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Macromedia Applies For OSI Certification

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the what-will-they-release dept.

mpawlo writes "As reported by Greplaw, Macromedia, the company behind Flash-technology and more, has applied for open source certification of one of its licenses. The Macromedia license is based on the IBM Public License. You can see the Application for certification as well as the The Macromedia licence."

3 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Not an expert... by twilight30 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... but my guess is that this is nothing more than a sop to the people who would want to use/advocate/further SVG (main target) or the Ming/PHP extensions (secondary target). They're not really releasing the source to Flash. They're not really committing to making Flash-capable editors available a la FlashMX. This strikes me as really just a 'cover-yer-ass' move. Looks nice from faraway, but quite ugly up close.

    The acid test should be whether or not they decide to open it up so that ordinary people can just plug in an Emacs mode and write Flash code. And how likely is that?

    It's too bad, even with all the people around Slashdot that hate Flash. I don't see a lot of Windows users with SVG plug-ins ... and I even know two people that work at Macromedia. Oh well...

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    Death will come, and will have your eyes
    -- Pavese
    1. Re:Not an expert... by jchristopher · · Score: 5, Insightful
      +3, interesting, huh?

      What's REALLY interesting is that everyone assumes that this article is in regards to Flash - but the guy who submitted the request to review the Macromedia license is working on CFML language development.

      That's right, ColdFusion. In my opinion, an open-source ColdFusion would be a hell of a lot more interesting than an open source Flash.

      The Flash format is already public, and there are 3rd party tools that can write .swf files. ColdFusion, on the other hand, would have all kinds of interesting possibilities if open-sourced. One positive effect might be the improvement of the ease of use of other languages...

  2. Re:Oooooooh well. by bons · · Score: 5, Insightful
    And here we have a perfect example of the greed that has stepped into the shoes of Free (as in Beer) software. Someone who not only has hopped on the bandwagon because, hey, Linux is cool, but now sees their position on the bandwagon to allow they to make a profit, while at the same time pointing the finger at someone else because they want to make a profit.

    And what's more amazing is that someone modded it up. (Note. In the course of this essay, someone got smart and correct that little bit of insanity. Thanks.)

    Macromedia has, for quite a long time, been much more open with it's technology than other companies. Any other group has been able to download the specs, sample code, and write programs that either display or create swf files.

    Various Source Code files for playing, reading, or writing flash files.

    SWF Format Specification

    Meanwhile Macromedia has been supporting Linux for awhile now. You can get a Flash 5 player for Linux (they're currently working on the Flash 6 player) and ColfFusion for Linux, Heck they even have a link to Slashdot.

    Are they SourceForge or FreshMeat or some other part of ODSN? Heck no. They're a company. just like any other, but while they may not meet the various acid tests everyone here is proposing, what they are doing is trying to do the Right Thing (tm). They are becoming more open. They're starting to embrace the philosophy. They're taking the risk.

    And for that, they should be rewarded, not punished, lest we drive everyone else away as well.

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    No Zen is good zen