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Why Won't Macromedia Release 64-bit Flash?

Posted by Cliff on from the plenty-of-demand-but-no-supply dept.

Flashless Dancer asks: "Despite numerous online campaigns, blogs and forum postings, Macromedia has failed to release a 64 bit version of it's popular Flash Player for 64 bit architectures. Growing outcry in the Linux community recently spawned the online petition at PetitionOnline, but this seems to have fallen on deaf ears. A recent posting to Macromedia's technotes, back in September, offers this explanation and advice to users and developers who are growing increasingly concerned that users with 64 bit architectures are unable to view online content created with Flash. It explains that users must downgrade to 32 bit browsers and use the 32 bit plugin. This simply isn't a good option for most users, in fact many Linux distributions, including FC2/3/4 install 64-bit browsers with their 64-bit distributions. This seems to breathe new life into the old GplFlash Project which is now back, after some time on the back burner. Future development of GplFlash2 promises support for Flash 6/7 but remains in development for now. Open speculation in chatrooms and web forums alleges all sorts of conspiracy theories but, what I'd like to know is: What's the real difficulty here for Macromedia?"

3 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. The real difficulty for Macromedia... by mnmn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...is to keep up with the changes of architectures and OSes. I imagine moving flash player to x64 is tougher than moving it from Windows ME to Windows XP, since it contains multimedia codecs using at least some assembly language.

    That oughtta force them to move the core of the player to opensource so people would do most of the porting jobs for new OSes, while they just build on that code to make it a 'professional' version for selling.

    --
    "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
  2. Re:No problem at all by NoMoreNicksLeft · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Strongbad

    Install the flashblock extension, and you can keep from seeing any flash unless you actually want to.

    That's why.

  3. I know this is hard to understand.. by Suppafly · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I know this is hard for some of you to understand, but everything from PetitionOnline falls on deaf ears. No one cares about internet petitions, it takes almost no effort to fill out an internet petition. If you want someone to take you seriously, send a fax and follow up with a certified snailmail.