Slashdot Mirror
Implications of the Mozilla/Adobe Partnership
Fraggle writes "Recently the Mozilla Foundation and Adobe announced a partnership, working together on the next generation
JavaScript/ActionScript JIT Virtual Machine. The Browser Den looks at what this means for the future of scripting in Mozilla, and how this partnership with Adobe may affect Mozilla's support for other technologies such as SVG." From the article: "On the Mozilla side the plan is to integrate to code with SpiderMonkey which is Mozilla's current JavaScript implementation that is written in C. This is needed because Tamarin is not a drop-in replacement for SpiderMonkey as it provides necessary features that are not available in Tamarin. The combined SpiderMonkey with integrated Tamarin should not have any problems with old JavaScript and should show a performance boost for most. However, skilled scripters are sure to find ways of optimising performance to get even more gains."
First the Novell/Microsoft deal and now this?
The owls are not what they seem
Never in my wildest pre-crash dreams did I ever think that Javascript would become a respectable programming language.
HTML either, but that preconception was crushed when I saw the money those art school dropouts were making.
I just hope that they don't embed Flash player into the browser. That would suck royally.
Oh well, what's the next killer open source app that we use to thumb our noses at the man? This one's been assimilated.
-Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
I presume the article means to say that the Tamarin engine will be coupled with SpiderMonkey's APIs? Because I don't see how you could "combine" two separate Javascript engines and expect a usable result. That would be like "combining" Windows and Mac OS X to make a better operating system. It doesn't quite work that way.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Conspiracy Theories for nerds.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
What I want to know is when will we actually see any benefits from this?
From TFA:
So we have FX 3 being based on Mozilla 1.9 which means it will most likely be at least FX 3.5/4 (depending on the naming convention). Which means there isn't going to be a release that uses this until sometime between the tail end of 2008 and 2010.
I know there is going to be some serious amount of work involved but 2-4 years? That's a lot of technology advances...
Whether the deal is good or bad, or partly good and partly bad, it is a good example for thinking about what patent protections should be in GPLv3.
A good focus for the discussion, IMO.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
However, skilled scripters are sure to find ways of optimising performance to get even more gains."
Like having Samy as your hero.
With Tamarin, FireFox will be faster... "First post !" for sure. ;)
-- Rastignac was here.
At the ajax experience Brendan Eich spoke about this and without mentioning company names. The boost in performance in JS will cement web application's future and will bring javascript to the forefront even more as the power language that it is. Combine that with JSON and the module tag proposal, it should be some very interesting times.
For those who don't follow the project tightly, there are indeed a slew of implications.
.NET or Java runtime. Or well, Adobe wants you to think that.
On the side of Mozilla, it means much faster, JIT JS engine, and since you know that Firefox's XUL depends heavily on JS to run, it may have big impact on the performance of Firefox as a whole and change the perception some have of Firefox as "bloated" and "slow".
This is just a guess though. Here's what's really fun.
Adobe is now working on its next generation "web platform", code named Apollo. Apollo's long term goals are to merge Flash, HTML/JS/CSS and PDF in one single "web platform", for internet applications.
Apollo is not a browser, you can think of it sort of like the
The first version of Apollo is not going to merge all three technologies into one, but it'll integrate them to work together. This means, you can have Apollo app that is based on AJAX with flash in it. Or Flash project with HTML in it. Or, I guess, Flash with PDF in it.. All sorts of combinations.
Adobe announced that they will NOT develop a browser on their own for Apollo, and that they are researching what to use.
I'll be honest, I thought it's apparent they'll pick Opera. Opera is faster than Firefox, it's portable to mobile platforms (and this is important to Adobe), and both Macromedia and Adobe have rich partnership with Opera already.
For example, Dreamweaver's WYSIWYG on Mac used to be Opera for a long time, and maybe it still is (on Windows, as far as I know, it's custom built).
And even now, the entire help system of Adobe uses built-in Opera browser. Even their "Bridge" image browser, is in fast running on Opera.
But now, as they contribute big chunks of Flash 9 (the script engine) to Mozilla, it means only one thing: Adobe has decided on a browser.
Apollo will feature a version of Gecko with Tamarin for a script engine.
Currently Adobe Reader (PDF) uses SpiderMonkey for its script engine, but when Tamarin is good enough to replace SpikerMonkey in Firefox, it'll be good enough to do it in Adobe Reader.
Hence, one step forward towards Adobe's vision of unified HTML/Flash/PDF platform. Interesting times.
Despite all the harping, .NET has been a huge success for Microsoft in Corporate/Server development. On the desktop, just as MS is afraid of Flash and Firefox (not coincidental or surprising they linked up) obviating the need for , I think Adobe, et al have been concerned about the potential impact of WPF, etc. for what they call the RIA space.
Some early benchmarks comparing SpiderMonkey, what would become Tamarin, and JScript.NET. are on my site... interesting is that neither CLR, nor Tamarin provide a big boost when you use the features of JavaScript that make it more interesting than just plain old C. Wonder how much a real world boost this will be for the integration complexity? (i.e. is this another Netscape 6? Perhaps buckling down and fixing SpiderMonkey might serve better...)
--
graphically speaking
graphically speaking
When Macromedia started, they made great tools. They looked at what professional web developers wanted, and made neat tools to fulfil their needs. Unfortunately, for a while now they have been operating in an entirely different manner - they have been deciding where they want the technology to go, and then trying to push tools that fulfil their vision onto web developers.
This has meant that their core products, such as Dreamweaver and the Flash development application, have been rapidly becoming crappier. Dreamweaver is now annoying as hell to use, and does work well with some of the technologies that developers like to use (PHP, for instance) because those are not technologies Macromedia/Adobe what to promote. And for ages they have been trying to get developers to use Flash to develop applications, which just isn't happening.
Personally, I think Macromedia/Adobe are going to suffer as developers reject their tools and start using open source ones.
Hence, one step forward towards Adobe's vision of unified HTML/Flash/PDF platform. Interesting times.
I find this idea a bit scary. HTML, Flash, and PDF do two completely different things, and attempting to combine them is not going to end with a super-browser but with a monstrous train-wreck something like Acrobat Viewer, which inserts buttons in my excel toolbar without asking, takes forever to load and is generally a waste of space.
This announcement alone doesn't mean that Adobe will take this direction, but it does seem to be their strategy given the lack of emphasis on SVG lately and the purchase of Macromedia. Given Adobe's recent purchase of their main competitor, their sluggish response to market changes like OS X Intel, and the general bloat in their flagship products (which I use every day. but find increasingly frustrating and buggy), this doesn't bode well for the development of the Internet. It's too easy for them to translate control over one of the main browsers into an irresistible push for the internet in the direction that they want it to go.
Apollo's long term goals are to merge Flash, HTML/JS/CSS and PDF in one single "web platform", for internet applications.
A web platform owned by Adobe. It's interesting how closely this strategy mirrors that of Microsoft, which is to pollute the Internet space with de-facto standards (.NET is named that way for a reason) which make using anything but software released by them for creation/viewing difficult. It's the same story with Apple and the iTMS, and I guess it works sometimes, but surely long-term people always see through this attempt to create a walled garden?
Where's the itsatrap tag?
Anyone can "stand up for what they believe", but it takes a very brave individual to change what they believe. - Loundry
There's no need for Adobe to make such a deal. Anyone who has tried using SVG on Firefox knows that the code renders so slowly as to be almost unusable, and lacks support for a tremendous number of SVG features. On top of that Adobe's own staff were always the big force behind SVG, now that Adobe has pulled out of SVG development its safe to say that SVG has no future outside of the tiny community of inkscape users.
Aside from the video codecs--which are no doubt entangled in far too many patent issues for Adobe to publish the standards--Flash is just as open as SVG, and it's a shame that open standards pundits refuse to stop pretending otherwise. It makes them sound just as stupid as the HD-DVD evangelists who pretend that HD-DVD is any less proprietary than Blu-Ray, and its hard to convince people that standards-based web development is important when this kind of garbage keeps getting spewed out.
SVG will eventually get yanked from Firefox not because of sleazy deals between Adobe and the Mozilla foundation, but due to the W3C not being behind SVG, SVG not having enough developers, the majority of SVG content on the web being experimental projects, and lack of software support for animated SVG content.
I'm a huge fan of SVG. Not because it's a replacement for Flash, but because it's just XML, which means you can create data-based SVG images "out of thin air" with PHP or the scripting language of your choice. But now that Adobe has bought Macromedia (and with it, Flash) it looks like they're going to give up on SVG. I'm sure their apps will let you save as SVG, but they're going to quit supporting the viewer on 1/1/2008. And theirs was the dominant viewer. Mozilla has native support, and Safari is getting it, but that's nowhere near the adoption rate of MSIE or Flash.*
I was really hoping that they'd go the other way--that with the purchase of Macromedia, they'd roll SVG support into the hugely popular Flash plug-in. I wish I were wrong, but my guess is that Adobe, just like MS or anyone else, would rather back a proprietary solution (that they own) than an open one.
* and, the funny thing is, the MSIE/Adobe combination--on Mac and Windows--was the best. You could print a page with lots of embedded SVG images, and it worked! Safari with Adobe's plugin, or Mozilla with the plugin or natively, would print each image on a separate page, if at all. (Though I haven't tested FF 2.0 yet.) But MSIE/Adobe printed just as you saw on screen.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Now all we need is a solution to the security problem caused by sites having the abilty to run arbitrary script to begin with. Javascript is great language and I look forward to my browser extensions running on a VM with a JIT, however AJAX is still going to be an inaccessible toy.
They actually announced they're using WebKit for Apollo.
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Apollo:develWhat javaScript needs is optional strong typing and name spaces. If it is to move forward for ajax applications.
How about they talk about how to fix their little flash plug-in from going crazy in Mozilla/Firefox before going on to the bigger stuff.
- Wolf Bearclaw
The OpenLaszlo Legals Project will benefit immensely from this! OpenLaszlo is in a position to take excellent advantage of the now open source AMV2 JavaScript engine, for the benefit of users as well as developers. Not only will AVM2 make OpenLaszlo applications run faster on Firefox, but opening up the AVM2 virtual machine will make it possible to develop much more powerful debuggers and integrated development environments.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
Five years after the release of C#/.NET and several million dollars ($500M to novell to "buy" some "trademark") and nobody cares about .NET. Where are the applications of this platform?
.NET applications existed.
Despite C/C++ and Java even perl, python, tcl and ruby have more applications than C#.
If it wasn't for Miguile de Icaza who is getting paid to make Mono and at the same time has the authority to force Mono into GNOME, nobody would know about this thing in the OSS world. RMS must clearly denounce GNOME and Mono as not being part of the GNU project.
Also note that Novell has been "Registering IL executables" at boot long before any
just thought i'd state the obvious...
good points are that if the co-operation meant better compatability, (if i made a site in go-live then it would definately work in firefox, or firefox could be made to adapt to go-live standard content) then i'd be happy!
bad news could be that firefox becomes closed source, and this could be a precursor to a buy-out. first, adobe are tempting the execs, getting friendly, and showing them what substantial funding culminates to... then deciding that, somehow, a coroporate merging would be a good idea...
just a thought...
You're confusing Reader with Flash.
- One is slow, the other is pretty streamlined.
- One sucks, and the other sucks... less.
I'm all for this integration and, strategically speaking, I think it's pretty cool for Macrodobe. The AVM has to be one of Adobe's most advanced pieces of software and I think it's great that they're contributing it to the noble Firefox cause.
She was also found in possession of "D&D 3E - WotC - Manual of the Planes" and "Generic - Dungeon Floorplans".
Said a Scotland Yard Spokesman, "It seems clear she intended to open a portal to another dimension, and then attack this Dungeon. As it is generic, we are unsure of its exact location. We are looking for her accomplices: a dwarf with a +2 axe, which we think is some kind of axe, and Ian McKellen."
The Spokeseman said the force is concerned about other such plots, noting "there may be as many as 1,600 of these plots in progress at any time in the UK. They increase during weekends, and on school holidays. Young males seem to be at most at risk, but this subject was clearly a woman."
Wikipedia only has thousands of SVG images used in their pages, and only has millions of visitors daily.
And they're not even that special either.
>> I can open up an .swf in notepad and see the source?
>No, but that question is irrelevant for the vast majority of end-users.
- the more power developers have at hand, the better the products for end-users get
- yeah right, like nobody copies ingredients from around the web into their own website
>>I can inline flash elements in my (x)html page?
>No, but again, why does it matter if you can?
accessibility, context, semantics. The web is more and more not (only) about the page you call your endproduct, but by how that information is found and repurposed.
>>I'm allowed to write my own viewer for it?
>Sure. But for some odd reason, it seems like all the capable programmers have better things to do.
Not odd at all, capable programmers are smart enough to not throw away their time at something that the owner can change whenever it feels like. And i'd make sure to contact a lawyer if you decide to do it anyway.
>>Konqueror has good support for non-animated/non-scripted SVG already...Opera...
>Neither Opera nor Konqueror have a large enough user base to be relevant to people developing animation for the web.
There's a thing called the mobile web, growing explosively, and Opera has a huge marketshare.
>>And Firefox isn't too shabby either.
>grinds away slowly on the fastest machines.
There's a little wait on superduper complex content, but otherwise it's fine.
And my laptop is slower than the cheapest laptop in stores now.
>>I doubt SVG is going anywhere, except up. Die flash, die.
>Given that Adobe was the only hope SVG ever had of going anywhere, there's nothing to make SVG go anywhere
Wrong information, wrong conclusion. Maybe take a look at http://svg.startpagina.nl/ to see where SVG is and is going.