mozilla will have full SVG support with good performance with now bugs in the regular builds. I don't see that happening for a long time, however.
While I am largely against the current patent system, my dislikes for it revolve around the duration of patents, and the inability of clerks to apply or monitor the requirements for innovation.
The argument of the League for Programming Freedom is that until legislators can fix these problems, patents on a generic computer running a specific algorithm do more harm than good and should be abolished.
We managed to get through over 20 years of GUI use without the widespread use of toolbars. Anyone know when they first appeared?
The first product I saw them in was MacPaint, released in 1984 for the Macintosh computer.
Dockable components which overlap to save space ...? That's not a universal GUI concept; showing and hiding tool windows or popping up dialogs in a stack is a traditional means to handle this problem. Arguably Adobe DID innovate in this instance.
Adobe, or Be? BeOS's default theme shortens a window's title bar to just the length of its name plus the size of the close and maximize controls; overlapping these windows creates a tab-like interface. (But who came first?)
Will I retire or break 10K?
Overlapping components are very common in software and in web design. Maybe they should sue Google [google.com] for their use of components which overlap with their tabbed menu of web, images, groups, or directory search. I would say that overlapping components are more common these days than popping up dialogs in a stack. Adobe did not innovate this
Adobe innovated and patented being able to drag and drop tabs from one palette to another. Read the patent.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Last time this whole flash/anti-flash argument raged on /. someone posted a link to a hotel booking scheme that ran in flash and made it a much more natural experience than messing with forms and such. It was a very intuitive interface that I don't think could be done anywhere near as well in html.
Macromedia Pushes Flash For All Things Web
Will I retire or break 10K?
The current release of Flash, MX, does not contain tabbed palettes. The Adobe lawsuit forced an innovation in the interface that is in fact superior to the old tabbed palette system. So the assertion that Flash will be pulled from the market based on this case is simply wrong-headed. Almost as wrong-headed as Adobe's response to their own total failure to acknowledge the importance of the web or innovate- the "Microsoft" approcah of buy it or kill it....
..your new Cadillac over a cliff.
I hate Adobe for how they (ab)used DMCA to abuse Dmitry.
But I hate Flash for how most webmasturbators choose to inflict it on the web.
Woe is me - I don't know what to think here <g>
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
I hate posting this late in the game on a topic -- I worry no one will read it -- I don't think anyone has made this correlation yet.
I agree that Adobe suing Macromedia for cramping their style is and should be a crock. Adobe is playing the same bullying tactics as another large company.
Take, for example, the Photoshop monopoly. Used to be that if you wanted to bevel or automatically add shadows to items, you had to buy a third-party plug-in. Now those features are built in and have been since 5.5
If you wanted to catalog your images, you had to purchase a third-party app like Extensis Portfolio. Photoshop 7 includes those.
Natural media? Used to need Painter. Now Photoshop 7 has that, too.
And somebody must have come up with the idea of slicing images before Adobe did. Hell, before Macromedia did.
Fortunately for us graphic designers, we will use the right tool for the job. We learn that in school when we have to choose between graphite and charcoal in Design 101. Therefore, companies like Alien Skin, Corel, and Extensis aren't hurt dramatically by Adobe pulling the Microsoft "freedom to innovate" integration game.
But my point is that Adobe steals features from everyone else. It's hypocritical of Adobe to sue someone for stealing their feature. And it proves the ignorance of software patents.
Adobe, a company whose products I use every day to pay my bills, a company whose products I enjoy using, abuses their place in the market. Ahh, the idyllic socialist dreams of nerds...
----------
Cheese it! It's the FEDS!
If people get this taken away, people may wake up to how stupid pure thought patents are. But then again, probably not.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
> We may not all be Flash lovers, but is it right to take a good product away from so many people who really do like it just because another company's product isn't taking over the market like they hoped it would?
And what percentage of the folks here are against the states' continued haranguing of Microsoft just because Linux hasn't blown up the spot like they'd hoped? Who wants to see Netscape win out over MS/IE in court just because they put out the inferior browser?
Build a better mousetrap and the schmuck who failed to keep up will just lawyer up. God bless America.
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
Patents have ALWAYS been a way of saying "fuck you" to the competition but with the patenting of processes and components, software and class libraries, we run the risk of killing the very industry that spawned the whole mess in the first place.
I think I'll patent a means of recording information about a customer. That will mean that NOBODY ELSE will ever again be able to have a customer. That would dispose of the problem.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
they don't have any feed-back that's not related to SELLING their products.
But it did have their address so I'll write something and send it via snailmail.
This patent/copywrong crap is the type of bad corporate citizenship that Microsoft has taught businesses.
I didn't pay for their Adobe Type Manager on my Mac but I WILL write to Apple and suggest that they look for some open source alternative.
This is getting fuckin' ridiculous.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
...but in your case, it's called reverse engineering. Which is completely legal, as far as I know... I guess Macromedia didn't document their process of creating a tabbed palette.
"Something that chops veggies" is also not analogous to "creating another tabbed palette". It's analogous to "creating a UI tool that lets you have the benefits of a tabbed palette without being a tabbed palette".
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
"We may not all be Flash lovers, but is it right to take a good product away from so many people who really do like it just because another company's product isn't taking over the market like they hoped it would?"
Let's see...
"We may not all be GNOME lovers, but is it right to take away XYZ software from so many people who do like it just because it contains GPL violations?"
"We may not all be Netscape lovers, but is it right to take away Internet Explorer from so many people who do like it just because Microsoft is an abusive monopoly?"
The popularity of a software has no bearing or relevance in this case or any legal case involving its use.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Even though this will probably get lost in the shuffle, I'd like to add some background on toolbars.
;)
According to Joel Spolsky, toolbars were invented by Microsoft with the release of Excel 3.0 in 1990. Here's a link to his claim. Now, he worked on the Excel team at that time, so I take his claim with a grain of salt.
The "toolbar" that Joel is referring to has two parts: The File/Edit/View (etc.) bar at the top of the program; and the New icon/Open icon/Save icon set below it. This became the de facto standard for most Windows applications, and also a standard feature with most development kits.
I would imagine that many other people can claim to remember a "toolbar" from other types of systems, but I would also imagine that the one in Excel 3.0 looks most like the ones we still use today. If Joel's claim holds up, it appears that Microsoft has been innovative at least once.
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"...but is it right to take a good product away from so many people who really do like it just because another company's product isn't taking over the market like they hoped it would?"
No, of course it isn't. But that's not the reason it would be removed. The reason it would be removed is because parts of it were used in violation of patent laws.
The author's statement totally ignores that fact and makes an assumption.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
"is it right to take a good product away from so many people who really do like it just because another company's product isn't taking over the market like they hoped it would?"
The same argument can be made *for* Microsoft. Should Microsoft have to suffer just because that other crap out there isn't selling as strong as Windows? There are plenty of people out there who actually like it. Try to use your friggin brain in a consistent manner, folks.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
There is a single invention that, IMHO, constitute prior art for most of the offensive patents: Find a useful technique in the non-computer world and emulate it on a computer.
One example:
Real world: Record your customer's name, address, and/or credit card number. When he calls in and places an order, fill out the forms to bill him.
Computer world: "One-click shopping."
I'm sure anyone here could come up with a dozen others.
The point is that "automating a well-known process" has already been invented. Unless there's something NEW and NON-OBVIOUS about a particular way to automate yet another task, simply doing so should not be patentable.
The PARTICULAR CODE would be a COPYRIGHTable work, just like the words of a manual of instructions. But trying to copyright the program's operation as a "performance", or its interface when it consists of a straightforward clone of realworld objects or an obvious application of a standard interface toolset, should also be rejected.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Look suspisciously like MANILLA FOLDERS. This is not "innovation", it's just some guy who looked at the tabbed folders in his dek drawer and noticed that you could move them around, so he transferred that concept to the computer. Transferring a very common concept to a computer is NOT INNOVATON any more than the concept of reading words from a computer is no more innovative than reading them from the printed page!
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
livemotion does not export to svg. that was dropped from livemotion 2. and it exports to the flash file format, not just flash-compatible. macromedia semi-open sourced the file format (swf).
go get it
Yes, exactly! Just as guns need to be removed from a free society so Flash needs to be removed from a Web which holds to standards. As with guns, the cost of the misuse so outweighs the value of the "correct" usage (cartoons in the case of Flash; I can't think of what the correct useage of a gun is) that society, on balance, is better off without either.
When used right
I've seen that exactly twice in four years.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
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