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Macromedia Applies For OSI Certification
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."
Now maybe my flash plugin will work well. Every time I view some flash thing, it goes WAY too fast. If Macromedia appreciates open source maybe it won't write shit plugins for open source OSes. This may just be my thing - this didn't happen with Red Hat 7.1, but it does now with Mandrake 8.1.
Miko O'Sullivan
Maybe an open source Shockwave plugin won't run like molasses on Linux...
Not sure what all this is going to mean in the end, but Macromedia does make great web development tools. I would love to see Dreamweaver MX or Flash MX end up as Open Source sometime soon. But this is more than likely a pipe dream.
"Pipe Dream": When someone is smoking the pipe too much and seriously believes that something will happen.
My sig of choice is Marlboro
Untill Flash is at a point to where they write versions for ALL platforms instead of giving M$ platforms at version 6.0, while all the others remain at 5.0, then I don't think they should be given ANY credit for being open source advocates.
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Is this a sig?
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The acid test of any license is whether it's DFSG free and can thus be included in Debian, Mandrake and other Free Software distributions. Groups like Apple and the DivX team have been known to release purportedly "open source" software under look-but-don't-touch style licenses. Of note is the Darwin Streaming Server from Apple which, while passing the OSI open-source definition is not actually Free Software because it demands that you hand over all changes even if you don't distribute the software (you can see why this is a crazy notion).
Nevertheless, Macromedia has some cool technologies and I can see them being widely implemented if there are truly free and complete implementations.
I guess it's pretty unlikely that they'll open up all of it : a lot of flash code is part of the Freehand and Director code base too. And I can't imagine they'll let anyone copy from that. They've got a hard time getting Adobe out of their way in the lawsuits.
My guess is that they hope for a cheap linux port of flash. But they again : if they keep a ton of code under the wraps in the form of a win32 lib, it all doesn't make much sense.
Probably they just want to ride the opensource train in case it 'might just catch on'. Big corps are always late on the catching on part.
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
Perhaps this means we can stop sayign "Vector graphics, schmecter graphics, it's proprietary, and therefore evil, and therefore shouldn't be used, q.e.d."
That was submitted by:
Tom Harwood
Macromedia Server Products
CFML Language Development
Does this mean that they are going to try to pollute the world with more CFML? That is not a real language and will never perform or live up to expectations of a real language. I hate Cold Fusion!
*sigh*
Hopefuly this is Macromedia's first step in porting some of their products to Linux. I'm sure that many developers are wishing that dreamweaver/flash woudl be available on linux. It would olso be a good step forward on getting the visual programmers/designers to hop onto linux.
Im sure we wont see open source flash any time soon, (or ever), but could be a step to see some great programs to open source platforms.
This sig was cut off by the sla
No they don't. Its all part of the, ya know, -free- software. It works both ways, fir people that pay, and for people that dont.
This sig was cut off by the sla
A story about open source certification posted under the GNU topic?
... 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.
... and I even know two people that work at Macromedia. Oh well...
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
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Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
I feel that flash becoming open source is NOT a good thing for web designers. If it's support becomes more widespread and standard, it could cause web coders to become more lazy. A couple of examples.
Often web designers use marquees. Instead of using the much quicker tag, many designers use bloated swf files for their marquees.
Another way flash is abused is with flashing text. Instead of using the common tag, people create huge swf files to make blinking text.
Another abuse, forms. Instead of using quick java based forms, people often create huge flash files just to input data.
Finally, animations. Coders could easily use dhtml and animated gifs to create effective animations on their page, however instead they use bloated swf files that need state of the art pc's just to run simple anumations.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
"Nonsense. Flash plugin files are practically a standard on the most popular platforms for web browsing, in a similar way to how TCP/IP became a standard despite non-approval by ISO."
I fear you have these two sentences reversed... the latter is the nonsense. Well, Flash may have become a defacto standard because a lot of people fell for the bells and whistles that it provides. However, proprietary tools should never be officially acknolwedged as a standard. The internet is an international community that must remain open to all nationalities, classes, races, etc. Therefore, official standards should always be based on open source code and open and accepted protocols.
Furthermore, comparing Flash to TCP/IP is moronic. One's a proprietary animation program the other is an open and extremely well documented set of protocols... apples and oranges. The acceptance of any company's proprietary software as a standard should be resisted. Inevitably, SVG or some other open web language will usurp Flash. And, really that shouldn't be that big a deal; Macromedia has and a great run with Flash and made plenty of money off of it. Maybe it's time for them to move on to a new technology market to corner.
Finally, If I were you, I'd do some long hard thinking about your attitude towards web browsers and standards in general. It is absolutely essential that no one company gain a 100% share of the browser market because then that company makes all the rules for how the web works and can charge everyone anything they want for admittance. A chilling thought. Wake up and smell the freedom of open source, bozo.
That's nice and all, but can't they already fix the annoying Flash plugin bug that tries to open the sound device without any checks of any kind?! It's so simple and annoys everyone, but they can't make that one simple patch!?
"clarify that if Macromedia includes its own open source in its products, Macromedia
does not have to state in its documentation where the source code version of the open
source material is made available,"
Since when is Open Source a noun?
Anyway, anyone have any idea what they are planning?
And because of ESR and Friends, Macromedia probably isn't aware of the GNU project or its grand vision for the future.
Sad. Very sad.
There were plenty of companies back in the old days that did not support Linux. And yet that is understandable because in all honesty, it didn't make much sense financially to support linux (ask Id software about this, they've been behind linux forever.) Now however, times have changed. For the first time ever, supporting linux may not be a burden, but something that is actually 'pretty cool' (how good linux is to a company financially is still beyond us.)
As linux users, it is not in our place to slap the wrists of those that did not support us in the past. But too rather sit here and help them. I for sure welcome Macromedia into the OSS arena. While I too have yet to see the outcome, I'm sure any thing the contribute will be greatly . appreciated.
(And when you think about it, you come to the realization that Macromedia is a far better company than Adobe. And if you thought about it some more, you'd realize Adobe is even worse than Microsoft is.)
Sunny
What are you talking about? My recollection is that they have had a Flash plugin for Linux for many years now, despite the fact that I'm sure it hasn't made them one dime. What they've done for Linux far outweighs anything you and your slobbering Slashdot buddies have done, I'm sure of that.
Take a look at this history of Flash. Also consider that the Flash interface and featureset hasn't changed much between versions (Adobe's Livemotion and Swish both show how additional features could benefit a SWF authoring environment).
As regards the open source license, Macromedia has been hinting that they are bringing some of their new 'MX' server features that are already available in Cold Fusion MX to server environments like PHP and JSP. Perhaps some of this will be released under an open source license? Don't think for a miniute they are releasing the Flash Authoring environment as an Open Source app, that has to be one of their best selling products.
Bleh!
Who's gonna sign off on it, the Max Headroom guy, or LaCroix from Forever Knight?
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.
No Zen is good zen
Ugh, that site is pretty annoying. Flash can be nice when used properly, though. For example, go to mlb.com and click on the "Gameday" link for one of the games in progress. It's a nice way to follow a game when you're at work, especially since the ESPN java-based one seems to be always broken on the remote end these days.
I'm not a Flash expert, and no, I wasn't complaining as such. I take your point about the OpenSWF website though, thanks.
I implied by mentioning the Ming extensions that there were/are plans to just simply write Flash using whatever other tools (on Linux/*BSD), but you're right, I should have noted that explicitly.
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Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
Flash isn't proprietary, it's a open format described at openswf.org. And drop the name calling, it's really juvenile.
Not popular? Well, if they made the plugin open source, then the HP-UX user has the FREEDOM to compile his own binary.
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
Some people use linux because it is better the other OSs. Some people use it because it is free-as-in-beer.
For the people who use it because it is better, the macromedia authoring tools are better then the tools that currently exist for unix/linux (ie, none save for programatic creation).
If the win and mac versions of director come from a common code base, esp if they have an OS X version then the code is already writen with cross platform portability in mind. If thats the case then it would be relativly trivial to do the port to linux.
But the ultimate problem is that web desiginers desigine for IE, which means they test with IE. Which means there running IE on a MS OS. Unitl webdesiginers are actualy using linux then there wont be a market.
What software are they open sourcing? The artical on greplaw is shorter then the slashdot blurb. I'm assuming they're opening the flash plug in. Anything else?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
In the beginning(a few years ago anyway) JRun was hands down the most usable, and stable Servlet server. . . but now Tomcat has matured, and a few other companies offer comptitive java application servers.
I suspect this competition has erroded Macromedia's profits on JRun and open sourcing might be a way to attempt to breath new life into it.
What does CF do that say, PHP or Perl does not?
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Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
Since when is Open Source a noun?
cpeterso
It might be a budget issue, so Macromedia might use the experience of Sun and Blackdown. It would be not big deal to create a team of developers porting Macromedia plugin and authoring tools from Linux x86 to the other architectures. I sure that developers from other linux platforms and from Mozilla team would help.
Would it be available for Linux in general I would support Flash rather than Java raw applets. I like its design and it's easier to create new very Flashy applications extending plain web sites and making web more attractive for customers.
Why Linux in general? Think more - it's about Flash plugin in Mozilla for embedded systems (i.e. kiosks and terminals). Also I would like to run Macromedia Flash authoring tools on my Linux/PPC rather than on that stupid Mac OS.
Linux is a very good OS for software development. Macromedia must understand it.
Less is more !
I used to be a dotbomb manager and one of my employees loved using CF. Looked cool. Anyway, after getting laid off I figured I'd go with PHP for consulting work (no CF on Linux, you see) and I haven't looked back.
The thing that clicked for me was the fact that I could get documentation, textbooks and all the source easily with PHP. I suppose if CF is moving more to an open-source model that things might improve for Macromedia too. Who knows?
Anyway, thank you. That was very insightful and I hope the moderators recognise your comment as such (if you care about such things).
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Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
The acid test of any license is whether it's DFSG free [...] Of note is the Darwin Streaming Server from Apple which, while passing the OSI open-source definition is not actually Free Software because it demands [...]
Actually, the OSI's Open Source Definition and the Debian Free Software Guidelines are very nearly the same document.
Will I retire or break 10K?
For those of you who really don't want to read through the license, here it is in haiku form:
Macromedia: Just like IBM / but this baby has our name / Macromedia Inc
and of course IBM's
IBM: You really wish that/ Our licenses would fit in/ merely three short lines.
More:
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/000360
http://www.quicktopic.com/boing/H/xk9pNnpwmwRdU
Why do companies have to keep coming up with their own incompatible licenses? Seems to me that, say, the BSD license, the GPL, and the LGPL cover most of the reasonable things you'd want to do with your (free) code, they're relatively well-understood by the community, and they all play nicely together.
Why should we have to waste time trying to evaluate new licenses, when we could just deal with licenses that we already know?
--J. Bruce Fields
I might also add that the Macromedia source code for version 5 of their Flash player is available here here. Don't get all excited just right now though, they make you fill out a questionaire and then decide whether they want to let you have it.
"In my opinion, an open-source ColdFusion would be a hell of a lot more interesting than an open source Flash."
Zope is a free (as in speech) application server written in python.
From the Zope website:
...such as, the plug-in by Adobe, and the server-side Batik tools by Apache, as well as a few for handhelds. So I guess that Flash is not the be-all and end-all. Sorry to spoil your schadenfreude.
Incidentally, a talented Flash coder recently even used the Flash plug-in to render a portion of parsed SVG; however, since SVG has many features Flash lacks (such as filters and true text support), a full implementation is beyond the current Flash player (see links to the examples and an analysis here).
If you don't see a lot of people with the plug-in, you probably aren't looking. ;-)
There are an estimated 167 million installations of version 2 of Adobe's viewer (it's bundled with Acrobat Reader 5). Most people just don't realize that they have it. When I show people SVG stuff, they've usually had the viewer installed.
That aside, I agree; Macromedia's move strikes me as lip-service. But it'd be nice to see more competition in that space, if it comes off.
If they would only learn to stop offending people, then maybe I'd agree that they've got a worthwhile product - as it stands, they have wasted my time and crashed my computer on a number of occasions, and they're still going at it.
Thumbs down, macromedia, until you learn some basic manners.
"I his bow, and spun and wove, likes you." Vere de Vere out of my mould's mouth dragged me of the voluntary apes.
The acid test of any license is whether it's DFSG [debian.org] free and can thus be included in Debian, Mandrake and other Free Software distributions.
Er, no. The Open Source Definition and the Free Software List of Freedoms are used a lot more commonly than the DFSG, which the OSD to a certain extend replaced. I think you just saw this as an excuse to advocate Debian ignoring well known yardstick of the Open Source / Free Software community. Mandrake use the OSD themselves to define what should and shouldn't be in their distro, as do Red Hat (both of which do include proprietary apps, eg Netscape 4, when there are no stable OSS alternatives).
Groups like Apple and the DivX team have been known to release purportedly "open source" software under look-but-don't-touch style licenses.
They are lying. As there's as little to stop them saying a proprietary application is Open Source under the DFSG as there is the Open Source Definition.
meaning not 'I know what to do with source,' but rather, 'I may not know what to do with source, but I bet I can find someone else out there who does'.
Speaking only for myself, I'd say that the knock-on effects were the only thing that decided it -- more documentation, more books, more info out there. The fact of having to pay for it was not a problem; it being absent would be.
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Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
Sorry. I was impassioned.