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New Alliance Hopes To Standardize Web Plug-Ins
mksolutions writes "As reported on heise online and mozilla.org 'Apple, Macromedia, Opera and Sun Microsystems join in push to modernize plugins and create a richer web experience.' They are to develop a common, cross-platform plug-in interface which will be used in Mozilla products as well as Opera and Safari and will be released under an open source license."
Maybe now there will finally be some of the missing plugins like Shockwave.
Not that I really want it, but my kids do.
Put identity in the browser.
English Articles:2 004/06/30/2 004-06-30.ht ml
http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/
http://www.mozilla.org/press/mozilla-
"Apple, Macromedia, Opera and Sun Microsystems"
Spot the odd one out! I misread Macromedia as Mozilla for a second.
Notable by its absence I see. Macromedia obviously want to be in the mix, as they want everyone everywhere to use their lovely Flash and Director.
Sun is a puzzle in this, what do they have to gain? aaah the Java plugin. Well all sorted here, Opera want to pull in a little more weight, feeling the heat from FireFox I guess.
FireFox! Oh I do so kill myself.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
If this could be completed quickly, this would be a huge boon to consumers everywhere, making life much simpler for Joe Sixpack. It would be another step in commoditizing the underlying OS, and the web browser in a sense as well, as you don't have to worry about plug in support as long as it was a compliant browser.
And with CERT saying ditch IE, there's no better time than today to have this type of action. Unfortunately, it doesn't exist yet....
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Does anyone know how the w3c fits into this?
RTFA a bit more - Mozilla is pushing it, ah well this is all well and cushy!
:-)
The best part is that writing a plugin should now be easier. SVG plugin anyone?
Good work. Perhaps they will start sharing more code, after all, I only really want one good browser, not 5 alright ones!
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
They are to big to care about the standards - the IE is the major, dominant browser - which is quite unfortunate, but true.
They don't have to join any consortium, as de facto they are the standard (I don't speak about the quality, etc.)
seriously .. slashdotting it everyday? .. for what are these multimedia and java plugins good for anyways ? But, these kinda aliances good, 'cause they will help move the lazy MS ass to do some serious work atleast.
now on topic.. isn't sun standing in for MS there ?
And on a more serious note
On the other hand, I expect that plugins will get even better once they have an audience beyond the standard Mozilla browsers. And I'm happy they're leaving out Microsoft. Let's finally put to rest that tired Internet Explorer!
While I am not a MS coder (well not in 13 years), I would suspect that these folks could easily develop a plugin adaptor for MSIE. It would not be difficult and would probably prompt MS to do something. Now the question is, what will MS do?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I use Firefox on both Windows and Mac, and have not had the need for shockwave yet, java and flash shoul d be standard too. At least this just wraps them all up in 1 package.
I hate sigs.
...world for some time. There is a widely adopted "open" standard (VST-Virtual Studio Technology). They are not cross platform as they are native software, however I can load up one of a number of sequencers on Windows and use the same plugins.
:o)
There are competing plugin formats such as Direct X, but VST's seem to have the market pretty sewn up - there's even bindings for java
One the mac side of things Apple introduced AudioUnits which seem to be gaining popularity.
The great thing is, since developers no longer have to target a certain platform (i.e. only one sequencer family) you see a huge wealth of plugins available to be used on anything - hopefully we'll see that same kind of developer community flourish around rich-content plugins for the web.
I am NaN
Cheers,
Ian
Remember, your browser is only secure as the least secure plug-in.
Ya, they finally got smart. Even though they're all smaller companies than Microsoft, their mindshare and market sway is probably as great together at least in industry circles. Hopefully this just accelerates the whole browser development cycle by letting developers know there's a consortium and there will be standards.
would Apple push for standardization of synchronization between bookmarks (a feature they will be including in Safari for Mac OS 10.4)? Cross-browser synchronization of bookmarks would be very handy for people who want to try more than one browser.
The only plugin that could be said to cater to an otherwise neglected niche is Flash. And hopefully with browsers natively supporting SVG, someday it's usefullness will wither, too.
Plugins are just excuses for Adobe Acrobat in the browser window bullshit. For all those fools that put up Word and PDF all over the place, get a clue already.
Of course, if successful, MS may want to "embrace and extend" here, but they should not be involved in the development, as the spec should not have to consider the special needs of IE as it's being developed.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
I also wonder how badly the plugin API is limited by going with a non-OO implementation language like C. Sure, you can create some complex data types in C, but you've got to kiss your own butt if you want to pass behaviors along with those data types.
Maybe Linux Distros should agree on an ABI that doesn't change every 6 months first. Otherwise standardizing browser plugins is pointless futility. (And, no, 'open source' is not an excuse for breaking binaries.)
I would think that Apple and Opera would be unlikely to support something that would allow unblockable pop-up ads, being that both of their browsers have built-in pop-up blocking.
I mean how stupid would it be to for them to come up with plugins that defeated their own features?
100% Crunchier
Why are they scared of working towards a standardized future?
Microsoft would rather have Windows-only spyware.
MS don't like anything "cross-platform". Witness the whole java fiasco that took 10 years to sort out.
But back to the spyware thing.
What is needed is a "standard working set" of open, cross-platform plug-ins for all browsers. Now, they don't have to be mandatory of default but we have to STOP PROMPTING JOE USERS with ActiveX security warnings because THEY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THIS MEANS.
But, in the mean time, I would suggest to everyone in need of a few bucks to start their own "Windows Reinstall" business. Simply put up a few flyers at grocery stores (sometimes, even word of mouth is enough to get you more than enough business). You'll be bombarded with boxen that need a simple Windows reinstall. What I have been doing is simply swapping hard drives, throwing down a standard Windows image (you'll have to accumulate them as you get different hardware along the way) and then bring everything back over into a backup folder and let the user sort it out (or charge more to make it nice).
I do it for $50 a pop which might seem low but once you get a system down, it takes no time whatsoever. Just buy a bunch of cheap, refub drives of various sizes to keep handy. Provided the user's hard drive doesn't have any bad sectors (extra money here as well), there's really nothing to it. Oh - and make sure that the PC has a valid Win2K or XP license sticker on it before accepting it.
I do about 20/month which works out to about an extra grand in spending cash for approximately 2 hours per night that I'm usually just watching TV anyway. This is strictly drop-off and pick up service. Everything else extra.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Oh, also remember that GPL is viral and since some of the code already exists in Mozilla, I guess they see the whole thing as infected?
Read all about scripting plugins with mozilla. The article was released today to accompany the press release, and clarify how this all fits in to mozilla's existing structure.
Maybe they're trying to get publicity for it, and will apply it later down the line to more than just web browsers. Active X works for other things too like databases, which is really useful. If Linux and Mac OS had a similar standard, it could be applied in other programs on both platforms. That kind of functionality is missing on both platforms at the moment, I think. Apple, IBM, and Lotus tried to establish OpenDoc ages ago but it didn't catch.
Macromedia must also be getting into this because Microsoft sees Flash as a threat to their control of the interface and plans to push their own standard, "Sparkle". Flash seems to have accomplished what Java applets were supposed to do on the web, providing a cross-platform programming language that actually works without interference from Microsoft, and can be used for more than just animation. Macromedia Central was supposed to allow Flash to be used for making applications that can work independently of a web browser, seamlessly across different platforms, but I don't know why that hasn't caught on either.
A cross platform browser plugin spec is a good idea and the timing is pretty good. The publicity that IE's security issues are getting, is opening up a window of opportunity for the major competing browsers. MS knows that this is getting serious because they are reconstituting their IE development division. If MS is smart, they'll get on board with this asap. That would look good to the DOJ and EU too and realistically it really won't threaten their browser dominance. It'd be good PR and could IMHO jump start their development efforts.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
I forgot to mention Flash has cross platform audio and video conferencing capabilities built-in as well.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/components/acti vex/packaging.asp
.zip version of Firefox, put it into a CAB, add a .bat file to work with the shortcuts, and put in the necessary ActiveX magic and you could have just that.
Microsoft page on packaging ActiveX controls. Just take the
I for one welcome our new Self-Installing IE Firefox Overlords
I really hope they think this standard through and implement some type of certificate authentication or something. I don't want to my browser to automatically download stuff onto my computer. I already checked off all the automatic downloading in firefox. I would rather go through the hassle of manully typing in the address of the software developer's website and downloading the pluginh from there.
So you're suggesting we dump html and move to flash? Ignore the open standard and move to something proprietary? I really don't think that's a good idea.
The parent comment never said that, nor do I think they implied it. He made only three points:
- that this new standard could be used for more than just web plugins further down the road (a la activeX)
- Macromedia has a vested interest in this since MS is about to come out with a competing product and and any ease of use issues with installing a plugin could affect Macromedia's ability to compete.
- Flash has caught on and done what applets were supposed to do in the first place and if you tie this with point 1 then maybe you'll see it outside of the browser, and in a cross platform manner.
Although your concerns are valid, I don't think they had any bearing on points the original comment made.I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
I am almost surprised that MS does not go along with all this.
Any cracks on this would allow for some damage on other systems. This would allow MS to state that Linux, BSD, and Mac have no security.
And yes, if the install is done at user level, the *nix OS would still be operating, but the users data would quite possible be wiped, or their passwords stolen, or their Credit card numbers stolen, etc. Users do not really care if an OS survives or not. They are finally starting to care about all the money being stolen. This is only because the news media is finally pointing out that these problems are soley from MS systems.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I write all my pages the same way. I use css to control all aspects of the design and layout.I use tables for the very rare cases I can't get the css to work just as I need it (very very rare, but I've had that happen once or twice) And then I use javascript to detect the browser and send a tweaked css for IE. I've found that if I make it look good in firefox, it looks great in IE 97% of the time. That other 3 percent, I just make a second tweaked css and then detect the browser and send the correct css file. Opera never gives me any trouble and I dont get any complaints from safari users either.
...a few more pieces.
1. True Integration of media objects into the browser. Right now, the browser still drops a little box on the screen and tells the plug-in where to paint it's output. Why can't everything be integrated as pure objects in the DOM such that layering one item on top of another can happen with no problems? If I want a QuickTime movie as my background, with the page content painted over the top...why do I need to build the whole thing in Director? The browser should be able to sort this out.
2. Consistency in access to standard IO functions regardless of plug-in type. If I want to trigger the start of a media stream out of Flash, Director, RealAudio or QuickTime (or the countless other media types) can't there be a consistent way to code play()? That would also allow for client-side code that detects which plug-in is installed and simply passes a standardized code chunk into the page...rather than forking off and having individual code chunks to handle each plug-in type.
3. A _FINAL_ decision regarding the OBJECT and EMBED tags. This is silly Microsoftism, and requires double-coding...a killer to all things HTML.
4. W3C support.
I'll keep my fingers crossed, but I've been disappointed for a long, long time.
---- Please be nice in case my Slashdot karma ~= my real life karma.
looking at the existing group - MS probably were not invited.
For ***** sake. Can't we just get proper XHTML/CSS support nailed down first before we add to the morass of plugins and their incompatible versions? I also don't want to see the web turned into TV a la Flash. Soon the only people hired to design websites will be animators and Disney will rule the internet.