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Adobe Opens Up AMF Spec

Posted by kdawson on from the remotely-possible dept.

neutrino38 writes "Adobe has released the specification of the AMF format, the format used by Flash Remoting — the equivalent of AJAX for the Flash world. The article doesn't mention the AMFPHP project and the fact that some German and Canadian guys had reverse-engineered the format a long time ago. Adobe's action eases a long-standing legal uncertainty that slowed the uptake of AMFPHP for commercial projects. Next, we note that Adobe has not released its RTMP protocol used to contact a Flash Media server. This latter protocol is more interesting as it provides sessionful operation; media streaming; RPC both client-side and server-side using the AMF format; and shared objects among several sessions and server-side events. Fortunately, RTMP has been partially reverse-engineered by the red5 project. I suggest that the W3C should take a look at the whole Flash ecosystem as they think about upgrading the HTTP protocol."

10 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Designt HTTP around FLASH? WTF? by brunes69 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I suggest that the W3C should take a look at the whole Flash ecosystem as they think about upgrading the HTTP protocol.

    This statement at the closure of the article is so stupid I don't even know on which angle to attack it first.

    As a side note, can we PLEASE gt rid of this horrible trend of submitters adding their own "personal view" on postings? Frankly I don't give a crap. It's bad enough when the editors do it.

    1. Re:Designt HTTP around FLASH? WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      It's interesting to hear stuff like this, people really are under the delusion that their pet language/framework is the one true way. It also comes up in discussions ("Well I think that...") -- as if an ignorant opinion carries any weight. This is something the HTML5 WG have had to contend with; people who don't even understand the concept of the web making "helpful" suggestions.

      So the editorial slant isn't so bad in context, it lets us dismiss the story without having an unwarranted lengthy debate about something similar in the comments ;-)

  2. Re:flash is for ads - so I block it by cheater512 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Um...Small question: Why do you use flashbock?

    Just do what I do. Dont install flash. Simple.

  3. News doesn't' surprise me by qazwart · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There has been a browser war going on for a while. It isn't the IE vs. Firefox war everyone talks about. It's about the rendering engine to use.

    Apple's WebKit has succeeded beyond Apple's wildest dreams. It is officially being used at Google for its applications, it has been adopted by KDE, and the Gnome team is also about to adopt it. It is also the official rendering engine for Android. That puts WebKit on each Linux distribution and on what will soon become a major portable Internet device platform.

    Adobe has been pushing Flash as the web rendering engine to rule the world, but it hasn't been doing so well. The big war for the browser isn't the desktop, but all the little devices that we will all carry around: PDAs, Phones, cameras, music players, game machines, etc. Flash needs a consumer client in order to work, and the fact that all of these devices will depend upon Adobe creating a client for each and every platform and operating system just doesn't cut it. Manufacturers don't want Adobe to rule whether their device is worthy of a Flash client.

    In order for Adobe to be truly competitive in this fight, they must open up the Flash file specifications. That way, each device maker can design their own Flash player much the same way they build their own web browser according to HTTP/HTML specs.

    The only question I have is how "open" is the spec? What happens if Adobe wants a new version of Flash with more features? Will it open up the new specs? Will Adobe allow me to create a program that will write to the Flash file format, or is that still closed to me? This isn't entirely unheard of. Microsoft has "open specs" for NTFS. I can give my operating system the ability to read NTFS, but not the ability to write it without first getting a license from Microsoft.

    1. Re:News doesn't' surprise me by BrentH · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Apple's Webkit adopted by KDE? Big ups for the Mac Propaganda department... It's was the Konqueror guys who did the heavy lifting. Although Apple did indeed improve it even further, the KDE-team had to pry very hard to get some results back from the deal.

  4. Re:Worst... by MadnessASAP · · Score: 0, Insightful

    It's called a summary for a reason, perhaps you would prefer an article? there are a few handy links provided for your benifit in just such a scenario and if even those fail to fulfill your thirst for knowledge you may even type names and acronyms into a rather handily provided web search box placed next to the adress bar in many modern internet browsers. I bid you good day sir and happy trolling.

    --
    I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
  5. Re:Open Standards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    "You simply can't do the type of interactive charting that they do there without Flash and Flex."

    JavaScript+Canvas

    JavaScript+SVG

    Java

    Looks like that's 3 interactive charting methods without flash and flex. I'm sure the list could be bigger.

  6. Flash client is still closed by mi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I suggest that the W3C should take a look at the whole Flash ecosystem as they think about upgrading the HTTP protocol.

    Frankly, I can't believe this. Slashdot, which gave Sun so much crap for making Java source code available under a wrong kind of license, is front page-advocating wider adoption of software, for which no source code is available at all ...

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    1. Re:Flash client is still closed by pembo13 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I was pretty sure it was just the submitter, and not the Slashdot consensus.

      --
      "Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
  7. W3C should take a better look at Flash by heinzkunz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Mod be down, but I kind of agree with the OPs point that the W3C should take a better look at Flash. Not to update the HTTP protocol of course - neither Flash nor the W3C have interest in changing that. But things like access to the bitmap data of images or a flexible component model are very useful for us programmers. Without advancements, we will forever be stuck with half baked web apps, and the W3C better look at what flash does right.